I woke up, and instantly had one of those clinging "I just want to curl up in bed, be luxuriously miserable and drink hot chocolate all day" things which hit all sane people now and then, but me more than most. Which instantly shot up red flags because this was the morning of the Colin Baker'n'Nicola Bryant signing on the Strand. I suppose it's a confidence thing - when I'm having a bad day, my confidence plummets, so it's hardly the fit state to go through the unpleasant process of actor meeting. Still, when staying at home seems like a serious alternative to MEETING COLIN BAKER, which I've been looking forward to for since January, you know it's not going to be a great day.
I probably spent longer on my outfit than I have done all year. It was trying not to dress like a nutjob which was the hard part - peversely, I look odder dressed "normal" than in full multi-colour regalia. Normally, I just shove on whatever and it looks OK. In a strangely contrary act, I also decided against wearing my Colin Baker tribute trousers, despite - or maybe because of - the prospect of spending several hours in the company of people who would both recognise the source, and find it charming. In retrospect, I shouldn't have worried about looking like an idiot in replica costume, though we'll come to him later.
I tried phoning Spirita once or twice, but made the mistake of using the wrong number. When I remembered she had a new phone, I was already at the Strand so I got chatting to the people in the queue.
I soon realised they were all crazies. "Crazy" is relative, when you've stood outside in the rain for two hours to meet an overweight shadow of an actor from a show he hasn't starred in for twenty years, in order for him to scrawl on a little piece of paper with a Sharpie. And I'm far from entirely sane myself.
But - and I'm going to try and put this non-offensively - many of them seemed to be a little slow, detatched or otherwise disjointed from reality. That sort of detatchment you get from drug addicts or tramps - or people who start chatting to you on public transport. Now I adore the conversations I have on public transport - the people you meet, the stories you hear, the rush of joy you experience from interacting with the human spirit! Or merely relief they didn't stab you up. But they do all have this slightly odd expression - naturally enough, I suppose, because they're talking to a stranger on the Tube instead of glaring like a rabbit in the headlights and coldly ignoring everyone else. Maybe it was good in a way - obviously, they weren't bricking it lest they go pink or pass out.
But they were fun to chat to. The group I was with were a naturally odd bunch. An American woman who'd taken the morning off work and had a great "I heart heart the Doctor", which took me all morning to work out. This seven year old who'd persuaded his mum to take him out of school for the morning. She was standing around cluelessly, and proudly pointing out how confused she was. "When you say Jon Pertwee, all I think of is Worzel Gummage!" she declared, which would have been amusing in any other company, and we all glared at her sourly and went back to talking to her son. Who was wonderfully enthusiastic, in the way of all teen-experts, and he gleefully explained the plot of several episodes I'd already seen to me, several times over. Favourites: Two Doctors, Survival, Robot. Didn't like: Brain of Morbius, or Peter Davison, at which point I could have smacked him around the head.
The Peter Davison haters were out in force, actually. Davros - this was his idea, not mine. He was in a motorised wheelchair, and referred to himself as Davros at several points - in any case, this chap disavowed my defence of Peter Davison on the grounds of me being a gal. I got pretty tetchy at that point, but decided not to tell him that yes, perhaps as a female I like Peter Davison because he's very easy on the eyes - but not exclusively for that reason - and besides, I also find Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy smouldering, in an avuncular sort of way. I was having a good morning, and am aware my Who views are unconventional. Keeping my mouth shut, if not actually compromising, was a far better idea than expressing my healthy, natural reaction - which was re-enacting that bit with Heath Ledger and the pencil*.
And then the final member of our group was another nutcase. Once he'd left, our American friend said she'd actually heard of him before. Apparently, he has a reputation for giving poor Nicola Bryant a hard time. Well we got to the front of the queue, and Spirita was still absent - so the guy at the door said he'd let me in when she arrived. By this point it was raining, and I had my outrageous brolly with me - so I went and befriended some women at the front of the queue who were getting rather wet. She cried when David Tennant announced he was leaving. That's funny, I thought, I don't know anybody like that...
