"This is Julie heading towards my flat." "And we're gonna have a good old chinwag... before production starts." "It is Monday, 12th of July, which is the read-through, the first read-through, for Doctor Who." "To be held at the Millennium Stadium and we're reading episodes one, four and five, all written by the marvelous Russell T. Davies." "And what happens at a read-through'?" "Read-throughs are very, very scary things so we're all very nervous." "At a read-through, the cast come." "It's the essential crew, heads of department, make-up, costume, design, etc." "Er, the executive producers come and we read the scripts." "And it's the very first time that we hear them." "So tell me how many episodes you've written and what's left to write'?" " It is..." "What's the date'?" "12th of July'?" " Yeah." "And I have written four and I've got four more to write." "Today we start the read-through of my first three episodes, which is a bit scary because it means three episodes are gone." "And so, I've now got to write an episode a month from now on to finish by October." "And can you tell me what it's been like writing Doctor Who?" "Fantastic!" "Absolutely." "I love it." "It's hard, it's much harder than I thought it would be." "There was a little bit of me that thought..." "I always work hard on scripts, can I say." "Yeah." "But there was a little bit of me that thought when it's a crisis and you're rushed, you can knock one of these off." "And you can't, I've absolutely discovered that." "It's $0..." "It's so hard." "The hardest thing is..." "It's not as hard as being a nurse or a teacher." "The hardest thing is taking control of it, and this is the same with any script we ever write anyway, it's like being in control of your world." "It's the hardest thing and a lot of writers have trouble because characters can't get to the right place or do the right thing or get the spirit of what the whole script is about across because you're not in charge of it, because there's so much location" "and plot and pressure and so many people reading it and analysis going on that you're not in charge of your world." "And that's hard enough anyway when drama is set in bedrooms and kitchens and offices and things like that." "And literally, when it's set in a spaceship or..." "It's even harder 'cause that world isn't real." "And it takes a long, long time to say," "I know it sounds daft, but to say, "This really is a spaceship."" "It really does have engines and a crew and an economy of its own and stuff like that." "And they've got money in their pockets, you know." "And things like that." "And they sleep and they brush their teeth and things like that." "And they fall in love." "That is..." "It takes so much longer with a Doctor Who script." "I'm getting metaphysical now, but it's just a practical thing." "It takes so much longer with a Doctor Who script to believe that you're in these places before you can even begin to write it properly." "And tell me what you're gonna be writing next." "Next I sit down and I write episode..." "What is it, seven'?" "Yes." "Yes, which is Rose and the Doctor and Adam when they land on a space station." "And do you have any favorite scenes that you've written that you would reveal to us'?" "I'm waiting to see what the Doctor's big moment in episode one is like when he does his speech to Rose." "Which is a wonderful speech." "Certainly, it's like..." "And you know, no one knows what it's gonna look like, that speech." "I don't think Keith knows." "I mean, in a good way." "It's one of those moments you think, "I don't know if Chris knows" ""how he's going to play it," and I don't want it to be pretentious." "There's a slight worry about it being too heavy." "Yeah." "At the same time, actually it is pretentious in a way." "It's a big moment." "This is Julie Gardner and myself on the first day of filming driving through Cardiff." "We're filming here in two or three days' time, aren't we'?" "This is St. Mary's Street?" "Is this St. Mary's Street?" "Yes, they are blocking the road off for a monster in episode one." "Hooray!" "On the rampage." "This is the DVD so people will know." "It's the Autons." " Oh, yes, indeed." " We don't have to keep it quiet." "There I was, being all secretive!" "So where are we going'?" "We're going to the Cardiff Royal Infirmary for day one of shooting, call time is 12:00." "And we're starting with a hospital sequence from episode four." " So, Russell, how are you feeling on day one'?" " Most excited." "I just want it to be over with now." "I wish we were on day 131." "I feel like I could spontaneously combust..." " Do you'?" " ...with the excitement and stress of it all." "In the car in front we have the producer, Phil Collinson, who we're chasing." "He is the most cheery producer you'll ever meet." "Oh, my god!" "Here we are." "Oh, Christ!" "We're here." " I'm gonna park here in front of the gates." " This is it." "Doctor Who land." "I'm sure this is all