Teleporting in... welcome to Federation Strike: A Journey Through Blake's 7!

Chris Thompson is back for our second season finale, and if anything, this conversation goes deeper into the craft than the last one. We get into how the production pipeline for Series B differed from the blitz that was Series A, why 120 Liberator shots meant almost none were reused, and what it actually looks like when a special effects director is given creative freedom.

We also cover some of the specific shots Chris is proudest of from Series B, including the work on Redemption, Shadow, Hostage, and Killer, talk through how the new Andromedan fleet came together, and find out what it feels like to clock up over 2,000 special effects shots.

We're teleporting out for now! Thanks for listening, and don't forget to follow and subscribe on your preferred podcast app so you never miss an episode.

You can also join the conversation and stay updated by following us on Twitter/X and Bluesky. We'd love to hear your thoughts and theories!

Join us next time as we continue our journey through the universe of Blake’s 7.

Hello there, Blake's 7 fans, and welcome to Federation Strike: A Journey Through Blake's 7. My name is Garry and welcome to our final episode of our second season. Yes, we have reached the actual end of our second season now.

Adam and I have gone through every episode of series B, which has been fantastic. And last week we put out our first bonus episode, which is just Adam and I summarizing our thoughts across the whole of series B.

Some highs, some lows, not that there were many of those, and just our thoughts on everything. And a bit of a.

Look forward to what we can expect and look forward to for series C for this episode though this second bonus episode, I have got with me once again the special and visual effects extraordinaire, Chris Thompson.

I'm going to chat through lots of series b stuff for Blake's 7, get his thoughts on what was different to his work on series A for the Blu Ray set and some specific shots that made its way into this series. Some workflow stuff, things around, just production in general for visual and special effects, loads of model work, all the usual stuff.

If you listen to the first interview that I did with Chris back at the end of our first series, that was a really cool insight into what goes into making these Blu Ray sets and specifically the visual effects stuff. So great. And we expand on that stuff, the differences between the two series and again, a little bit of a.

Look forward to what we can expect for series C. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of tea and enjoy the interview with that thoroughly nice chap, Chris Thompson. Mr. Chris Thompson, back on the podcast. How are you doing, sir?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back.

You look well. You look like you're. You're not stressed under the weight of a thousand model and VFX shots. I assume you're a busy man.

Still though, I was just looking at my front facing camera and being like, oh, no, I need to moisturize. No, like you are actually catching me at a relatively quiet, relatively quiet phase. I can think.

Last time I may have been in the middle of something, but I do remember giving you a little tour around my apartment. So that, that probably places it between March and May, I think. But yeah, no, things are, things are going really well right now.

I've been able to have a little bit of a break, which is good.

Okay, nice. I think when we spoke last time, yes, you did give me the tour of. Oh, that was so good.

And I must say, when I've especially like, not just Blake's 7, but a Doctor who events at Riverside or the BFI and people have asked me about the interview that I did with you.

They're extremely jealous because at the time you were showing me some models and not just Blake seven, but Thunderbirds and some Gerry Anderson stuff and some Doctor who, and obviously I couldn't show anyone because this is an audio podcast. So everybody was like, oh, my God. You got, like an insight into. Into Chris's, like, sanctum. It was just.

Yeah, we had so many people who were like, oh, you're so lucky. But that was very cool. And at the time, I think you were. You had come off the back of working on Blake's 7 and Doctor who at the same time.

So I think it was series 25, I believe, of who. So you were. You sounded like you were slammed. So it's good. At this point in time, you've got.

A bit of a problem. Yeah, I would have been.

I think I was working on like, seven season two at the time because we hadn't shown off the new Liberator yet, I think was the thing.

So that was it.

That new Liberator. It lives there now. Forgive the. I'm renovating so that the place is a bit of a mix. Mixed bag. But yeah, no. Twice the amount of models now because.

Because I do sort of insist on. Every time there's a minute there's a spaceship involved, like, I try to build a miniature for it. And that's great.

Until you have about 35 of them kick it around.

Our listeners are going to be jealous immediately. Like, this is so cool that just. It's probably second nature to you, Chris, and you're just so used to it now.

But for fans of the show, when you just casually just say, oh, look, there's the new Liberator model behind me. It's like. It's like, mind blown. It's so cool.