After that, I went and latched onto a group further back in the queue. While we'd been chatting, a fantastic blur of colour had launched down the Strand and joined at the back, so as Spirita was still not around I felt I had to compliment the brilliant replica costume standing under its own rainbow coloured brolly. So I said hi to him, and he introduced himself as Thete, and we got chatting - apparently he's got all 10 of the costumes, and intends to get Matt Smith's as soon as he can. And he gave me a good tip for making my own - his gran made his by sewing the material over a regular coat with a similar cut. He described sitting down to make the notes for it, and I sympathise: I painted the Doctor Who minatures for my epic board game, and I spent the entirety of Mysterious Planet filling three sides of paper with densely packed illustrations and notes. And STILL got some of the colours wrong. He's been seeking for a Jon Pertwee cloak for years.
Anyway, he was a decent chap and he offered to let me have a photo - apparently he could do "happy" 6, "moody" 6 and "smug" 6. I went for smug, and was rewarded with a very amusing impression indeed. I'd post it, though I'm not sure whether that'd be legal/fair. He probably wouldn't mind, but you never know. It transpired he's coming to the same convention as Friends 3, 4 and I are going to, and in that getup he's very hard to miss, so we've promised to meet and say hi again. And this time, I will wear my striped trousers.
"This is a very odd waiting room. Where are the hopelessly out-of-date magazines? Hm?" He boomed, citing Ultimate Foe as we stood under our twin rainbow umbrellas in the rain. In fact, as the time passed he quoted more and more often, and I could tell he was kinda showing off; but at the same time, he also could tell I found it completely adorable and couldn't help but encourage him. And we got chatting to the people around us - a nice, quiet, grew-up-with-Pertwee guy with whom I shared my brolly. Well spoken, and most crucially, saner than anyone else I'd met all day - I always like to meet Pertwee fans, there are so few of them. Or maybe they're just all quiet.
But he wasn't as much fun as the man in front of us, who looked like an unholy crossbreed of Christopher Ecclestone and Bono - with all the fury that combination implies. Opinionated, stubborn, and brilliant. Like many an old fan, he hates the new Cybermen and wants them to bring the our-universe Cybs back. Not sure why it'd make a difference - I like the fact they have given an official, in-world explanation for the fact they are being written by a new team in a new way. Thete seemed to be something of a mediator, and they chatted Cybermen for a bit (ChrisBono: "...they couldn't have given Pertwee more Cybermen episodes, UNIT+Cybermen had already been done in The Invasion. It'd be the same again.") Chris-Bono described the Ninth Doctor's run as "13 episodes of him looking embarassed about being there". Now obviously that's unfair - every Doctor has his moments, and even if you can't stand an actor, in a whole series there must be some plots or touches that you will find engaging. On my Who-blog I did a post on the terrifying varieties of fan, the gist of which most people can appreciate, and Chris-Bono was a classic case of "The Critic" - the one who picks so many holes in the series, you start to wonder what they're actually fan of, because everything is a disappointment compared to what came before. He didn't like Ultimate Foe either, even after Thete mildly pointed out that it was Robert Holmes (saint of DW writers) who'd written it.
A lot of people picked on Sylvester McCoy in that queue - I suppose, as we were queuing to see the other most unpopular Doctor, his haters were probably out in greater force. But Chris-Bono went further than Davros had earlier, in claiming not a single episode was any good. A line of reasoning very easy to fault - in three series, in a show as inventive as Who, must have produced something admirable. Thete suggested what he considered to be the highlights, and Chris-Bono combatted each one with a dismissive "rubbish!" - Curse of Fenric - rubbish! - Remembrence of the Daleks - rubbish! - Silver Nemesis - rubbish! I cautiously asked if now was the wrong time to bring up Ghost Light. It was. Rubbish!
Still, I did enjoy the conversation, and it's hard to take a man seriously when he's that darn picky, and yet still thinks Timelash is a forgotten gem.
