Full transcript of “Director Ken Bentley - The Nuts and Bolts of Doctor Who Audio Drama”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:01 hello there this is John khaw and I'm just slightly bothering the voice of John Perry for a moment I don't know maybe a regeneration might happen yes it happened there yes and you're listening to the Sirens of audio wonderful chaps help [Music] them Master audio at last you are here I and all my fellow fans of the classic era have listened to you Faithfully through the thousands of releases on big finish and BBC audio we have declared the quality of your storytelling stand look upon my face great one master audile I dare not look you have the face of a TV viewer
0:49 Master spare me spare me I'm a true listener of high quality Audio Drama We are the sirens of audio podcast you need no other bye we bring Doctor Who's gift of audio to All Humans [Music]
1:47 get a audio files this is the S of audio the show that explores the universe of Doctor Who in the audio medium my name's Dwayne and my name's D no my name's not Dwayne my name is Phillip good day Dwayne good I'm not cutting that at all how you doing how's everything going well obviously my brain is on overload at the moment because there's just too many why would that be well because I'm busy organizing events with lots of different actors coming out to Australia and it's driving me insane but it's fun so keep in mind we have just announced uh Fraser Hines and Katie Manning appearing in Brisbane Sydney Melbourne Lon ceston and Hobart uh in September uh only one of those events Kati and phrase will be be together the Brisbane one but
2:34 you can check out events.of aio.com to uh to get your tickets to secure your spot to meet these amazing stars of Doctor Who and speaking of amazing stars of the Doctor Who Universe we have one with us right now a man who's often behind the scenes uh and that is director Ken Bentley good day Ken uh hello chaps that's a very kind introduction I think a very gener generous introduction if you don't mind me saying but I'm flattered thank you it's great to see you you've got hundreds of things on the big fitsh website you've done so much writing directing producing so yeah I think Star Talk who's fine okay well you're very calm thank you and this is the the second time you've appeared on on the podcast so thanks for coming back I'm glad we didn't scare you away the
3:20 first time well well thank you for asking me back I'm glad I didn't um um I'm I'm glad I didn't embarrass myself and and I'm worthy of being asked back uh very good well we've got a lot to talk about because you've been doing lots of things since we last spoke with you uh but before we do that philli do you know what what Dwayne we have to jump down the rabbit hole here we go here we [Music] [Applause] [Music] go all right thanks Ken for joining us down the rabbit Hall and it's because of you that I was inspired uh with this question that you get to think about for a few minutes because I always ask Phillip first he doesn't get to know the questions beforehand now I was looking
4:07 through your recent releases Ken I know and um one that I've been listening to in the last hour so I haven't got completely got through it yet is the eighth doctor set Echoes and more recently not more recently but a month or so back there was a Fifth Doctor release uh intitled the dream team with the classic Fifth Doctor um set of companions uh I think it was it was uh Tegan adrick Anda wasn't it yeah uh so Philip my question for you is as a consumer of these audio stories how do you feel about listening to something that is based on TV characters as opposed to something that is completely audio- based because the eighth doctor team is not uh you don't have any TV
4:54 reference to go back to so what what differences for you as an audience member do you find um when listening to these two different um teams that's a good question I actually have found that because audio in itself is such a powerful medium that I don't care about the television references um until you just point out just then I mean i' i' I've finished listening to the eighth doctor uh echo's box set three good on you three amazing well they such good stories I actually couldn't put them down um yeah and the first one in particular boy um but all three were excellent I he just said then it hadn't occurred to me that those people W on all characters on TV because I feel like I know the eighth doctor Liv
5:41 Chena and Helen Helen thank you so well Sinclair Helen Sinclair um I I was think I was thinking I was going the actress hang on now go go the character I feel like I know those characters as well as any character on TV so we've lived with those characters for years now and they are all so distinct and such so clear in my mind I mean live Liv Chinko I just adore I don't know whether I'd like her in real life or not she's just so cynical and bitter but in terms of audio she's just so funny um so I feel like I know those characters as well in in fact in some ways you know I probably do prefer those stories than if you go for the Doctor Who characters because I know
6:27 we have to end those characters back where they started from and so there's only so far you can take tan or niss or adri because eventually they've got to stay the same people whereas Helen I mean where Helen's come from the things she's gone through in terms of family and loss and father where lives gone through I mean taking LZ through the whole robot Series so you got you know the time with her sister and a whole year on another planet these characters I've lived with but you see them growing and changing and they're more real because of that so if anything it's probably the audio characters I prefer more I actually started Missy today so I've listened to the first episode of Missy and it is just so funny that she's so awful and hideous but you
7:12 can keep laughing at her and so once again miss is another TV character but because she doesn't have be put back really you can really do anything with her and it's it's the characters around them that makes so much power so yeah my my thinking is I probably actually prefer the audio characters but to me there is in my head as any Doctor Who character on TV is I feel the I feel the same but I get my nostalgic fix from from those TV references that you know and some of the writers put in those little little nods to us fans who pick up all those references are like that whereas so the eighth doctor stories are still like a like new the canvas isn't isn't filled yet whereas yeah you're right the fifth
7:59 doctor canvas is filled we're just looking a little bit closer with the magnifying glass at some of those so I guess Ken my question to you would be um as not so much of an in-depth Doctor Who fan as maybe Philip and I are but as a director do you notice the TV characters coming in and and referring back to their TV characters uh whereas um the eighth doctor and his team being a little a little bit different is there any difference when you're directing or is it all the same well those are really good questions s it isn't all the same well to some there are there are there are some aspects to to directing that are the same but one of the things about directing I may have said this before um I may have said this before so excuse me
8:45 if I have but the All actors are different All actors respond differently so so one one of the one of the things about directing is that is that it's always different because literally everybody in the in the room requires different things um and one of the one of the jobs of a director is to figure out what everybody needs and and therefore um um assist them in the way that that um they like to be assisted um so so so yes there are consistencies but the consistency is they're all different um the the classic series um actors it is slightly different to work