Just wait till they see the Scorpio.

Oh, no. Okay.

It's not done yet. I got photos earlier.

Okay, Right, right, right.

Richard's working very hard on it.

Very nice. Cool. Okay, let's. That actually leads me into the first question I've got for you.

As I mentioned, you were quite busy last time with Blake, Doctor who. Probably a bit of Jerry Anderson stuff thrown in there as well. Now that series B is done and is.

Is behind and that's all obviously, you know, out into the wild, etc, Etc. What was the. When you came off the back of. Of doing the series B stuff, did you. Did you block timeout to do?

Because presumably series C or 3, however you want to label it, which is already out for pre order and so on is going to drop later this year.

Did you just dive straight into that off the back of series B, or did you stop and take stock of the work that you did previously and think, actually, we could probably do that differently or do that better? Or did you just. Like hell, we'll just go straight into it.

I think with series three, it's been a little bit different because we kind of started it and then jumped over to season 21. And then, yeah, we've kind of off the back of 21. We've resumed work on season. Season C, we did at the end of Blake's 7.

Season A, series A, season one, whichever we're going for Blake's 7 Alpha. The we that was.

Whenever we took stock, we kind of grind everything to a halt and be like, we need to come up with a different way to do this, because season. How we did that season just wasn't sustainable. And I think it kind of suffered due to a lot of just basically a mad dash to get it all done.

Whereas we had a good couple of months between season A and B to get a new Liberator built, Kind of rework out how to do the miniatures in a bit more of an effective way and reallocate the resources in a bit more effective way. So season C is much more of A. Okay, well, that works. We'll just keep doing that then. There's other stuff I've been experimenting with for it.

Like season C, we've been doing a bit of motion control just with some simple rigs and things like that. Just to kind of add a bit more sharpness to the spacecraft when they're flying through space. But yeah, a lot like it is.

A lot of it's the same production techniques just carried over from B. Gotcha.

Okay. And I think.

So that sounds like you had more time for that because with series A, didn't you just have one day with the Liberator model to get all that stuff done?

Yeah. So on season A, we used Phil Stevens's Liberator, who he had very graciously allowed us to use. But the issue was that it was.

Season A came together very quickly. Like I was working on season 25, it was sort of added on as an extra, and its deadline was just a month or 2 after season 25's deadline.

So it was an absolute blitz getting through all the shots for season 25 to then take a day off and then Blitz through Blake's 7. And I think the other issue with that is that there was no pre production for it either.

So we had a collection of original props and fan built ones, kind of like the Liberator. And we had to squeeze those all into Handslope, which was the shoot we did over in Handslope, where small space is matter of vines model show.

And it ended up. Yeah, we shot a lot with it and then ended up being quite a bit we couldn't use for a bunch of different reasons.

And it meant that the Liberator had to fluctuate between being CG and practical. So that's why I had a larger. Not a larger one, a special, a new Liberator commissioned by Richard Ashton for season two.

And the idea being that this one not only would be a much closer version, much closer to the original filming miniature. And to do that we went back to all the original materials from the time because unfortunately the Liberator is.

Various bits of Liberator have been restored. There's various interpretations that the fans have made, which has meant that the kind of.

The more modern Liberators that get built gradually drift away from what the original looked like. Whereas I wanted to make sure it looked like as it was delivered for Spacefall.

So Richard painstakingly went through it and recreated all the pain, the paint, detailing and things like that.

And I had redone the shape and we'd got all the original kit parts in and then we'd built it to be collapsible so it would be easy to move and have like side mountings and removable metal damage and stuff. And yeah, so that was the big.

The big change is that not only did we have this new Liberator that could be easily modified and used, but also it was in Belfast. So anytime I needed any Liberator shots, I just go do them.

And I think we ended up having like six major shoots with the Liberator to kind of get us all the stuff that we needed. And like we used practically every shot as well. Almost nothing ended up on the cutting room floor because there's 120 shots of that thing.

And I think the original idea was to kind of shoot it like Star the Next Generation, where you have about seven shots of the ship that you can then repurpose and reuse for whatever you need. And. And I ended up not doing that. So it's a unique shot of a Liberator almost every time you see it.

Oh, wow. Okay. So quite a bit more production work with that model side of things compared to. Wouldn't say.