To digress for a moment, I like every Doctor, most companions, and pretty much every episode I can find something in. It is a popular fact that the letters of "Timelash" can be rearranged to form the anagram "Lame Shit", and there's a good reason for this: it's appalling on every concieveable level. The plot is a very cliche one - factions on an alien planet, cosmic councils, twisted meglomaniacs - and presented in a dull, uninspired manner. The script is bad. Sans Colin Baker (I believe it's his best performance), the acting is appalling. It's not even spectacularly awful in the way Doctor Who often is: it fails through a total lack of imagination and effort, and into the bargain the effects are pants. It's also about 85 minutes too long - if they'd cut it down purely to the five minute segment of Six confronting the Borad, then it would be a forgotten gem. This episode actually contains the words "choose your next words carefully, they may be your last." And not in an ironic way. (you can read my very generous review if you like)
The pair of them agreed that Matt Smith was a bad thing, though - Thete did say he couldn't quite judge yet - but both seem perturbed by the age thing. They do, to an extent, have my sympathy although it is too soon to judge. It was about now Spirita arrived - Thete said "I thought I heard the Trial of a Timelord theme tune...", and again though I was in the company of the core of Londoners who'd find that fact cool, it actually made me feel more sheepish. But he was right - my phone had gone off (how did he hear it, and me not - that is the question?) - and naturally, I was not hard to find standing next to and under a pair of rainbows.
The guy at the door let us in, I paid the shop for an extraordinarily overpriced copy of Attack of the Cybermen - but I had to get Spirita to open the plastic wrapper, as my hands just working so good at that point. Twas OK. I'd given blood the day before, and slept badly for the last week - so there were good reasons for me to be feeling very queasy and a bit faint. Right?
I have never had a favourite Doctor. I still don't. I never will. It is true to say I go through shifting preference depending on the mood, the season, the weather - and certainly that I love them in different ways. I love 1 for not being able to get a handle on him, just as I love 3 for understanding him completely. My Seventh Doctor phases are admittedly not frequent, but they are intense and crazy. My Fifth Doctor obsession manifests itself in merchandise - my resistance to spending just melts with regard to anything related to his era. And then we come to the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, and that's a rough one. I don't just mean my propensity to find outrageously tacky clothing charming either. Because Doctor Six is my hero. Five too to an extent, I suppose, but when it comes to giving up meat, donating bodily fluids to medical science and walking fearlessly down dark alleys - well, the fault lies somewhere in the first half of the 1980s.
So you understand that, even if I accept (which I do, in principle) that actors are more real than their characters, Colin Baker did have a bit more to live up to than Tom Baker did. Incidentally, I have sort of ruled out meeting Peter Davison in the future. Partly for the intense hero-worship. But also partly because of his commentaries, in which he tends to savage his episodes rather badly. Amusingly, I'm told - probably accurately too - but it's hard to cope with someone so vocal about the fact he regards at least one whole season of his work as so awful he decided to leave. For example, Black Orchid was a highly regarded oddity in the community until the much-anticipated DVD release last year. It's criticised far more since, and I do believe this is partly down to the (unjust) critical mauling given to it by the whole cast, companions included.
It'd make me think twice about asking him to sign my favourite episode, Enlightenment, which is in said season, and in which I'm perfectly aware the Doctor doesn't do anything at all of note. I'm sure it'd be fine, and he is certainly entitled to his opinion. Yes, many of his episodes were dodgy, and yes he doesn't do anything of significance in Season 20. I just can't help but feel "couldn't you be a little bit more supportive of this show that so many people still love you for?"
See: Dirk Benedict, who's still defending old-school Galactica. True, his motives have distinctively mysoginistic, American and almost homophobic overtones. Yet I still can't help but admire him for caring so damn much about the work he produced as a kid that he is still making a fuss about the way the new series has twisted the original's optimistic themes into something far darker and less morally OK: "Re-imagining", they call it. "un-imagining" is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction."
And I admire the fact he cares for his character so much, so far on, that he's still kicking up a fuss that he was recast as female. Of course, he loses brownie points left right and centre in that article for complaining loudly about the war on masculinity, and having some very entrenched views of male/female social roles - Calypso, read it if you fancy a really good angry rant sometime, but under no other circumstances. The reasons he cares are arguably not very admirable. But ignoring them, the fact he does at all, I find endearing.
And partly because the more sigs I get, the more I feel like one of those terribly unhealthy "collector types" I so despise (see: scary fan post on Malcassairo, or disappointment at the collector's fair)
Though I might still go for it. I don't know: for my Planet of Fire, I'd do pretty much anything. The only person I'd rule out almost 100% is Michael Jayston who played the Valeyard. The thing about meeting actors is it's the voice that really gets you. Out of costume, out of hairstyle, out of makeup - often twenty years onwards - sometimes they really don't look like they do on TV. But the voice is always hard to disguise, and that's the the thing that I've really taken away from every actor-encounter I've endured. Perhaps (see below) why Nicola Bryant, who had a fake accent on the show, didn't make so much of an impression. And it is that point at which you can't help but sense the character come through - in a person's vocal ticks and ways of pausing and emphasising, more than movement or actual words.