9:32 with them in the they they know they they come with a lot of background knowledge of their characters and so they're aware of having played them on TV for such a long period of time and also on audio for such a long period of time um theyve they they very much know what their characters would and wouldn't do so um having said that the more we work with new characters the more we we we start to experience the same thing because um both um Hatty and Nicola are very very familiar with with their characters now um and so we we'll if we've written something they don't feel is in in character for them they'll they'll let us know and we'll we'll tweak accordingly so so actually there's a sort of there there's there's there's
10:18 a kind we're probably having having having worked on the eighth doctor series with those companions for such a long period of time now we probably reaching a sort of um situation where the working relationships are quite similar because they they've started to to gain as much knowledge about their characters as a classic TV series um actors do um there were ask that because I can imagine Janet holding up a script and saying no Tegan wouldn't have said that oh yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely but you're but you're also saying that hatti and Nicola might do the same everybody does to be honest everybody does at some point um U uh every actor at some Point even with a completely new character there might be something in there that just feels inconsistent in
11:05 terms of character so we'll stop and have a chat about it we'll work out whether it actually is inconsistent whether we need to tweak it and do something with it so so yeah there are always those sorts of conversations but but certainly with with Classic series actors because they know their characters so well um but also to be fair most of the most of the writers know those characters very well too because they've they fans of the TV series they watched it all um so those those characters are are as much a part of of their DNA as they are for for the for the cast so they're broadly speaking we don't as as much as I say yeah yeah we have those sorts of conversations all the time and we do it it's these are small things we're talking about they're not big things because the writers really do they write the characters well
11:52 um and so um 99% of the time the actors know exactly what is on the page and what they need to do with with it so we don't have we don't we don't constantly have have have sort of hit hit brick walls where we where we sort of disagree over content or anything like that it's just it's just it's sort of granular detail it's it's sort of like the the the the Small Things the asides how how a character might might string together their response to that situation so it's a it's a turn of phrase that that um may may or may not be in character so it's just it's sort of fine detail we're talking about um did you do the audacity sets yes yeah you did those so how did that work with a a very much established
12:38 character in Charlie coming back but then the new character audacity coming along how did that Dynamic work from it's brilliantly from my point of view because one of the really interesting things about um India and Jay is they they they get on like a house on fire and they got on like a house on fire within 30 seconds of meeting each other so it it was there wasn't any there wasn't any of what you might expect from an initial recording where somebody is having to get up to speed with what it is we're doing and how we're doing it and how to play it they um Jay just hit the ground running got on really well with India and so all of that sort of
13:23 um all of the chemistry that you hear between the two characters um we have in the studio between the two actors as well did you recall the two stories with audacity before Charlie came back into it so that she had a bit of time to establish with poor Manan do you know what the order of recording was that was the order of release um that's a really good question it's slightly I'm trying to think I'm sure we recorded them in the order they've been released but we did do something with Jay before that where she and I don't know whether you may have to double check this it's on your spreadsheet Ken it's it yeah it is but that doesn't mean we
14:09 can talk about it publicly so you might you might have to check this and and just make sure that we're allowed to say it it was Jay playing a different character so Jay had the opportunity to come in and work with big Finnish and do a recording with us playing a different character um and and so when Jay then came in to play audacity she had already worked with this and she already knew what what it was and she was thrilled a bit to be doing it as well she was dead excited to be um playing in the world of Doctor Who Um so there was a lot of you know she brought a lot of enthusiasm in with her which is always really useful um a really useful energy and um and then in terms of I don't I don't you guys are going to know this better than me because I've done so
14:55 so much recently I forget the the exact order of things but so Jay played a couple of episodes as as as audacity there's two stories there's a box set of stories and then Charlie dis appeared at the very end of the second box set oh that's right yeah yeah I remember now yeah yeah yeah yeah yes so there you go what was the question about that did that make a difference it didn't I can't honestly it's like the the strange the the really strange thing about recording with with India and J is that they get on so well that even though we've only done a relative ly small number of episodes it feels like we've been doing it forever because they they do just get on like a house on fire so it's as as bad as my memory is anyway trying to keep up with what I've done because we because I do
15:41 do quite a lot um that they're sort of they they sort of make it deceptively feel as if as if we've been doing it for years did you have any final thoughts on that topic philli no I think it's fascinating to talk about but um I'm sure we'll get into more detail with Ken M let let's break that up then and we'll throw in a trailer for well we've mentioned it a couple of times now Philip we and we love it too the box set Echoes featuring the eighth doctor Liv and Helen does this planet have a name it may look like England but the three moons suggest otherwise from Big finish Productions Doctor Who the eighth doctor Adventures Echoes I'm the doctor this is Liv and Helen you're a colonist then that's the promise of the charter a new
16:26 life returning to Our Roots Night comes at night creature it's awful darker than dark awful it was awful Monty's a medievalist brilliant scholar has the rooms next to mine and these are my friends Miss Sinclair from the kitchens and Miss chener from the nurse's office yes I I I saw looking in through the window watching me hello a man or a boy I wasn't sure only its face it's awful hideous face like a
17:13 paper lantern empty somehow Hollow welcome to the forever Club where are we anyway this Helen is ranen but that's impossible good aren't they each one must be half a mile high they're not statues they're living creatures I see you're admiring our slow beasts the slow beasts operate at 1 millionth of our own speed what is it doctor yes it just blinked big finish for the love of