Well, I guess you could say a rush job for series A because you were limited on model time and shoot and so on. So wow. Sounds. And was that something that. We'll stick with the models just for a second.

Series B is reasonably consistent with series A in terms of, well, stylistically and things like that, but it does move forward in some ways as well. I think they started to move forward a bit with that stuff. Does that come into your head when you're considering the shoots for models?

Are you thinking, I need to make sure this looks exactly like we did in series A for consistency across all the series, or do you start to take a bit more sort of stylistic, a bit more adventure in that side of things just because you want it to look as good as it can for that particular shot?

It's a bit of a mix because for Blake's 7, all four series has had a different special effects designer. And you can sort of tell obviously like the Liberator gets kind of recycled, so it's fairly consistent throughout.

But all the ships and things like backgrounds and stuff like that do vary quite considerably. Season B was Matt Irvine, who we actually worked, we've been working on through the last couple of. Working with over the last couple series. And his.

I think season two probably had some of the most consistent effects to me and I. Part of that was just Matt blitzing through them and using project like rear projection and things like that. And we also.

Matt had asked us to kind of keep it relatively close to what he had done as well. And also like there is. And there's an element of that, like I don't want to completely erase what had come before.

So season one was relatively colorful and things like that, partly to kind of emulate the two dimensional star backgrounds with the Liberator, all that kind of stuff. Season two becomes a lot more Battlestar Galactica for.

Want to say, for the want of a better word, just because Matt is very like, he, he, he enjoys the science part of science fiction so he like, he wants everything to kind of look, feel very realistic and grounded. Season three, we're going to bring some of that color back in with nebulas and things.

So there'll be a vague consistency through it, but it will also. There'll be a subtle difference between each season.

Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense.

I guess as a, as a, as a creative person, it's what I assume anyway, it's for this kind of work you do want to have that consistency because people are going to binge watch this stuff across, you know, if they're going to do a Saturday or a weekend free, it's like I just watched Blake's 7, like, all the way through from start to finish. I guess you do want to have that consistency through as you move through, but at the same time. Yeah. Sort of feeding your creative juices, I guess.

You don't just want to be a machine and just churn out shots off the conveyor belt. There has to be that. A little bit of creative flair, I guess. Is that the right phrase for you?

Yeah, it's the sort of thing like, even with the best intentions, it's almost impossible to go into something like that and not have a bit of yourself in it. And with me, I do a lot with moving cameras, and I like foreground objects and background objects and stuff like that.

But also in terms of Blake's 7, because there's so many stock shots, sometimes that does kind of compromise the storytelling a bit. Like, for instance in Shadow, where the Liberator is plunging into the atmosphere and then pulls up.

In the original version, it is just a crash zoom on the Liberator in space, whereas we actually having it coming out of the atmosphere, like, with, like, flames behind it. So little. Little things like that help. And I think also like things. The battle and Hostage is another good example because you don't really like.

As much as the dialogue lays out what the Federation are doing, they're basically trying to run the Liberator through a gauntlet. You don't get that impression from the footage.

So being able to have pursuit ships strafe past the Liberator as the Liberator's flying through it was quite fun.

Yeah, it sounds great. That shot you mentioned of the Liberator escaping the atmosphere with the flames behind it and so on. I think that's. And listener.

I'll stick a link in the show notes to Chris's website.

I think on the page you put together on your website for some of the shots from series B, is that the shot that there's a Liberator that's like, you know, being burnt up. It's sort of atmosphere and flames behind it.

Oh, that's in Hostage. That's the dust cloud. Yeah, that was. That was quite fun because, uh, that's the model in front of a blue screen.

And then we just, like, put lights on it. And then in cg, I was able to put all the smoke effects on it. And I just love. I love how, like, fast it looks as well. Mm.

Yeah, it's definitely got motion. You can tell that it's. It's absolutely. Yeah. Hauling ass, that one. It's. You can see and there's Another shot actually on your.

On your website, which I wanted to ask you about, did you take inspiration for this one where it's got a platform and it's like a nice sunset? I think it's sunset in the background and it's got a ship landing on it. It looks very Return of the Jedi.

You know, the slave one, Boba Fett shot where he's taking off and it's sunset or it's sunrise.

To be fair, that's actually all mad, Ervin, because there was. Whenever they came to do Voice from the Past, however things had worked out, they had some extra budget and they had some extra time.

