When Polygon had the chance to chat with video with Doctor Who Stars Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu before the new season, there was an experience that jumped like their favorite: film the animation sequences for the episode of this Saturday.
Do not save – filming.
“The shooting of the animation was very fun,” said Gatwa, “because it was just a different way of working, and we didn’t have that.”
“I think that when we read it for the first time,” added Sethu, “we assumed that we would have a voice off much later and they were just going to animate it. But no, we really had to shoot it.”
“And they animated our actions,” said Gatwa, “and what we did in the scene. It was cool.”
(Ed. note: This piece contains soft spoilers for the second episode of Doctor Who2025 season.)
Image: BBC Studios / Disney Plus
The episode – called “Lux” – presents the guest star Alan Cumming (Schmigadoon!,, X2) As an animated antagonist Mr. Ring-Ding, a strange character who could have come out of any level of CupModeled after the animation styles of the 1930s. And in a central moment in the story, he trapped Doctor and Belinda in an animated film as animation characters.
When Polygon asked the Showrunner Russell T Davies on the process behind WHOI plunge into animation, he said it was always something he wanted to do in his career, but had never had the budget for that before.
“It costs a fortune, let’s be absolutely honest,” said Davies about video chat. “It is an appropriate competence; should Costing a fortune, because it is a good work of love. And so being able to do that with Disney more was absolutely beautiful. »»
Davies noted that her first job at the BBC was working in graphic design – on the children’s series Why don’t you do it? among others. “The cartoon and cartoons are in my blood and my bones. If my life had taken a different turn, I worked graphics and then cartoons in a form or form. ”
However, said Davies, working with animation was an learning experience. “I have experienced effect meetings a million times. We had meetings that I did not know existing with the animation, to sign everything – you have to signal each flash that the character does, each flexion of his hand. I conceived it just and discovering the story. But in fact, these are the gloves of Ménestrel, and the white gloves are somehow disapproved – or it is a different context, would not look good.
Image: BBC Studios / Disney Plus
The performance of Alan Cumming was recorded in stages, according to Davies: first, a preliminary vocal recording so that Gatwa and Sethu would have something to react on the set, then a second recording of the voice stand and the movements of the Cumming mouth, “so that the animators and the actor can know each other in the middle scene.” And finally, the animators would add any recording of additional dialogue and exclamations that arose in the animation process.
Davies said that he and his team were not experts, so they were happy to rely on their animation partners for the details of the process. “I think they loved us,” he laughed, “because we said:” Ideally, how would you like to do that? “(…) All that the host said would be the best, that’s what we have done.”
And in the case of the brief passage of the Doctor and Belinda as a cartoons of cartoons, it meant filming Gatwa and Sethu as a character, so that the animators can work with the own movements of the actors. Results are one of the modern WHOThe strangest and cinematographic moments, while the heroes of the show strive to become literally more in three dimensions and to escape the flat plan of the screen.
“It was just a huge playground,” said Davies, then corrected. “Much more than a playground – an appropriate professional animation world. I loved the weekly with the animators, I loved these meetings. I loved it. It made me very happy.”