17:58 stories so we're back with Ken Bley listen Ken really great to have you back again it's been a couple of years in fact last time we spoke it was the start of Co and more than a couple years four years isn't it four years ago yeah so yes I can't believe how long this has been happening for any you want to tell us a bit about um actually first tell us about how Co went because I know you managed to get hold of all kinds of people and you thought you going to be very quiet in coob but that didn't happen so what happened I yeah I did um I when I spoke to you guys it was it was partly because all of a sudden we all found ourselves at home with the time to be able to do these sorts of things and um and and similarly actually I a lot a lot sort of come around that I
18:44 I started during that that the early early stages of covid lockdown um recently because I find myself with with a bit of time to come back to it but I was having a conversation with Kenny Smith about this only yesterday because I had I started having a conversation with him at the same time those early early days of lockdown when when it was it had happened too suddenly for people to figure out how they were going to use their time and what they were going to do we all we all had time to to sort of reach out and start doing things and I quite enjoyed that little window it was a lovely little window of time initially and then what happened was was um a big finish we found that everybody who we um work with and everybody we would like to work with um all of a sudden was was
19:30 available to work so um so they all quickly got themselves set up with home Studios and I went from um having a really lovely sort of um as I think I think some I know I know lockdown was difficult for many people so I don't I don't want to sort of dismiss that because I understand I understand um very keenly how how difficult it was for some people but there were others and I count myself among among them who um kind of enjoyed that little Blissful window of of sort of peace and quiet and not actually having to work for a moment having sort of you know been on a on a treadmill for so many years in the buildup to it to suddenly be forced to stop was was quite a um it's quite a
20:19 sort of liberating experience really it was quite a I found it a really useful experience um but then we quickly went from that to being busier than we've ever been before and we've always said at Big finish we can't be any busier than this this is crazy how are we how are we managing to to keep up and then all of a sudden just became even even busier than we we had been over the the sort of period of time of the 50th Anniversary when that was a really busy time for big finish but lockdown just went crazy and um um the as soon as we sort of figured out which we figured out fairly quickly how to record remotely and how to record everybody from home we we just started doing as much as we possibly could so I went I went from that sort of little Blissful moment at
21:05 the beginning of the first lockdown to just being busier than I've ever been for most of lockdown which I'm incredibly grateful for because it meant I could keep earning money um when I know a lot of people couldn't so I'm really grateful for the for the um opportunity to to been able to do that and then when we got to the back end of lockdown um we suddenly had to back end of the last lockdown I think we had three in the UK can't remember exactly now um but when we got to the back end of the the the last the last lockdown my partner and I had to move suddenly we were in we were living in somebody else's flat at the time so we got sort of stuck in somebody else's flat they weren't nobody else was there it was just us there but we got sort of stuck in this flat for the period of time um during covid and then suddenly had to move really quickly at a really
21:51 difficult time so didn't have any choice about where we moved to so we we ended up having to move away with covid migrants we've end up ended up in the M middle of nowhere over near cheltam and um which has been lovely we we we I'm not complaining we've had a really lovely time live in a lovely um Little House in the countryside it's great we've really enjoyed it um but we're now sort of having kind of decompressed I think finally from that whole sort of really busy period and then sort of slightly stressful period of moving house and we're renting we haven't bought so I find renting unsettling because it's it's it it isn't permanent it's something I know I'm going to have to deal with at some point so we know we're going to have to move house at some point there's all of that s sort of
22:36 lowlevel um um stress going on as well um throughout it all but I just finally now feel as if I'm kind of come in Full Circle and and have regained control a bit of of of my my sort of work and and uh home life go that was boring wasn't it sorry chaps how did you how did you that if it's if it's really D cut it yeah I decided to cut it about three three three to five minutes ago how did you cope with with adapting to um all the remote recording and did you find it easy and did you find yourself having to help many of the cast and crew with remote recording yeah it's a really good question I was talking to
23:23 um David Richardson about this only the other day actually because I still I still record Ely um partly because of where I live now it's really difficult for me to get into London to to recordings so I still I'm still recording remotely and um David was asking me how I'm getting on with it and and I to be honest I I kind of loved it and I loved it from the get-go um I really embraced it I found that um to compare it to a recording most of the day in the studio um I'm in the control room with the recording engineer and the cter in the studio they've got headphones phones on they're probably in a position in the studio where they can't really see me anyway so for most people their experience of recording with me is just hearing me as a voice over headphones so it it made absolutely no
24:12 difference AP apart from the fact that it's nice to sort of sit in the Green Room have a chat with people um during the day um and people have been very kind and said it would be nice to see you again but but um you know I don't know maybe they're maybe they're better off not I don't know but but in terms of the work it it's it's sort of it's not a different experience it's a very very similar experience only every now and then would WE peer each at each other through the glass and sort of have a chuckle about something or or signal about something but really I'm a voice over headphones for most of the day during a recording so for me recording remotely is a very similar experience I really enjoy it um I'm as I can remain focused on what I need to do which is um
24:59 pay attention to what we're hearing and what we're recording um I'm not distracted by anything externally and I don't have to do the travel and for me that's I mean I'm saving an enormous amount of money because um public transport in this country is is eyw wateringly expensive but I'm also saving all that time so whereas a 4-day block of recording when I was traveling up to London each day could be well was exhausting by the end of a 4-day recording i' I'd need a couple of days to to um uh to reboot particularly if public transport let me down failed and and let me down because you know if that happened on the way home I wouldn't get home until um silly o'clock at night I'd hardly get any sleep and I'd be up at
