No-one ever said that directing Doctor Who is easy. In 1995, Peter Capaldi won an Oscar – for Best Live-Action Short Film – for Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which he wrote and directed. But when I asked him last year if he’d ever want to direct an episode of Doctor Who: “I don’t have the skills,” Peter admitted. Chatting on the TARDIS set – at the BBC’s Roath Lock studios in Cardiff, the show’s headquarters since 2012 – the Oscar-winner told me, “I enjoy directing, and I probably will do more, but these guys [Doctor Who’s current crop of directors]… they’re so professional, they’re all up-to-theminute, they know how everything on Doctor Who works. Anyway, I want to be in it! I’d have to find… well, it takes two months to prep an episode, then a month-and-a-half to cut it. I don’t have that time. No, I’m having too much fun being Doctor Who. I’d have to not be in it, and I couldn’t bear that.”
Another Oscar-winning director and self-confessed “huge Doctor Who fan”, Peter Jackson (The Lord of theRings, King Kong, The Hobbit, et al), admitted last year that, as much as he’d love to direct a Doctor Who, the show’s tight turnaround – just two weeks’ shooting per episode – is a daunting prospect. “Well, I mean, look, six months, sure, we can talk about that,” said Jackson. “Four months, five months… I mean, all that’s just something you talk about, isn’t it?” But a fortnight? In Cardiff? No chance.
Last issue, four of the 2015 series’ directors – who did brave TV’s toughest gig, and triumphed – talked us through what it takes: from the all-important pre-production process, to working with actors, monsters, VFX, “the heightened and fantastical”, tight budgets, crashing spaceships, and more. “The pressure to deliver something special on this show was greater than I’d ever felt on any show in the past,” said one of the four, Daniel Nettheim. “I didn’t want to be the director who stuffed it up.” In the concluding part of this in-depth DWM feature, the ‘class of 2015’ considers flying saucers, flashy camera moves, Zygon duplicates, the Fisher King, Brian Blessed, last-minute crises, sheer exhaustion, and inspiring the next generation of directors…