right." "There's Phil getting out of his car." "Action!" "What did you do that for'?" "And it's now 19th of July, it's the second day of filming." "I'm at home doing little tiny rewrites which then get issued as yellow pages." "You see, the page changes to yellow." "'Cause it's locked when I add the word "human" there." ""Who's not human?" "He's not human."" "I'll do this, I'll issue these pages." "See, that is now..." "Where is it..." "The yellow revision." "See'?" "Yellow revision page." "7-19-04 'cause it's American." "And that'll be issued today and then I'll go out to set." "And action!" "This is Annie Frederick, who's head of Doctor Who publicity." "How's it going, Annie'?" "It's going fabulously well, thank you, Russell." "It's amazingly busy though, isn't it'?" "It is today, actually." "We've had loads of photographers out." "And that was for Billie." "That was for Billie, but also, I think it's also to see what's going on." "It's very exciting in Cardiff." "I think next time we're filming in the streets of Cardiff, we shouldn't announce it live on the local news." "Action." "Where are you'?" "And this is the queue for dinner." "I think they must be the little three child dummies on the end there." "Dining bus." "One of our buses and all of this is underneath... the shadow of the Millennium Stadium." "We've covered it with a product called Idenden, which comes out quite shiny when you sand it back." "You've got areas of gloss and areas of mat so that when it's wet at night or when it's lit, there'll be shiny elements to it as well as mat elements." "So it will really have that old telephone kiosk feel." "This is day four of filming." "It's one of the first scenes of episode one." "Rose gets off for work." "This is St. Mary's Street in Cardiff." "This is an entrance to the shop so we've built the surround." " Yeah." " And that's just the walkway up to it..." "It's a completely fake window, brilliant." "And that's what glass'?" "Toughened glass in the middle and laminate glass on the two outer panes." "So the toughened glass in the middle will be the glass that we blow." "Brilliant." " Hello, Mark." " Hello." " Are you enjoying being in Doctor Who?" " I am." "It's very warm in here." "It's boiling." "It's very exciting." "Did you like the read-through'?" "Was that mad'?" "It was a nightmare, it was very nerve-wracking 'cause I'd only just got the script and everybody was there who was anybody in television and..." "I...myself, big time." " I'm not supposed to..." "I can't..." " That'll be bleeped out." "I was very frightened." "Tell me, do you think Clive's dead at the end of this or shall we bring him back'?" "I think we should definitely bring Clive back." "As a zombie." "Some kind of zombie creature." " You just want to play a monster, don't you'?" " I do want to play a monster." "I'm very jealous of the people whose heads open." "They're hot, though, aren't they'?" "I could take the heat for being a monster, though." "It'd be great." " We'll keep you on the list." " I do get to die, though, so that's good." " Yes." " It's always good to have a death." " Don't really see your death, though." " No, but at least it's there." " You'll see it in my eyes." " You could act it, anyway." " You got to give us the full one." " Yeah." "I mean, I screamed." " Of course, there's no blood, is there'?" " No, we'll be careful with blood." "Sorry." "Mark Benton, thank you very much, my darling." "Thank you very much." "And action." "And cut." "The age-old Doctor Who problem of getting masks fixed at the back." "All these years, nothings changed." "Some of these gaps we can fill in later in post-production, we can paint the picture so that the gap disappears." "Courtesy of special effects." "Set and action." "And cut." "What I've discovered, it's 1 O times more than any other show in the world." "Yeah, completely." "You just can't get the right groups of people together enough." "They're really busy." "Particularly now, when they're running shoots and prepping ahead." " So that's really hard as we go forward." " Yeah." " Absolutely." " And also, it just feels like a monster show." "And we always felt that it would be a monster show." "It feels so huge because this morning I woke up really excited thinking," ""Block two read-through."" "But equally I was thinking, "Oh, my God, it's only block two."" "And at the end of block two, we would only have filmed 5 episodes out of 13." " That's terrible." " We're not even halfway through." "People are tired, frankly, because it's really hard." "We did three weeks at the top of the first block of night shoots." "Yes." "One of those weeks was filming in London, so you take out the travel time between Cardiff and London, you've got less time on camera." " It was very hard." " It's really hard for people." "Look, Julie, a read-through." " Are you up my nostril again'?" " Yes." "You are." "That's Phillip and Lyn at the read-through talking to each other." "That is Matt."