25:45 the crack ofor the next day to make sure I got back in on time so it was a you know it was a really tough for me with the commute quite a tough schedule to do inperson recordings remote recordings I I can do so much more and stay um on top of what I'm doing and and and maintain my focus through really long periods of recording because I'm not having to deal with all that external stuff and traveling really takes it out of here too so you must be a lot fresher yeah yeah yeah tra traveling increasingly so because it was just getting so um it it there was a whole when in the run up to to covid where I was in the country were they were investing a lot in electrifying the
26:31 the mainline which is great but it just meant because of all the work that was going on the trains were just a a mess and then what I lived on a branch line so um I had to get I had to get a train for a couple of stops and then when I got onto the mainline changed trains onto a Mainline train um sorry actually reverse of that when I first started commuting I lived on a branch line but there was a through train it just it just went to the mainline station and then carried on into London so I didn't have to change trains after they electrified the main line they didn't Electrify my Branch line so it meant I had to get the branch line to the branch Line station and then change trains and get a Mainline train into London I it's a first world problem okay I I totally get it but that you know that that added
27:17 20 minutes to my journey which I know doesn't sound a lot but if you if you're adding 20 minutes to your journey both ways because you're having to change trains and it's not necessary 20 minutes because what I what I tended to find on the way home is that I would miss the connection which meant I'd have to waigh 30 it's a 30 minute Branch Line train so if I missed the connection I was going to be you know 30 to 40 minutes away from being able to get the catch my connection back home so I'm adding you know potentially adding an hour to my journey time each day just because the it wasn't it was no longer a through Line train so yeah public transport can be I mean it's exhausting but but also kind of it could be physically exhausting but kind of mentally
28:03 exhausting as well because the frustration of dealing with that I found really difficult when I was already just having to think come on I just want to get home crash out get myself ready for the next day and you end up standing on a station platform at 10:00 at night in the freezing cold I'm waiting for a connection so you're still remote recording what about the most of the cast are they going in studio or are they still from homes where where where your cast com from yeah I'd say most go into the studio now um it it does there are technical limitations to remote recordings so it's good for the cast to be in studio if we can because we get um cleaner cleaner recordings um so most do go in studio and most enjoy the experience of going into the studio because for them they're they're in the studio with each other
28:49 recording or they're in the Green Room catching up and chatting and and gossiping so I can understand for actors it's it's a much more enjoyable experience to be to be in the studio so most do go into the studio but some don't um some like me have have quite have embraced the sort of Freedom the additional Freedom that recording from home gives you um Nica for one who who's based out um like me based outside of London um and therefore has a she has an even trickier commute than me because she has to get across London I'm just going into West London but she has to get across London from the other side of town so her journey in was quite um was quite tricky so she um and they and during lockdown they set themselves up at home her and her husband Barney set
29:35 themselves up at home with a really good home recording studio which sounds brilliant um and they're on top of it technically so it it it it just makes complete sense for Nicola to be recording from home Paul still does sometimes um and then other people we work with there's a a chap I work with um who's based down in in shorum near Brighton um and he's uh so he has quite he would have quite a long commute but again he does a lot of audio recordings and a lot of audio books has got himself set up with a brilliant home recording studio so um um he's one of of probably at least half a dozen people I can think of off the top of my head who are who happily still record from home so it's it's all I'd say I'd say most of the recordings we do
30:24 have probably one other maybe two other actors recorded from home okay so how do you boss people around if you're not not in the studio how do you tell people if they're not on headphones if they're in the Green Room that you want them back and who you want how do you how do you control there's always there's always somebody in the studio to to um grab people we need for the next scene so um uh there's there's either the engineer or David will be in the studio or sunny who um who's one of the other producers at Big finish um and is increasingly producing more and more at Big Finnish he'll be at the studio so he'll pop in he pop into the green room and and grab people I need um and if people aren't on cans or anything that the the engineers there and to be honest with you that's no that's no different how it used to be the the recording engineer would always
31:10 take um a lot of responsibility for for um wrangling actors and making sure they're they're sort of on their mic and they've got their headphones on and and what have you so there's not a there's not a great deal of difference and sometimes I do I can be a bit cheeky sometimes I've got a I should have bought it with me I've got an old car horn you know one of those ones that goes um so if I need to get if they're all they're all in the studio and they're they're sort of ning away I'll just give them a a honk on the car horn to get everybody's attention can we um can we tell about some of the big projects that came out of Co some of the people I mean firstly I mean I think David Tennant became free and did an unbelievable amount yeah so he may have done some anyway hadn't he I
31:56 think he may have had he'd already done some stuff cuz he done some with yeah so he done a bit of stuff but I mean the amount of stuff he did I think was gigantic I mean d Empire I did D Empire and that was a good 10 episodes wasn't it and that was and that was just universe that was D Universe sorry D Universe yeah um and and that was just I think one of the things he did for big finish wasn't it he was doing all sorts of other stuff we did all the double UPS too with two doctors and with Tom Colin with Peter yes which you so what what was it like having David Sun available and I mean how how did they go about writing stuff so fast for him I don't do you know I don't know that's probably a better question to ask um David because he was very on top of all of that at the time I don't know how
32:42 much of this might have been stuff they were planning longer term anyway so they already had some scripts banked possibly um but I do know that that you know it wasn't it wasn't just me who became really busy during lockdown it was everybody at Big finish so I know I know that um a lot of the writers were um were suddenly given a lot more to do and we all of course we sort of had the time to do it because lot lockdown be the nature of lockdown was you couldn't go out and do other things so all the all the stuff we used to um spend our time doing we couldn't do so there was there was there were literally more hours in the day to
