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Wilson Milam - Director.

TARDIS trouble
  Were there any scenes that proved problematic?

The final TARDIS scene. Whether or not the Master would start the TARDIS before the Doctor is inside, as if to say ‘Hurry up Doctor, get into the TARDIS, I’m ready to go’ – We had a big debate about this and whether or not the TARDIS had ever been started up without the Doctor at the console.

In our case it is and they have to rush to get inside and the doors closed exactly behind them but these were the kind of questions, it stopped our rehearsal process to a standstill as we discussed whether or not this could happen and then we went back and listened to every TARDIS dematerialisation process ever.

Where in the world
  Are you concerned with not contradicting the past?

We want to honour the tradition, and every now and then when you come up against such issues as, how close have we ever actually seen the Doctor get with a companion? How romantic or how sexual? And so we’ll start having discussions and we’ll go back and discuss the fans' favourite episodes and we’ll talk about that. But we accept the world, we are in that world, we have to honour that.

Parisian walkways
  Where would you travel to if you had a TARDIS?

Any part in history? Paris before Baron Von Hausman ripped up all the tiny, meandering streets and built the boulevards. I would love to see it when it was still a walled city with only tiny little streets.

Responding to the Master
  Can you explain the role of the director?

I was brought in by our producer and I saw what I think was the second draft of the script, and a couple more drafts happened before we sat down and had a reading with the writer there. We all got together, the producers, the writer and myself and we started going through it.

The script constantly evolved as we found how our actors impacted with that, as we all got deeper into this particular world, as Paul Cornell, the writer, described the base under siege. There were ramifications, as more ideas come you start adjusting and working on that. So we spent a lot of time working with the script before.

Right now as we’re in post-production, we're asking if we can deepen a moment? Is there a little bit of humour to be had? How long has this character been away? Is the reaction we have when they first come and see their girlfriend who’s been in the cavern fighting Shalka worms, the right one?

You nudge and guide actors towards an emotional quality that the scene will have, especially once the music is underlaid and all the rest of the sound effects. They’re so well cast, I mean so often it’s just being smart enough to respond to our Doctor, our Master, our evil villain.

Born to be the Doctor
  What do you think of Richard E Grant as the Doctor?

I thought Richard was an inspired choice anyway, I mean he was born to play the Doctor. Richard was the Doctor right out of the box, he brought a wonderful slyness and impishness, an emotionality, Richard was the Doctor.

Garbage for worms
  What's been the highlight of the recording?

Oh there’s lots of funny moments that we would love to find a place to put it into the final mix but I just don’t think are going to make it. Tucked in here and there throughout the version you’ll be watching there are little things the actors would say from here and there, we grabbed them and we find them and we nestle them up against other lines they have.

Right now we’re doing Prime and the Doctor being sucked into the warpgate and we’re finding our special sound effects, I think it’s described in the script as a cosmic garbage disposal so we’ve been experimenting with various garbage disposal sounds. Also, the big shoot out when they advance on the warehouse was a lot of fun, we had no idea where that was going to go to and we’re - ‘Are we in the TARDIS now or are we jumping out of the TARDIS or are we coming over the fence? Where are we?’ It’s been a pretty constant discovery.

Kitchen with a teacup
  Do you think science fiction lends itself to audio?

Oh absolutely, I mean War Of The Worlds is classic science fiction. I think it adapts as well as anything else, maybe better than if you’re not always prescribed to the kitchen with a teacup and a cow in the background. If you can justify it, anything goes in these worlds. I think it’s a beautiful fit.

The goo of the Shalka
  Have you thought about how the characters will look?

Well the Doctor will be pictorially modelled on Richard. He looks like a Doctor, he talks like a Doctor, he is our Doctor. None of us have seen at this point what the actual Shalka look like. We get hints, we get clues, I mean how big are they? How big is the warpgate? So we have constant discussions about how that will impact, what do they sound like when they move across a room, will they explode? How gooey are they when walking across a floor?

There’s a lot of people suggesting to each other about different angles so we can capture a different aspect of the Doctor or the scene and that’s good. It’s been a very much collective effort from the beginning, it’s really been a good crew that way. We’re always stopping and asking ‘What does your interior of the TARDIS look like here? The feel, the door, the new locking system for the TARDIS?' I think we’ve stopped and asked everywhere we’ve gone.

Timelord duties
  Will viewers have to be familiar with Who continuity?

It has to exist, each story on its own, even without reference to the fourth wall but there are constant, what we used to call in a theatre company I worked with, tagged acts, to bits and pieces of his past, [such as] how the Master arrived on the TARDIS, where has the Doctor been these last few years? Why is he so reluctant to take on his Time Lord duties?

So we get bits and pieces, but it has to exist on its own. Every storyline is going to be, what the writer called ‘Base under siege’ he’s been sent here, there’s a problem, he susses out what the issues are, he brings in the military, he realises their limitations, he goes out to solve it himself.

Further adventures
  Should a Doctor Who story always be open-ended?

Always, and there should be unanswered questions about what will happen next, once the TARDIS door is closed behind him. Who has he gone off with? What will the nature of their relationship be? Is the Master more adjusted to the Doctor? Yes, there should always be those extra questions to keep clawing you in.