"Rory?" "How about somewhere romantic?" "Confidential packs its bags and goes abroad." "The best place you could possibly go for a romantic weekend would be Venice." "And gets to meet up with a Venetian count..." "Looking for vampires in Venice?" "Aaargh!" "What was that?" "but not as you know it." "really." "Vampires." "a few things aren't what they seem to be." "they're something else." "What there are actually there is... fish from space." "OK." "Move!" "What is going on?" "And action!" "And are the Doctor Who team really in Venice?" "Confidential finds out." "please." "A camera." "And action!" "The TARDIS touches down and the Doctor sort of bounds out mad city." "Venice!" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" "stepping out into that." "One of the most powerful cities in the world." "Constantly being invaded." "And I think there's a real sense of vibrancy and colour to that scene." "you've got to love Venice." "And so many people did." "as it were." "Casanova... but it's shot hundreds of miles across the sea in Croatia. somewhere exotic and really mix it up a bit." "The trouble with real Venice is you'd have to spend an awful lot of time covering up the pizza parlours and the shops and all that." "Doubling up as Venice was a small town on the Mediterranean coast called Trogir." "And it looks so beautifully like Venice." "so it's a great double." "size is everything." "to have some proper Venetian buildings sitting there on the horizon. went over to Venice to get some of our wide shots." "I'm looking for angles so we're trying to match a plate that we've already filmed in Croatia." "What we didn't have in Trogir was some of these painted buildings that go directly into the water that have no kind of walkway." "and anything this side of this umbrella will also disappear." "We'll have gondolas in the foreground and some piles." "Trogir just needed to be time-travelled back to the 16th century." "You can see behind us we've decorated this area of the set and the breads and the garlic and all those sorts of bits that we've brought in." "We've also got some very big banners that are very Venetian-looking." "really amazing." "There was hundreds of extras and loads of chickens running around." "Chickens and goats and a guy selling eels." "And all sorts of props everywhere." "And all the local people were in as people in the market." "before Matt turns up. and this old lady walked past with a goat book her and the goat." "hello... she was from a local village but she didn't have a clue what I was saying." "And then..." "Watch me." "Through here. stay there." "stay there." "Just watch." "There. so she was getting even more confused." "round..." "THEY SPEAK IN CROATIAN" "We had a close relationship by the time we'd finished!" "THEY SPEAK IN CROATIAN" "OK." "A and B." "And background action." "And action!" "GOAT BLEATS" "METALLIC THRUMMING" "Venice!" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" "Confidential took the chance to visit modern-day Venice to check out the actual events particularly the great plague of the 16th century." "So writer Toby Whithouse went to meet a man whose ancestors lived through it all." "Francesco da Mosto." "Toby." "How are you?" "Lovely to meet you." "Looking for vampires in Venice?" "of course!" "but that's for later." "I get a tour of the da Mosto mansion.'" "How old is the actual building itself?" "16th century." "The period of your plague." "Absolutely perfect." "It's beautiful." "'This amazing building has been in the da Mosto family for over a century.' my goodness." "Look at this." "Here I learnt to ride a bicycle." "It's the perfect space." "Look at this!" "This is incredible." "nice shape." "or...?" "our Doctor is not a medical doctor." "He's a time-traveller." "But my episode is set just after the outbreak of the plague and a race of aliens have arrived in the city and are using the fear of the return of the plague as an excuse to close down the city." "'Francesco had something for me which was an absolute goldmine - 'a collection of documents relating to the period in which I set my episode.' and here I found also they died of plague." "Death by plague." "We say "peste"." "called la peste bubonica." "This is the doctor with a stick." "So would that be used as a weapon?" "in a certain way to keep a distance." "So you can't come closer than this point?" "there was this danger of infection." "They were using the mask with a filter or something like that in the nose." "they lighted upon a way to stop the spread of the plague?" "What is sure is the idea of the isolation that worked." "the hell." "This is the new Lazzaretto." "Now there is not any more these walls." "Was that the one where they put the people who were under observation?" "That's right." "who was actually in charge?" "Who was running them? and one of these was one of my family called Pietro da Mosto." "One of your ancestors?" "always