33:28 to be able to work and and so a lot of people at Big finish did so with so much stuff banked does that mean you're twilling your thumbs more now or is it still consistent work coming now it it seems to be still consistent we' we've gone through um we're sort of going through a a transition at the moment um in that David is no longer senior producer at Big finish John anworth has taken over as um senior producer at Big finish and so um we've we've we' we've gone we're sort of going through a transition between the sort of schedule the recording schedule that David had um and then and then approaching the sort of recording schedule that John's organizing as we move forwards and I I found only only this isn't a reflection
34:15 of what big Finnish were doing this was just a reflection on on my schedule that IID I'd banked quite a lot in advance and so had a slightly quieter period dur during that sort of schedule transition but when I look at uh I'm still busy and when I look at um when I look at what I've got on my spreadsheet in terms of post production there's still plenty there for the rest of this year and when I look at what I've got on my my sort of incoming list I have a nice sort of workflow um job card workflow system so I can see what's coming in and where it at what stage it's at in my process um and there's plenty of stuff lined up
35:00 to come in um I just don't know yet when um some of some of them I'm script editing so I sort of know what the roughly when those scripts will land others I don't know when the scripts are going to land so I don't quite know when they're going to sort of enter the process but but there's still plenty there it's just that just that strange strange trans transition between two different schedules for me meant I had a slightly quieter time but I'm not even complaining about that because it goes back to what I was saying earlier about finding myself at the almost if I've come full circle over that four-year period um which started with the first lockdown I kind of feel as if all the sort of chaos of that period of time and moving house and and and being busy I I just I feel
35:48 as if I've sort of come out of that and and I'm having a a a lovely period of time to kind of reboot and reorganize and and and focus on what's next I just want to jump in there and and go back to something Philip mentioned because he was talking about the writers and how they're doing anything so quickly you may not want to answer this so feel free to say you don't want to but okay is there any writer with big Finnish that the script comes through and you see their name and you go yes this is this is going to be an easy an easy one or a good one yeah yeah yeah there are there are there are there are quite a few yeah um I've always said for some reason um I don't know how Matt does it but um Matt's Matt
36:33 fit scripts are always effortless to to um to schedule part my job is when a script comes in after to do a seam breakdown a schedule work out who I need when and then cast it and sometimes just doing seam breakdowns and schedules can be quite tricky particular really big recording if we're doing something like a um trying to think of what what might have been a really tricky well we've done some of the some of those sort of four dis box set recordings where where it's one big story rather than four individual episodes so you have to work out you know how and a character appears sort of briefly in all four episodes but you don't want to get them in for four days you want to get that actor in for one day so it can be a bit of a sort of four-dimensional puzzle working out scheduling sometimes so those those can
37:19 be quite tricky for some reason when when I get a whenever I get a script from that it it's a it's an absolute Dole to to do a sing breakdown and schedule I don't know I don't know whether Matt is aware of it and knows what he's doing when he when he does it or whether it's just some sort of um um gift he has but um his his scripts are always a breeze um but yeah there are always others um uh yeah I don't I I feel as if I kind of don't want to I don't want to start mentioning writers by name because if I mention some writers um for writing scripts I really enjoy or or um scripts that that sort of work well in this studio going to forget to mention somebody who all upset well I'll mention a name for you that Philip and I are constantly surprised by and uh
38:06 pleasantly surprised and that's that's Tim Foley we we often talk about the different styles of writers and he's got a style that's that's really really nice it's it's quite uh he gets he gets up close and personal with all these characters and they're really huge scale stories but in a very small uh scale script uh but very human uh in a lot of his scripts particularly I think I think you did stranded didn't you so he did he did one in strander that was really good uh that we really liked and um yeah he constantly surprises us with uh with the scripts that he comes up with consistently time and time again that's just one of of the writers yeah yeah yeah he does he he he writes um lovely um he writes really lovely
38:51 character-driven stories uh so ra rather than um there's great plot as well there's great story but but just beautifully observed character-driven stories yeah which is and and and he's you're right he's his work is is distinctive and and noticeable for that yeah his his scripts are lovely to work on um I've just I've just um oh no actually I missed but no that isn't that wasn't him that was somebody else um I've just delivered a fourar but I can say at the at the start of the program I mentioned the fact that i' just i' finished listening to Echo the latest poor story and I mentioned how good the first story was that's by Tim Foley and that's Tim yeah that's Tim that that's the bird bird song and there's only two other characters but the way he captured the characters was
39:38 just amazing and the interplay between Pagan and the other these companions it was so hilarious at times and then scary and he just captured everything so yeah Tim he's running for Torchwood is superb right and and it's it's they scripts that actors like to play as well a good a good a well well-written character-driven script is the kind of script actors actors en enjoy um playing so it's it's part part of my excitement when I get a good script isn't isn't just because I like the script it's because I know that the cast are going to enjoy playing it and if the cast enjoy playing a a script it makes my life much easier so you're talking about some people you like directing who do you hate directing no don't answer
40:24 that well that's a really long list how much time do you we found out who actually listens or not we're looking for mysteries from Big finish Productions Doctor Who The Fifth Doctor Adventures the Dream Team it's 1940 where are we St Andrews Scotland the jewel of f birthplace of golf home to the country's oldest university I was here when they set it up the murf folk our literary and dramatic Association currently more of a boot club with a picnic it's Gorge is here isn't it just a sheltered Cove a luming ruined Castle Murder is mathematics humans have killed other humans since the dawn of time do you know how many other species do that to their own kind I'm Sebastian koow by
41:11 the way Athena mcdonal not to survive just simply despite to prove superiority hello Henry cson I promise you it's not that many private galski meet the doctor and Nissa no pulse St C I'm Professor Hudson Mook Patron I love mystery stories I always work out who done it try archipelago I've heard of that like the wit Sunday Islands in space Oh I don't like this I don't like this one bit something strange is going on here Nissa you have to wake up he had a spear it's a dream
