I watched a fascinating presentation on mapping technologies and their use in the BBC yesterday. The highlight for me was an amazing video showing all the Open Street Map edits made in 2008. The Channel 4 / MySociety / Stamen project, Mapumental was also demonstrated (well, just the Mapumental YouTube video actually).
It's a really useful tool. Here I'm showing a few Cardiff examples.The Shortex one is hilarious. It's not even well implemented. And they've stolen the iconic BBC clock!
(found via Your Site is Valid)
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Much has already been said about the casting of Matt Smith as the new Doctor. Watch a short interview with him and see what you think. A few highlights excerpted below. I hope my transcribing skills haven't done him any injustice.
On the significance of the role:
It sort of has the... ummm ... the iconic kind of status that Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes or ... and I'm sort of ... taking that on. That's my responsibility. That's exciting ... nervewracking ... exciting ... exciting!
On keeping his new role a secret:
It's like a giant secret. It's hugely significant. Yeah... yeah.'
On the future:
I've got this wonderful sort of journey in front of me where I've got this kind of six months to build this... this... this Timelord. And that's such an exciting prospect because I love that part of being an actor, I love the discovery of it and, uh, the detective bit.
I'm trying to reserve judgement until I see him in action as the Doctor. Hopefully Stephen Moffat and the other producers really can see something in the young actor that I'm missing. I'll tell you this much though - if they give him an emo or 'gofic' costume, I'm out!
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I had almost forgotten to finish uploading my behind the scenes pictures from my time on the Dr Who and Torchwood sets! The big cog-wheel-door (which always reminded me of Deep Space Nine) is as convincing as the rest of the set, until you thump it and hear the dull thud of plywood.
You can also see a few more monitors here, this time running an 'alert' cycle. When I posted the first post (Torchwood uses Linux) I expected that all the monitors were run as virtual machines from one big PC somewhere. In fact, there is a networked pile of old computers just outside the set. VLC controlled through a custom flash interface run on an old Windows box. As you would imagine, the different displays just run on a loop.
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Each of these have been designed to illustrate a decade. I'm least happy with the 60's one, but I'm pleased with 70's and 80's. Turns out I can't install fonts at work, so I had to make do with what was already on my system.
What do you think? Anyone have a better idea for 60's or 90's?
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You may recognise the props in the last two shots. The Dalek-tommyguns are from the terrible 'Daleks in Manhattan' episodes, while the jar with the strange alien creature used to house the disembodied hand of the Doctor that Jack kept around for a while.
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The last of my pictures of the TARDIS set are all closeup details of the centre console. You can really see how cobbled together it is from common and garden parts.
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So, if Torchwood is such a super-secret, literally underground operation, then why do they brand everything? There is not a detail on the set that doesn't have a logo - old or new - stuck to it somewhere. Even the drinking fountain!
I had never realised from watching the show that the rift-manipulator, which is at the heart of the fountain structure, is a shrunk down version of the TARDIS centrepiece. Nice touch, I thought.
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The 'subway' used to link the different Torchwoods together (Besides Cardiff, there is the one in London that featured in Doomsday, one in Glasgow, and apparently one that went missing). The network fell into disuse, so now it's where they have pizza and beer. As realistic as all these tiles are, when you touch them you can tell that they're painted wood and paper.
The Welsh dragon on the wall is a nice touch. Apparently Tosh was painting it there, but that backstory never featured in an episode. I guess it never will now.
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As you can see, in reality the TARDIS is exactly as big on the inside as it is on the outside!
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