like that or nothing." "whoa!" "if you please." "current bill of medical inspection." "fella. everyone has to be isolated." "So it was quite a tough job." "It was the only way of survival for the town." "What exactly is your job?" "visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them." "that's nice(!" ") See where you bring me?" "The plague." "the Venice of today looks very different to the Venice of 1580." "Too many new shops! so we filmed in Trogir in Croatia." "There is quite a funny coincidence. he was a Count in Trogir." "like me." "Can you imagine?" "!" "There was always a person of a noble family of Venice controlling the different town... he was Count in Trogir." "strange." "I found that out yesterday." "Quite strange." "I never looked at all the things." "It was quite funny." "Trogir town square." "The cast and crew are preparing to meet a bunch of bloodsuckers." "baby" "# I've got a lot of love to give oversubscribed with relationships... # the look of the vampire girls." "Where do I begin?" "It brightened up our day." "ever seen them so occupied and satisfied and work hungry." "Everyone was happy. there were like 12 vampire girls." "# You've got a little thing I haven't seen before... #" "I think." "Sort of bonkers hair. to try and hark back to some of the classic Hammer House of Horror vampire films." "There's something weird and gothic you're always welcome!" "take one." "And set!" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls... # they do look absolutely terrifying. just make it scary!" "# Maybe I can learn to settle down one day... #" "How are you doing that?" "this is Christmas!" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls" "I get all the girls... #" "We needed to destroy all of the other vampire girls." "big explosion." "We are Venetians!" "we created a house exploding." "everyone." "These are the pots containing our explosive charge." "which will go here." "I've pre-weakened this just to make sure it doesn't come out like a lump." "It'll actually break up." "What will come out is the explosive charge itself will actually blow out all the dust and debris and cork towards the other side of the building." "Then you go and we can start the explosion almost at the same time." "We needed Matt to run for his life and jump in the air and fall away from where the explosion was going to happen." "So stunt co-ordinator Crispin had to just run through that with Matt." "and the reaction in your face." "run!" "A successful jump is down to the confidence of the actors. they go for it more and they're a lot more dynamic and obviously the better it looks in shot." "bang!" "Ha-hah!" "And then you can look... simply because we have one go at the explosion." "and obviously our schedule didn't give us time to do that." "have we?" "We've got one." "Matt." "mate." "# This used to be a funhouse" "# But now it's full of evil clowns" "# It's time to start the countdown... #" "Matt." "Here we go." "And action!" "it's a big old bang." "I love all the pyros and the explosions." "It's like a good external that's coming in that and it does a lot of the acting for you." "# This used to be a funhouse" "# But now it's full of evil clowns... #" "Danny." "down" "# I'm gonna burn it down. # 'Francesco took me to a place at the very heart of the plague story." "'A perfectly preserved 16th century pharmacy.'" "The cave of Aladdin!" "This would be similar to a pharmacy of the time?" "in the period of that plague." "And it's here that they would make the kind of concoctions and remedies to supposedly cure the plague?" "supposedly." "But all these things were quite expensive." "Can we have a look at these?" "Nearly all kind of things like peels of sulphurs of iron..." "We've got more of this." "Acido Tannico." "that's..." "Like a tannin." "but I never..." "Never touch that." "It's a mistake you make once." "And Elixir China." "it was expensive." "and because I suppose the belief was they must know over there." "no one really knows if it works." "the more people were buying it." "That's something they still say today." "it must work." "so it's better to try than to die." "Of course!" "'I've invited a friend to come and join me in Venice.'" "Matt." "Toby!" "How are you?" "Hello." "Welcome to Venice." "Thank you." "Come and meet my new friend." "no." "Good." "this is Matt." "sir." "are we?" "Thank you." "Marvellous." "'Francesco is still promising me a vampire story." "we take a trip around some Venetian locations connected to my episode.'" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" "It's so nice that it's sunny." "We're in luck." "Why did you choose to set it in Venice?" "Because Venice has always had a very... a very strong sense from the rest of the world." "It's always wanted to keep itself separate from the rest of Europe." "if you were going to go anywhere where you could carry on your business... exactly." "So it's absolutely ideal." "And it really is." "There's nowhere like it in the world." "but without walls." "nothing." "We only had about five minutes to shoot the scene the Doctor and Rory." "All it consisted of was parallel tracks being pushed." "put it in front of you." "please." "We didn't have time to talk about it." "get it done." "you're on a gondola." "Go!" So that was interesting." "I've got a great big flambeau there and we're having to..." "Almost like you're riding a horse." "and come across a house 'my character Rosanna may have lived in.'" "Attend!" "Attend!" "The storm is coming!" "this one." "This is an example of how they were in the Byzantine and Gothic period." "the courtyard with the staircase." "And here we are." "It's funny to see the reflected light off the water because you wouldn't believe the amount of trouble that we had trying to recreate it." "there wasn't the Grand Canal." "A camera." "B camera." "but unfortunately no water." "two of the electricians are rippling away with shining lights into water which gives you the ripple effect on the buildings behind me." "We put mirror tiles on the bottom of a ripple tray and shine a light into the ripple tray." "and we ripple the water to give you the effect behind us." "it was a piece of wood." "but it looks like a gondola." "guys." "OK." "Move these poles over a little bit." "keep going." "Standby." "Thank you." "Here we go." "And action!" "the courtyard." "with the well for the water." "There is something similar in Trogir." "isn't it?" "Francesco." "And we'd never interrupt Mummy when she's hydrating!" "Remember when we pop up in the Calvierri mansion? which we climb out of." "It has a similar grate and everything." "push!" "There we are." "ever write from locations? a sort of slideshow in your mind of the different..." "The aesthetic..." "Exactly." "..that it could be." "slightly medieval architecture." "and stuff like that." "yeah." "Which all adds up to the very other-worldly which is why I think Venice was the perfect setting for that is just unlike anywhere else on the planet." "yeah." "I start to feel like an alien!" "there's a great line." "A young girl is about to be sent to her death." "essentially." "And she says..." "I'm Venetian!" "I can swim!" "We can all swim!" "A small lake outside Trogir." "The Who crew are here because there are some water scenes where only the real thing will do." "I'm six inches off the bottom here." "you are close then." "It's December." "It's cold." "the team's task is to make it safe. and they had to get pulled under the water as if they were pulled by these fish." "They bite! whether they managed to get pulled under the water or not." "So I wanted to do a test for myself just to see how safe the costumes and the suits were." "a special volunteer offers to take a dip. we got to go in the water." "So we put her in a suit." "And she was more than keen to go in." "and also I wanted the divers to assist the actors getting pulled under the water." "OK." "Is she set?" "JAWS" THEME PLAYS obviously very protective of its territory." "And we just had to wait and hope the swan goes away." "So we had a bit of swan wrangling to do!" "OK?" "Set?" "OK." "under." "Splash about." "Get yourself ready." "under. and I can honestly say how cold or not cold it is." "but it was do-able." "I'm not looking my best!" "Thank you." "I've got to be able to say whether or not I think it's OK." "having done it." "and everybody was lovely." "who was a bit active." "it was fine." "there's something else to take on board." "That's the way you're going to be pulled under." "It's essential the crew are high and dry when filming on water." "That's always the tricky thing with water." "It's a nightmare to shoot on." "a movable pontoon." "we got the monitors on there." "it really worked for the day." "we had one camera on the floating pontoon." "I was very keen to get the camera as close to the water surface as possible." "with very expensive we had to put the camera into a glass housing." "We had a waterproof fish tank." "you put the camera in the fish tank." "and the camera is right on the water level." "but it works really well." "One of the trickier things that we had to achieve was to get two actresses to jump into freezing cold water." "Erm..." "It's not cold enough to get that ice cream head that we often get." "The only way to do that was with a great deal of persuasion." "this is unbearable." "had to jump in myself in a previous recce to check it out." "they didn't really have any way out." "B camera." "And action!" "I'm Venetian!" "I can swim!" "We can all swim!" "I literally had to jump into freezing cold spring water." "you're in." "So it wasn't too bad." "please." "cool." "Standby." "because you genuinely were freezing cold." "'So it was pretty good." "I can definitely imagine how she would have felt.'" "Bubbles." "And action!" "Something touched my leg!" "It bites!" "'There was