41:59 a that that was round my face was that it an incredibly dangerous parasite it's a canari better known as a dream crab big finish for the love of stories what I would love to know and I don't know how well you can do this is I want to understand your process from the first time you hear about a story coming so what how many times do you what what are all your touch points and how long does each touch point take so we think of a director we think of you inst studio for a day getting the cast to do what they want to do but before that happens there's so much that you have to do beforehand can you can you give us an
42:45 idea of what is the process and when it starts before you get into that day and then what happens after the day and how much time you spend on each bit of that everything takes yeah it's some yeah um there there is there's sort of no one answer because some think some there's a general answer I can give you but but um some things Works slightly differently and it can depend on sort of deadlines and circumstances and that can kind of change some of the parameters but broadly speaking um these days I'm doing more script editing so I can um I get involved much earlier in the process so I'm reading I'm reading pictures and outlines so who who brings you in is it is it a producer of a series cont
43:31 producer yeah so so sure we're going to get you to direct this we want you to script it first it all starts with the producer and the writer so the producer will make a decision about or they'll be given a project to work on by um by big Finnish by John um or somebody else at Big Finnish um and the producer then sort of decides who they want to work with really unless big finish have told them they they want particular people to work on it and that doesen happen um but um the producer will first of all find the writer or team of writers they want to work with and then they'll um and the script editor they want to work with um and they'll they'll sometimes be a a um a script meeting where we'll all sit down and and sort of chew over ideas on
44:17 what we want to do with a a box set or series um then who who know who knows about this at the moment is is there a broad sheet super confidential broad sheet of everything that's being worked on in big finish so people don't take ideas from over there to over here so yeah okay so who who know who's in part of is that all just the producers aware of that or are you in part of that that process my I don't I can't tell you exactly how it works sort of behind the scenes at Big finish because I don't get involved in that but my understanding is that there is there is a um uh I can't remember what they call it now um but there's a sort of production spreadsheet which which lists everything that's being worked on and at what stage it it
45:04 is in the process so everybody who works at Big finish can see exactly what's being produced and where it is in the production process so there are and and a lot of people have access to that all the different producers and the people employed by big finish um the executive producers um every everybody everybody has access to that information so they know what's being worked on the all the all the outlines when we start pitching outlines they all have to go in for approval a big finish and so um that approvals process which is um Nick Briggs and and Heather and Emma um they're all they're all very much on top of everything that's going through so they can make sure that there aren't that nothing clashes with anything else that there aren't sort of um ideas that are too similar they they kind of weed
45:51 those out at the outline stage before we get too too far down the track um and how far we working out are we working six months out 12 months out two years out Can Depend Mo most of the time I think we're probably talking about 6 to 12 months some some things it depends that it can depend on the Range you're working on on the ranges that are much more consistent on a sort of six-monthly cycle or a 12 12 month cycle you'll be you you could be working six months in advance because um we know that's when the next one needs to be released on something that's on a much slower release schedule um something like Sherlock Holmes for example we might work on that 12 even 18 months in advance sometimes
46:38 more um but I would say 6 to 12 months is normal when you start to sort of pitch outlines and and because what what you're looking at is a is a three Monon um roughly three months for writing the script uh and the script being delivered um uh within a sort of three-month window of recording but to be honest with you what invariably happens is I get the scripts about um I tend to get scripts about three to four weeks before recording so um so we try to give the writing as much time as it needs to to get it right um so there's there's always a good contingency so as much as I say it's a three-month block of time for writing so the script's already 3
47:24 months before recording that's so that if a writer suddenly needs a bit of additional time for whatever reason if something happens in their life or they or as does happen quite often at Big finish um they just get they reach a bottleneck of work because um lots of sudden what what can happen through nobody's fault and and I find this probably two or three times a year suddenly I hit a bottleneck where I've got a lot of things to do all at the same time Lots in lots in post production that needs delivering at the same time couple of things to record at the same time um a script deadline that I need to hit and it it all just suddenly happens at the same time you find yourself a bit too busy so we we like to leave contingencies if we can so I'd say six to 12 months outlines giving about three to five
48:10 months for writing um and then the writing can go through a couple of drafts so if I'm script editing my involvement will be reading first draft giving notes reading second draft couple of final tweaks then it goes to the producer um produc might have a couple of um a couple of notes and then we get it ready for Studio then once the script's ready for Studio it goes out of my sort of script editing column if you like and into my pre-production column um and then what I'll do the first thing I'll do when I get a script for recording is do a scene breakdown which is as boring as it sounds so literally listing every scene and every character in every scene the only way I can keep on top of the amount of work I do is by being as organized as I I possibly can
48:55 so all of these processes and workflows I've I I may have said this to you guys before so apologies if I have but a friend of mine who I met at drama school um who I talk to a lot about the creative process and workflows and processes so a lot of people talk about the creative process as being a bit sort of sort of up in the air you know it's creative so yeah you know just um it's it's sort of everybody has their own process and what have you and that's perfectly fine they do um I'm quite interested where creative processes meet industrial processes Nick Briggs and I have had had this conversation a number of times big finish big finish produced so much that it's almost an industrial process because so much is produced to very specific deadlines so it is like delivering any sort of products like making any it's like delivering cars you know it's it's the same kind of thing
49:42 you've got to get You' got to keep the process going and you've got to make sure everybody delivers on time and and does the best job they can so that that process isn't held up at any point so I'm kind of fascinated by processes and workflows and I've got a couple of workflows that I use but so the first is is um when a script comes in the first thing I have to do is that scene breakdown um which is literally each scene and every character in the scene and how many pages that scene is so I know I can work out how many pages I've got to record in a day and that will tell me if it's a three-page scene how many minutes I have to record that scene in a day um and then I from that from that information I can start to schedule so if I know I've got 10 minutes on that
