BFI Southbank The Savages (Animation) Screening Report

Doctor Who: The Savages animation is available from the 24th of March.  As part of the promotion to fans, the BFI (British Film Institute) on the London Southbank ran a special event on Friday, 28^th February, to show the animation. Guests included actor Peter Purves and the animation team headed by AnnMarie Walsh. Originally broadcast as 4 x 25-minute episodes in 1966, The Savages had UK viewing figures of 4.5 to 5.6 million.

Unfortunately, only stills or tiny segments of the original live episodes exist. Our usual BFI Hosts Justin Johnson (Lead Programmer for BFI) and Dick Fiddy (BFI Archive Television Programmer) were there on hand to welcome an almost full auditorium of fans.

Interview with Mark Ayres – Sound Engineer

A regular to the BFI events, Mark Ayres came to the stage to discuss his involvement in the animation of The Savages. He revealed that the soundtrack for three episodes was taken from off-air recordings made by fan Graham Strong, and the other episode taken from the Randolph tapes, which were rescued from landfill by photographic restoration. Robert Wyn. The Randolph tapes are recovered recordings made from the end of William Hartnell to mid-way through Patrick Troughton’s era. Mark reviewed all the existing sound material to gain the best version for The Savages.

His aim was to remove all the transmission noise and other noise distortions. He remarked on the excellent score for the story. Asked about the challenges of working on the animations, he highlighted that most of the stories that have a good soundtrack have already been completed. However, as technology has improved and alternative sound recordings have been found (the Randolph tapes were found in 2018/19), it has made the task of moving forward with animations slightly easier.

Interview with the Restoration Team: AnnMarie Walsh (Producer and Director), Paul Hembury (Executive Producer) and animators Thomas Bland and Vinny Payne

Paul Hembury acknowledged that the style of animation used for The Savages isn’t the most sophisticated, but he said he is incredibly proud of the team and how hard they work. The team geographically are spread far and wide and is quite small in terms of the number of people. When asked by Justin Johnson about how long the project would typically take, AnnMarie Walsh confirmed this animation was nine months to complete. That’s quite a short time to complete an animation, although having photographs and tele-snaps does help the team to make certain decisions.

When deciding the colour tones AnnMarie took inspiration from the script where the Elders are draining the life of the Savages. As the savages lived in the outside environment the planet was bright and warm. Showing the two opposing sides comparatively inside the dome there were darker more subdued tones.

The two animators with AnnMarie each had different areas to work on and explained through a presentation about the challenges of colour grading the animation and also working on facial features of all the characters.

Asked about the process of producing the animations, Paul explained that they will approach BBC Studios, who are a commercial organisation with a proposal, and where agreed, they will be given “not a huge amount of money” to produce the animation. There aren’t any future animations agreed upon yet, although Paul confirmed they “are close”. Based on that, Justin Johnson asked if it would be at least another 12 months before we see anything new produced by the team.

Paul agreed on this but revealed there are plans to gain a commitment “to accelerate” the process and be on more than one project, so before one project completes, they are starting on another animation. The animations, he said, are also part of a plan where they would be included in any future black and white era Blu-ray releases. Saying that the production of the Blu-rays is also dependent on people continuing to buy the physical products.

Interview with actor Peter Purves

Peter Purves came on to a rapturous round of applause from the audience. He played Steven Taylor for ten stories (45 episodes) during the 1st Doctor era. Peter had listened to the audio of this serial previously, but joked he couldn’t remember a lot of The Savages except filming in Egham borough council sandpit. There is a surviving clip of Steven’s Farewell – The Savages in Episode 4, but Peter couldn’t remember filming this final scene. He recalled with some honesty how he was dropped from the show when his contract wasn’t renewed by the producers.

It seems a rather unhappy moment as on the last night after he finished recording Peter went with two or three members of the cast for a drink in a pub and then went home. He said, “There was no party, no goodbye, absolutely nothing”. He described that time in 1966 as a time of flux, a very uneasy time for the show with very little job security for the companions. Maureen O Brien had left, and Jean Marsh and Adrienne Hill didn’t last beyond The Dalek Masterplan.

Justin Johnson noted for the show it was a time of transition and asked Peter Purves if he was aware William Hartnell would be also leaving due to his declining health. Peter wasn’t aware of any plans being made for him to leave but knew Hartnell was struggling. He recalled a few occasions where there was time spent in studio hoping for the lead actor to follow a cue line and get back on script which drew some laughter from the audience.

I found it fascinating to learn that in The Celestial Toymaker where the Doctor is seen mostly as a hand and also in The Massacre where Steven does have a lot to do, and leads were attempts to see how the show worked without the Doctor as the lead actor (whilst William Hartnell had a holiday).

William Hartnell had liked Peter Purves as Morton Gill in The Chase and suggested to Verity Lambert that Peter should be a companion. Hartnell could be grumpy with others, but Peter revealed that they got on well and that William Hartnell was very friendly to him and a “generous actor”. Peter considered Hartnell played the part “nobly and well”. Hartnell was disappointed when Peter’s contract wasn’t renewed by Innes Lloyd, but Peter said that although he was the lead actor, Hartnell didn’t have the power to influence any changes from the production side.

Peter confirmed a question from the audience that he would have stayed longer as the chance to be in a regular television series was very appealing and he was having fun. Peter revealed a preference for the historical stories as he isn’t a science fiction fan and considered the directors of the time as very good. Their planning by physically writing and visualising the story down spoke to a meticulous planning.

Asked if he had met any of the writers, Peter immediately mentioned William Emms, who wrote Galaxy 4. Peter acknowledged that the writers didn’t always write Steven consistently and Peter at the readthrough for Galaxy 4 admitted he got “uppity” with the writer asking where his character was in the script. It was only later that Peter Purves discovered that William Emms had not been told that Jacqueline Hill was leaving Doctor Who and so had written for her character, Barbara Wright. Peter Purves then ended up with that character’s lines reallocated to Steven.

Peter also met writers after he finished in the series, including Donald Tosh, who he revealed completely rewrote The Massacre. Although the serial is credited to John Lucarotti, the tv serial didn’t have the money to realise the ambition of John Lucarotti’s story. The novel written by John Lucarotti does have some significant differences.

Peter Purves gets a great deal of joy from attending conventions and talking about his time on Doctor Who. He has written his autobiography, Here’s One I Wrote Earlier, and he joked that some of it may be true. He wrote his autobiography very much as he speaks and said he didn’t do any research and thought that there were memories that were misremembered. He said he didn’t care though, to much laughter, because they are his memories, and it was a strange life being an actor. He revealed that he had hoped that Steven would return to the TV series but was very happy that Big Finish took up that mantle to write some audio stories about an older Steven.

Peter Purves was asked by a member of the audience about his thoughts on the animation. He said the animation told the story extremely well, and it looked good. However, as previously acknowledged in the earlier interview with the restoration team, there are limitations to 2D animation, mainly around having enough money. If there had been more money, this would have allowed them to create an elaborate effect, but he thought there was a very good script with The Savages.

Another great event from the BFI finished with a signing event from Peter Purves upstairs on the mezzanine floor with a specially produced postcard and autographs and pictures available as part of the event.

The Savages Animation Trailer The Savages is available from all good retailers. So have you listened to The Savages audio or were you there in 1966 to see it on tv?

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