The problem is, no matter how cool I find him, no matter how much I want another Sharpie scrawl on my Trial box - the Valeyard terrifies me, to the extent that I still have to watch Trial of a Timelord curled up, hugging myself or any cushion that presents itself and generally peering over said cushion while nervously comfort eating. Apparently, it's quite funny to watch. The first time I watched Trial's final two episodes, I was actually hiding behind a towel and I swore under my breath literally every two or three minutes: that's how tense I was. And more than the dead eyes, or anything he does or becomes - it's the voice that scares me. Now when Colin or Tom Baker accidentally stop sounding like themselves and start sounding like the Doctor, it's rather a guilty pleasure. It might not be so funny if that happened with Michael Jayston, and pathetic as it is, I honestly don't think I could be in the same room with him. I get nervous enough over meeting "hero" actors. I wouldn't enjoy it, and if I totally overreacted, I'm sure he wouldn't either.
But I still sort of ended up on my own there, which is what I didn't want to do - and while to say I blacked out would be grossly incorrect, my memories are already very shaky indeed. I didn't really have anything constructive to say, that's the problem - it's just as uncomfortable as meeting any other stranger. Anyway, he complemented my scarf - said it was very Doctory - and hoped I hadn't got too wet in the rain, and I probably said something very spaced out in reply. And she made sure it was Emily with 1 L instead of 2 - apparently it happens - which was sweet of her. And I wished them both a good day, and then went away cursing that I'd forgotten my camera, and hadn't said anything more enlightenened - then suffered an immediate self-esteem plummet when I got outside, and comfort eat for the next hour and a half until it was time for Entertainment Cultures in Greece and Rome.
We were studying fans.
Beat.
Anyway, Spirita was great and all that - she told us a story. I requested mermaids and pirates, so she obliged: a lion tamer boy and a trapeeze artist girl with fantastic emerald eyes from a circus suddenly realise they are in love when their eyes meet (all a bit Byronic since they've been brought up with one another, Eng Lit students will study it for decades). As the circus is by the sea, they go on a romantic dinghy ride - but are kidnapped by pirates! He manages to escape, but she is left behind. So he becomes a monk, and she is sold to some stock-cliche-Arabians where she becomes a member of the emperor's hareem. I forget the rest but Spirita is an awesome storyteller, and we got to the point where the boy's heart has been ripped out and thrown on the fire with him and the girl is trying to save him - but all she finds is his hand, clamped shut - and when she opens it...
...her only problem is neglecting to tell the end of stories, which has happened twice now. I am still on tenterhooks.
Then Latin, in which I did read my poem after all. Again, not under ideal circumstances what with me feeling like the smallest person on the planet, but I was still sort of blanking so it wasn't too bad. I took my umbrella and planted it loudly on the carpet, and didn't make a single mistake. Prize: an awesomely old-school Classical dictionary and some marzipan chocolates. But oh, the pride!
I was still feeling rather miserable when I got out - because reciting Latin in public is really the last thing you want to do to restore shattered nerves - so Spirita and I made good on the decision we'd made earlier in the day, to watch Planet of Fire, because she hadn't seen it for a while, and because I love destroying the integrity of that infernal library by polluting it with non-academic activity. Which in retrospect was also a stupid stupid stupid idea, as I find it hard to watch under the best circumstances, but there you go. I did offer Spirita the chance to see Trial of a Timelord instead, as my reaction is half as extreme but twice as funny, but she elected for the nervous breakdown instead. Fortunately, time ran out before we got to episode three and before the trouble starts.
Then we trekked to UCL territory, talked old movies and ghosts, to be bodies for a student film. This was pretty fun - we checked the main UCl bulding for directions, and once we left Spirita figured our guide had returned and said "kill them". We expected to be ambushed at any moment - although obviously, we could have taken on the whole of UCL single handed. But we got to the set no-harm, and twas a lot of fun. I draped myself over the desk, Spirita crunched on the floor, and the creators broke out the fake blood, which was wonderfully realistic stuff. I contemplated keeping mine for the tube home, though it was pretty sticky. There was a funny moment when an NPC passed the open door of the room where some six of us were slumped dead, gave us a funny look then kept walking. It took three takes, by which point the genuine blood had completely rushed to my head and I felt very dizzy. Then Spirita and I took photos and went home for tea. I perked up at this point too.
