DOCTOR WHO SER I ES 1 1 | SHOOT STORY
THE DOCTOR WE DESERVE The Doctor Who of 2018 uses all the cinematic tools at her disposal, we talked to Denis Crossan, DOP of the pilot
WORDS JULI AN M ITCHELL / PICTURES BBC
F rom the Doctor Who of grainy 16mm film through to the heavy analogue composite video of the 70s then on to soft standard definition, we’ve always been disappointed at the ‘look’ of the Doctor. But circa 2018 and we might have the look that we’ve always wanted and that’s born from the Netflix generation of production. This is our conclusion anyway from talking to pilot DOP Denis Crossan about his new aesthetic ideas, even before we have seen any footage. Denis had worked with director Jamie Childs on an ITV drama Next Of Kin and
“They wanted new writers and wanted to give it fresh ideas and a new lick of paint. Part of that was shooting anamorphic and supposedly having a filmic look was part of the deal. I thought it was kind of interesting and agreed to do it. Before I actually arrived in Cardiff for pre-production I didn’t have much to do with it and hoped that they were keeping all the new ideas, like the anamorphic look. I was pleasantly surprised especially when the writer Chris Chibnall said that he wanted it to be as bold and exciting as possible and for me to do as much as I could do to make it that way.”
afterwards was asked to work on the next series of Doctor Who . “ Next of Kin was very good and I really enjoyed working with Jamie,” he says. “Towards the end of it he mentioned that he was going to do the Doctor Who thing and he wondered whether I would be interested. I thought it sounded great especially with the new ideas surrounding it. I had never really watched the programme and I didn’t know much about it but when he described what he wanted to do I was definitely interested. The idea was to change everything around along with the new woman doctor and some new characters.
OCTOBER 20 1 8 | DEF I N I T ION 21
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