Ask Louise Page - episode nine

We’ve reached the penultimate week of Ask Louise Page, and the questioning has turned to the background process of realising the costumes from the script descriptions. Louise explains to us the multiple episodes and meetings all taking place at once. How she kept sane, heaven only knows!

She also tells us about the Upper Boat studios where to date much of the new series of Doctor Who has been shot.
It recently closed so the production could move to new purpose-built facilities in Cardiff dock, and she looks back on her time there – though don’t expect to hear about the glamour lifestyle of film stars and directors!

Question 17

Question 18

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode eight

We’ve reached week eight of Ask Louise Page, and this time we have a two questions regarding the accessories worn by the Tenth Doctor.

Firstly we wil hear about the shirts David Tennant wore and discover there was a distinct methodology to their choice of colour.

Then we will hear the definitive answer that been the casue of much debate amongst Tenth Doctor fans - where did the glasses come from?
Louise give us the full history and origins of the glasses used, revealing for the first time their maker, which until now has been a closely guarded secret...

Question 15

Question 16

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode seven

We’ve reached week seven of Ask Louise Page, and we have a very interesting question and answer relating to James Bond appearing in Doctor Who . . .

Question 13

Question 14

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode six

We’ve reached week six of Ask Louise Page, and some interesting questions are starting to come though.

The first is something that was hotly debated on the forums a few years back, when someone noticed Tie Ten from my Tie Index was worn by John Simms in the popular series Life On Mars.
Was it deliberate? After all, the tie concerned only appeared in the Master story arc that Simms starred in.
Or was it just a co-incidence?

Time to find out...

Question 11

Question 12

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode five

We’ve reached week five of Ask Louise Page, marking the halfway point in our questions.

Today I’ve pulled a question from a thread on Gallifrey Base which was the subject of much debate. Since Louise was open to being asked questions I thought it the perfect opportunity to find out the definitive answer . . .

Question 9

Question 10

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode four

As we enter week four of Ask Louise Page, we have two quite probing questions!

Louise talks candidly about inheriting the Doctor Who costume department, dispelling any illusions you may have about its grandure or significance.

But first she give us an insight into what might have been if money and time had been no object and reflects on some of her less proud moments.

Question 7

Question 8

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode three

It’s week three of Ask Louise Page, and our next question comes from Russia - showing how far Doctor Who’s reach extends across the globe.

Our second question today touches on an area of Louise’s costume work that is often overlooked: dressing the monsters. Here she talks at length about a number of her favourite collaborations, and her less successful moments . . .

Question 5

Question 6

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode two

This week on Ask Louise Page we come to two interesting questions.

Thank you to the contributors who sent these in.

Question 3

Question 4

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Ask Louise Page - episode one

Today, and every Wednesday for the next ten weeks, I am proud to bring you an episode of Ask Louise Page.

Following on from my extensive interviews on the Tenth Doctor’s ties, she kindly agreed to answer twenty questions from you, my readers.

In late May I was able to put them to her, and now I can bring you the answers she gave.

First up is an unusual question about Wilf Mott, played by Bernard Cribbins.

Question 1

Question 2

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sparing the time to answer all your questions

Me And My Tennant Suit - Dan Neumann

It’s been a few months, but I thought I’d post anther entry in my occasional series, Me And My Tennant Suit.
This time we have Dan Neumann, who I had spotted at Gallifrey One this year and kept meaning to say hello to, but he was either busy chatting or I was in a rush to get somewhere.
Anyway, I friended him on Facebook and asked him to contribute. He’s what he had to say.

PROFILE
Name Dan Neumann
Age 22 years old
Location San Diego, California
Favorite Doctor Tenth!
Maker of my suit Baron Boutique
Colour of suit Brown Suit

I opened by asking Dan when he got his suit, “I ordered my suit in April 2011, right before FanimeCon!”

“After discovering Doctor Who a few years ago I was instantly obsessed with it, especially since David Tennant was my first Doctor”, he told me about his first encounter with the series. “A month or two after finishing the series I realized that I looked a fair amount like the tenth Doctor, and I had always been interested in cosplay but was too much of a perfectionist to go after something harder.” With that advantage in mind it seemed like a logical progression.
“I realized that replicating the tenth Doctor’s look was something that I would be able to do fairly easily, with the right suit - and so I found one!”