50:28 scene then 5 minutes on the next scene 3 minutes on the following scene I can I can kind of start to schedule my day fitting in tea breaks and lunch breaks um then also allow how long how long is a day for an actor this the this is so it's a we're all booked for uh 7 hour day we the studio is booked from 10: till 6 but we've got to allow an hour for lunch and we've got to allow a 15-minute teab break in the morning and a 15 minute tea break in the afternoon so so it's already it's a 7-h hour day but you can already take 90 minutes off because we've got lunch and tea breaks and then I always leave a I always like to leave a contingency so I also take I think it's a minimum kind of 30 minutes off that I try to make it an hour if I can
51:14 um just to just to allow for um you know people arriving late there being a technical failure in the studio any of any unforeseen things that I might need to allow for so I I allow a contingency as well and that gives me the number of minutes I've got I've got to record the the play um and I think something like 360 minutes I get left with or something I can't remember and then it's based on that sorry I'm jumping I was jumping ahead to recording but based on that schedule I then know how long I need people for so I can work out if if I've got if I'm doing a a three-day recording and there's a character who appears in all three plays I'll be able to tell looking at that
52:01 scene breakdown whether they're only in two scenes in one of the episodes in which case I'm not going to bring them in for a whole day's recording just to do two scenes so I'll bolt those two scenes onto one of the other days and and therefore I know I only need that charact that actor for two days rather than all three days so then I'm what I'm doing then is I'm juggling basically my my casting budget with with with my schedule so I'm trying to work out who I record when in order to make sure that I can cover all the characters I need with the money I've got and that's when I start to work out what I can double up so if there's a if there's a really small role like a computer voice who's only in two or three scenes and and they only have a line or two in each scene I'll figure out if I can
52:48 actually because they're can to have a voice effect on them I can probably double that up with one of the other roles in the play so we're doing all of that through the schedule process and the casting process that's the kind of constant sort of four-dimensional puzzle that I'm trying to figure out is how we can how we can cast this on budget and get it recorded across the two three or four days that we have and that's why something like the um something like the big 4-day recordings we do can be quite tricky because you doing individual doing doing single episodes single individual episodes as a recording block is fairly straightforward because the characters in the play are only needed for that day so that's a fairly straightforward schedule but once you've got a bigger story across sort of three
53:34 or four different recording days then you got to work out that can be quite tricky working out who you need when and making sure you bring it in on budget and it's a it's a it can be tricky but it's a um that's a I don't like doing seam breakdowns because they're really timec consuming schedules I quite enjoy because it's quite satisfying it's quite satisfying making a schedule work and bringing it in on budget but it's not just that it's also making it work for the cast when they're in the studio so as as much as it's carved up across so many different recording days once you get it into the studio it's it's satisfying for me if the cast are never confused as to where they are in the story and what they're doing next
54:21 because that means for them their Journey Through the schedule was fairly chronological even though I've carved everything up across different days you've mentioned casting budgets that's another trick you got to do before you start recording now my understanding is in terms of you know I know a lots of places do this I think be finished to you've got sort of got a couple of different pay rates depending on people and so from from that amount of money you know you you got you've got how many people you can bring in for a day is that right and and so different stories will have different budgets based on the Range or based on the actual script or how does that budget get decided in terms of how much money a scripts going to be allocated um well big finish decide that
55:07 and it's fairly standard so on most I mean most of what they do is what used to be called Main Range Doctor Who but now they they do these sorts of um trilogies don't they um and it it's it it you know each of those is fixed we don't my budget my cast budget doesn't include the leads so so in the the doctor and however many companions they have is kind of taken care of before it comes to me I don't get involved in that so it doesn't matter to me whether it's a doctor and one companion or a doctor and three companions that's that's already taken care of the rest the rest is it's a kind of fixed budget so each each um Doctor Who play has the same budget but it is up to us
55:56 uh it's up to it's up to the the people working on the production so the producer the writer and the director how that how that money is spent so um there are two there are two rates of pay there's kind of guest star rate and then the standard rate and and so we'll work out what are the conversations I'll have with the producer when the script starts to come in and sometimes earlier than that when we're working on scripts but mostly once the script starts come in and we see how many characters have been written we'll start to figure out how many guest stars we think we can afford within the budget we've got and therefore we'll we'll we'll determine if a role is a guest star role and if that's the guest star role then that that determines how much money we've got left to spend and therefore that
56:41 determines how many other actors we can hire and then I'll work out from that what what doubling up I might need to do that's fascinating okay so so with Echo so that just that's that's the one I've been listen to most recently so you don't you don't have to pay in your budget pag again um and Nicola Walker haty brand you have to worry about them they're all they're already been covered for yeah um so yeah the script Tim fry has arrived it's just got two characters easy peasy you just got to two people thank you Tim because you've just saved me loads of money that I can use on the other two plays in the box set yeah so that's how it works so so that whole box set your your your budget has to work out all the cast for the three stories
57:27 that are in that um and then and then ideally when you get a lovely two hander or two guest casts when do you decide you that the story needs a big powerful guest star name as opposed to just anyone it's normally clear it's normally clear in the writing in terms of the the size of the role and the impact the character has on the story so it's those it's those two factors really um and if it's a so if it's a in the case of um Tim's episode in Echo um which was which was essentially um sort of two other actors if you if you if you don't allow for the doctor and the companions it's essentially just two