I miss my films. I still want to finish my Robin Hood, and my Bones movie. I filmed a short segment from Bones for my film studies coursework, and while it's artfully derivitive, it's also genuinely scary.
The basic premise of the film is this: bones are discovered underneath an isolated girls boarding school. I haven't decided whether it's present day or in the past, but the whole thing has this defiant Victoriana feel. A sort of mass hysteria spreads - they start imagining they see it, getting uncomfortable when alone. It's nevermade clear whether there really is a ghost, but the suggestion is that it's more likely a product of madness caused by the institution rules and enforced closeness with a small group of people (channels 12 Monkeys, Full Metal Jacket and particularly Picnic at Hanging Rock, though I hadn't seen that at the time). I dunno what happens at the end - I think everything gets well out of hand, and something grotesque and charmless befalls the school.
The sequence revolves around a game of hide and seek. X goes hides, and gets stuck in a tiny dark little space. She gets increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic, to the point she realises she can't get out of the cupboard and starts banging to escape. Meanwhile, her friend takes as aaaagonisingly long time as possible to find her in the big, empty school (yet in the corner of her mind, she can't shake her own worries about the ghost).
First and foremost, I drew it from my own fears, of which there are literally hundreds. It's set in my own school, which is built like a warren. The first few weeks there, I kept getting lost. It's styled like a castle, and you can access the third floor and several of the turrets only by staircases marked "out of bounds". I did break the rules once...briefly...and there are even more dark, empty corridors up there. It's certainly the last place you want to get stuck with a (possibly) malevolent ghost, or an overactive imagination. I actually have the ghost appearing in the sequence in flickers, briefly in and out of vision. An attempt to replicate the sense of "What if the ghost is there? Of course it isn't...but what if?", and because what you don't see is scarier than what you do (and hopefully, what you almost saw is scarier than both).
6th Sense is really the only pure horror film I've ever seen (and I intend to keep it that way...), and its influence is very clear. My ghost is clearly from the same universe - though any similarity to the bit where hero-kid gets trapped in the cupboard is entirely unintentional, and only occoured to me just now. Ooops. Also, the idea of putting fear in a neutral location, and during the day (no dark side streets for us!)
More than that, though - when I'm big and famous, people will cite M. Night as my stylistic influence. I didn't really notice until I rewatched Unbreakable, but just the way I was using the camera - framing shots neatly, the obsessive attempts to shoot through mirrors, TVs and obstacles, THE SLIGHT SLOW ZOOM. Seriously, I thought this was just me subconsciously trying to annoy my cameraperson (who finds controlled zooms tricky), but it turns out that it's just me having watched Signs once too many. When you watch his films again, you'll know what I mean...and my hypothetical storyboards are crammed with them.
So the sequence is great, and it's built up by the contrast between these tight dark shots, closeup on X in the cupboard as she panics and channeling Kubrick with some long, quiet, boring shots of the friend to emphasise how alone she is in the empty school - placing the camera and telling Friend 2 to just walk across the massive room. But giving these long-distance shots the feel as if she is being watched. In some of these shots, the ghost is standing in the background. The key to my sequence was half a minute inside the cupboard, when X realises she is trapped and struggles to get out. I intend to hold the camera on that for as long as is excruciatingly possible. I wanted to coax sweat and tears out of Friend 1, if she's up to it. And when it becomes unbearable to watch, I'm going to keep the camera there for a few seconds longer. And then, cut away to nameless-friend who is going to take as long as is humanly possible. Didn't exactly work in practice, but I almost managed. See, most rational people aren't afraid of ghosts. But most rational people are afraid of suffocation, and get claustrophobic pretty quick. It all hinges on Friend 1 being totally convincing. I wanted 110% Mr Orange - I got about 28%, so it didn't quite sell the sequence the way it was meant to.
But it still worked, and then with some scary music slapped over the top it's actually damn creepy. I'd like to make the rest, but the resources are far beyond me - as is the talent to write an interesting, sustained script.
And that was my day.
*This joke pinched from Lance Parkin
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