But what was he looking for in a suit? “I was looking for the best possible screen accurate suit I could get without breaking the bank. As a poor college student, I wasn’t prepared to spend a whole lot of money on a suit, and so I ended up looking for something around the $300 mark that was the most screen-accurate. The Baron Boutique suit worked excellently in this regard!”

So how was the fit? “Though it took a couple of round of alterations on the coat and the pants, it currently fits great! One of the best fitting pieces of clothing I own.”

The Ultimate Tennant Suit at Bad Wolf Bay

Last week I showed you some photos of Kevin Coppa, wearing his Ultimate Tennant Suit, at my local golf course surrounded by dinosaurs!

Well now I have some pictures of him at Southerndown Beach, aka Bad Wolf Bay.

First was used in Army Of Ghosts and Doomsday, it was where Rose said an emotional farewell to The Doctor (see right).

Later they return to the bay for a similarly emotionally charged scene in the close of Journey’s End (see left).
More recently it was the crash site of the Byzantium in the Matt Smith episodes Time Of Angels and Flesh And Stone; and it is due to appear again in series seven.

The photos below form part of a massive shoot we did in Cardiff, more of which will follow soon on my blogs, so watch out for them.

Southerndown Beach is very popular with swimmers and families, so we had to choose our moments to get the views to ourselves. Sometimes the locals got in the way, but they were a friendly bunch! (see left)

While we were there, we did some portrait shots, as well as some more action stuff! (see below)

But the main shots we wanted to do were the ghostly appearances of the Tenth Doctor from the close of Doomsday.
We did a couple of set-ups, and I’m pretty happy with the results. Let me know what you think!

SB6 Space suit - full breakdown

A little while ago costume designer Louise Page told us the background story to the recurring space suit worn by David Tennant during a number of his adventures.

It first appeared in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit as part of the equipment at Sanctuary Base Six; the idea of a space suit returned (abet remade) in 42; before making a final appearance in The Waters Of Mars.

Design © Peter McKinstry

The suit may look to be custom designed, but Doctor Who is made on a limited budget and if anything can be sourced as pre-existing pieces, it will be – and this suit is a prime example.

All of the accessories such as gloves, boots, harness and base of the helmet were all widely available at the time of production for a reasonable price.

Dinosaurs On A Golf Course!

This past week I have had a very welcome house guest in the form of Kevin Coppa, who I made the Ultimate Tennant suit for last year.
He’s here for a top secret project, but while in the country we have some special photoshoots planned. But more on that later.

Just to get us warmed up, we visited a local golf course. Why? Cos it’s got dinosaurs!
Look closely and you can just see a T-Rex on the right side of this picture (see right).

My inspiration for doing the photo shoot comes from the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special, which had a picture of Carole Ann Ford at the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.
I’ve always wanted to see them myself, and as yet I still haven’t, so this will be a fun second best!

Now these aren’t your typical fibreglass static statues, these are rubber-skinned animatronic versions, though they do move a little ponderously.

These’s a number of dinosaurs around the course and I sought special permission to have a photoshoot with them. Here’s what we took.

First we took some shots with an unidentified planet eater (see above), though The Doctor wasn’t taking any chances!

Creeping away, we are soon being threatened by a Tyrannosaurus Rex (see left).

A meeting of Doctors

Wow - have I got something real cool coming up for you!

I’ve just returned home after an amazing day down in Cardiff doing an all-day photoshoot with two of my favourite Doctor cosplay look-a-likes, with a superb Amy Pond to moderate.

Many of you will know US-based Kevin Coppa (see left) from The Ultimate Tennant Suit I made him, something he proudly wears to many US conventions; you will also have hopefully seen UK-based Matt Elliott (see below), who is the most awesome Eleventh Doctor look-a-like.

Well, I wondered what would happen if I could get the two of them together in the same photo – and now I know!

It didn’t take much persuading to get these guys in the same place together, but it took several weeks of planning to make it happen.

Here’s a little teaser photo for you, with more to follow soon.
We shot about a dozen scenarios, some just portraits; others are hilarious, so watch out for them in this and my Eleventh Doctor blog.

Spoilers!

Louise Page has been back to visit me this week, this time to answer all your questions submitted for the Ask Louise Page competition.

We had lots of great questions, and I took the opportunity to get a few more of my own answered, as well as a couple I spotted which were being debated on the forums.

She gave some great and interesting replies, plus identified some previously unknown Tenth Doctor costume accessories . . . . but you’ll have to wait a little while before we prepare the videos for posting.

In the meantime, Louise is keeping those spoilers tightly under wraps!