a bit of cramp going on there because of the shock.' if you just relax and stuff." "jumping into freezing cold water in December." "'But just... you relax and just go with the flow.'" "And action!" "Something touched my leg!" "It bites!" "SHE SCREAMS" "take her to the side." "Arthur and I are getting ready for a fight." "Here we go." "A camera." "Still on camera." "Let me go to the smile to begin." "then you reveal them." "And action!" "the sword fight!" "It was brilliant." "And I was there looking very concerned about the whole thing." "But it was just incredible." "Arthur and Alex totally thrashed it." "And Arthur was hilarious." "It was really cool to watch." "'I'm glad that I didn't have to look cool.'" "I looked less cool when I watched it than I thought I did." "it might have been a problem.'" "I think I'm quite far off being an action hero." "a taste of it." "A camera." "Get set." "And action!" "# Anything that's worth having is sure enough worth fighting for" "# Quitting's out of the question gotta fight some more fight for this love fight for this love fight for this love it's worth fighting for... #" "secretly." "am I?" "who's turned into a fish and exploded on top of him." "The last thing he thinks is going to happen is that Amy is going to kiss him." "actually." "Karen." "my God!" "Right..." "I basically just told Karen what Arthur Darvill had asked me to say to her." "make it the kiss of your life." So that's what I did." "camera A. And action!" "I just had to go for it." "Do you know what?" "It was fine." "forgot that I was the one so it went on for ages." ""Karen?" "Karen!" "Why don't we go and see the Doctor?" "Cut that." "But that was just the first time." "it was funny." "Let's put it this way." "The episode was running short!" "THEY ALL LAUGH please." "fight for this love fight for this love fight for this love it's worth fighting for. # thank you." "one of the plague quarantine areas 'that Francesco told me about when we first met.'" "we are on our way now to the islands." "We are going to try to arrive in the old Lazzaretto." "Where there were the people not only suspected but infected." "So this was the one you really didn't want to go to." "It was the last chance." "The place where you say bye to everyone." "It was like a place no-one gets out of." "Right." "That was the situation." "OPERA MUSIC PLAYS" "is the old Lazzaretto." "where the people were coming to die." "There is all these walls which are surrounding it." "Why don't we stop here?" "What do you think?" "Yeah." "Let's climb in." "we are going to break in to the plague... and were brought here to peter away and die." "it feels particularly dilapidated." "'It's a grim place with a grim purpose." "'But how else did you stop a plague in the 16th century?" "'" "The only thing was isolation." "You had to isolate the infected people." "obviously if you are wasting away..." "There were the doctors arriving." "When they see that you start vomiting." "One of Francesco's relatives was one of the health officials." "Yeah." "He decided the rules." "so it's just a couple of years after the plague has died down." "having experienced this unbelievably traumatic event and everyone who lived in Venice would have lost someone." "And so that's why they used the fear of that coming back again as an excuse to close the city down." "that it was coming back again." "We follow the plan." "Let them hammer on our door." "Beg to be taken. "You can't come in because you are them what bring the plague." "My character says..." "How interesting." "I heard the plague died out years ago." "Not out there!" "Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes." "now?" "this mad fish alien." "that it's coming back." "It's like vaccinations." "I had it." "Francesco finally gave us his Venetian vampire story." "'A tale that came to life when archaeologists found the remains of a plague victim 'whose burial bore all the hallmarks of something even darker.'" "They found a skull of a woman that has a brick inside the mouth. they found blood coming out." "And the veil a little eaten." "Right." "blood comes out as a result of the plague?" "but after the death." "So that was strange." "could pass this thing to other dead." "And then the plague was going around more." "And so they were putting this brick so she could not move the mouth." "Strange!" "'Tales of deadly creatures sucking the blood of the living.'" "It looks like I was closer to the truth than I expected." "Perhaps there really were vampires in Venice." "sir." "brilliant and completely insightful tour of Venice." "It's been a joy." "It's been fantastic." "Absolutely fantastic." "Thank you for showing us around this beautiful city." "we found the cure for the plague." "It does feel kind of alien as a world." "Yes." "It's been good." "Doctor Who Confidential." "er..." "Yeah." "It will be great." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"