58:12 other actors because there are only two other actors in the two other characters in the story they're going to be in the story a lot um and so because of that you can you can bet that one of them's going to have a significant role to play one of the characters is going to have a significant role to play with in terms of story and plot um and so then you sort of you sort of look at it and with with something like that it's a two-hander to be honest it could go either way because um it's it's unlikely that neither are going to have a contribution so then you just look at the roles and you just think well within the within the sort of um work we do the fees we pay and the people who are sort of keen on working with big Finnish who do we think
58:59 might be interested in playing these roles and therefore which one which one might might go to a a guest star um rather than a standard rate so you kind of Juggle those things and it was when we um it it was um it was Jane Asher in Tim's episode of EOS wasn't it yeah and when we looked at that um we'd worked with Jane before and we knew she was really keen and we we also knew that a a lot of a lot of there's sort of two types of actor there there are this is this is hor horribly overs simplistic but there are sort of two types of actors there are there are they're there a sort of straightforward leading actors and and you you kind of you know what
59:44 you're going to get from them that that's that's what they do and it's brilliant but that's what they do and then there are um great character actors who can do all sorts of things you know can pull all sorts of unexpected um rabbits out of the Hat and um one of the things we knew about Jane is that that there's a there's a lot she there's a lot she can do that she's not often given the opportunity to do so so that role was a really good opportunity to to sort of offer it to Jane and say look this is a bit of a strange one what do you think and she was really um really enthusiastic about doing it and did something amazing with it as well was say she was fantastic wasn't she brilliant yeah yeah and so to to sort of make an offer like that and for them to come in and really um really um sort of roll up their sleeves and and take advantage of the
1:00:31 opportunity is is um it's a great thing to sit back and and and as a director it's a great thing to just sort of sit back and watch somebody being brilliant and taking advantage of of an opportunity yeah okay I mean just I just to that box set I mean you got you've also got actors like Tim benck and Dan stari who do a lot but they consider to be able to do anything it's ridiculous yeah do do do also rely on having some cast members that you just know you could depend on to do anything at any time yeah there's a good stable of of what I what I think of as the big finish Ensemble um and I have talked in the past about trying to sort of um create a bit more of a big finish Ensemble like the the BBC have the radio drama company it would be great if the if big Finnish
1:01:16 had a had a sort of an ensemble cast because we do work with a certain number of people um very often and for good reason because they're brilliant they know they know what we do they they know what's required of it they enjoy it they they relish the opportunity to do it and they're they're incredibly versatile actors who can who can who can do all sorts of things but also aren't phased or daunted by being asked to do something really unusual and we do ask some actors to do things that are really unusual really strange and it's quite yeah so and it's so it's it as much as we do rely on a sort of a stable of people we work with regularly to to play a lot of those roles for good reason it's also quite nice sometimes to
1:02:02 get new people in to see to to sort of to sort of add add to the um add to the Ensemble of people we can turn to and so every now and then um we do get there I never know what I can talk about and what I can't so I'm I'm going to be really Cy about what it is even though the information might still might actually be out there but I worked on something recently um and I've I've just done postproduction on it but I don't know whether it's been announced or released yet and there's a a new young actress in there and she in it and she was she was just she was amazing she was just brilliant and I really did throw her in at the deep end because it was one of those really tricky roles that crops up quite often in big finish and you can give it to somebody who knows big finish and know knows what's what knows what's required but to give it to
1:02:49 somebody completely new he never done a big finish before so they're getting scripts with what big finish is what the process is the speed at which we record the kind of level the sort of heightened dramatic quality that's required for of of what we do it's a lot of it's a lot of stuff for somebody who's not used to the process and particularly a younger actor to to to process on their on their first time in the studio and she was just amazing she completely knocked it out of the park just one of the best performances um I've I've heard from a from a young actor in a long time really really good off and it's not the line you know it's not the the thing about big finish and I I said this to her at the time the thing about big finish is it's not the it's not just it's not just
1:03:36 the lines it's not just the dialogue it's kind of what goes on it's what's going on between the lines of dialogue that's important and if you can because they're quite a lot of what we do is quite sort of physical and actionpack so it's not just about the line of dialogue it's about everything else that's going on around it and if an actor can do that um and we're fortunate we work with a lot of actors who were very good at that but if a new actor can come in and see that spot that opportunity and give us everything we need around the lines as well then then yeah that they're a keeper so she'll be back she will be back actually I just want to mention we we referred to Tim bentin before and that that story from echo's Lost hearts that he's in I've heard Tim a hundred times before and he
1:04:22 managed to bring something completely new to this story I went oh he's I've never heard him act like that before that was incredible yeah so yeah yeah you've got some you got a great stable of of returning actors too yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's great it is great when you sort of you look at a road and you think oh BR what the hell am I going to do with that how are we going to make that work and so you you turn to somebody you can trust to do something and when they come in and just um you know like the blue touch paper and do something amazing it's just it's fantastic I love it it's one of the great things about about doing the work work okay well let's do the casting so we've got you've got your whole scene break down you've worked out your budget youve worked out how many actors you can have in each story done the schedule cast it then you go into the studio so slow down cast it how do you cast
1:05:11 something what's the process oh okay yeah sorry I was I was thinking about it sort of creatively but there there is just a mechanical process isn't there so um I've I've have a system whereby I don't always do this now because I've got quite I've got quite a good relationship with quite a few agents now so I can just ping them an email but um what what I used to do a lot of was first of all I'd phone I'd decide who I i' draw short lists of who who who I think would work in in each role um so I'd have a short list of of maybe kind of you know three or four actors for each role um and then I phone the agents and asked do availability checks first and just say
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