So Matt got his rear projection slides of, like, the sunset from his house and had shot that sequence for Voice from the Past. So whenever we came to redo it, we actually kept it very close to what Matt had had. And, like, that's the original model.

Matt had built us a new landing pad as well. So, yeah, no, that's all Matt and us keeping it quite close. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Like, if you wanted the Chris Thompson version in Killer, we built a new salvage ship. Which is this bad boy. And it's. Because in the original, this ship is.

It's represented by stock footage from Deliverance when it's launching and then when it lands, it's stock footage of London landing at night. And basically I was like, well, this is a good opportunity to do something new. So what I got was I asked Richard Ashton to come up with some ideas.

He vaguely drew this, so I modeled it. And the idea is that the front of it is based on the original concept art for the London in its original form.

And then the back of it, it's more like a space shuttle, which is the kind of thing that Matt would do. So it's. And very much season one in the front, season two in the back.

Wow. Sorry, listener. A bit of jealousy moment. You can't see this, of course, but yeah.

And we end up shooting this one outside at my friend's farm. So whenever you see it landing and taking off, it is a completely practical shot.

Okay, Right. Wow. So cool. That's probably going to be the words I use throughout. I did this in our first interview. Every five bloody minutes.

I'm like, oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. But it is so cool. Let's move over to.

Actually, before I talk about the visual effects side of things, which I know you love as well, are there any other model shots that you're particularly proud of for series B? When you look back at it. You think?

Yep, nailed that one for season B.

The Liberator arriving in space world is one that we got asked for in Redemption because obviously that was all an opportunity to do something quite new, so.

Because obviously in the original it is stock footage of a plane landing at Gatwick, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the Liberator doesn't like land or anything like that, so.

And yeah, having it sort of come in, in that slow dock with the arm coming out and then having it rip off on the way out, like, whenever I sort of finished that, I did feel very good about it. The. The Andromedean fleet. Just checking you guys have made it all the way through season two at this point, have you? Or are you still making.

Yes, we're. Yeah, we're done.

Yeah, I'm not spoiling anything, so.

Nope.

The Andromedan fleet as well was quite fun from the point of view of, like, the original is infamous. And even Matt was like, please change it. Like, we want it redone.

And in a somewhat fit of rebellion, I. I got a very talented papercraft maker called Callum Ward to build the original fleet, like, every single ship from it. So we ended up reusing this original fleet, like, with a couple of new ships. Like, I had a new Andromedan battle cruiser made up, which some.

See if I can reach with my head.

Yes, here we go. This is the best part about doing podcast interviews with people like Chris, by the way. This is the best bit. Oh, yes.

Here we go.

Wow.

So this is based on the original four ship at the front. And then I just wanted to make it look a bit more imposing. So I've added these, like, horizontal wings and it glows from the inside.

And then I replaced the very top of it with a CG rotate doofred angle kind of thing. But this just kind of gives it a bit more an opposed, imposing feel.

While also it kind of basically, when season three comes along, obviously there's a massive battle at the start of it and it gives us something a bit more consistent to have in that. So it was quite nice to be thinking. Be fairly forward thinking about it to, you know, make sure that the.

The payoff at the end of Star one, because it is one of my favorite episodes, matches what you get in Aftermath, which in the original version was just a sequence of every single stock photo, stock footage shot from the show previously.

Yes. Yeah, okay. Makes sense. Also, please don't drop. I'd hate to be our podcast, the one where you drop one of those models. I love it.

But it makes me slightly nervous when you start picking up those things.

But it is so funny because there's one side of it which would be like, if I go to Matt's, for instance, and we. Because he has a lot of his old miniatures, and, like, I'd be, like, holding it really, really gently.

And, like, Matt and Mike Tucker would just be like, here we go, Drill. Like, take it apart. Ripping bits off, putting bits on again. And he's just like,.

Yeah, that makes me slightly nervous watching that stuff.

They know what they're doing, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

You mentioned that shot actually in Redemption, where I think back in the day, due to time or money or both, they just used some stock footage of nighttime landing at Heathrow. We mentioned that. We spoke about that for quite a few minutes, actually, on that when we reviewed that episode. So that was a huge.

Because the way that Adam and I, my co host, Adam, we watch these episodes is we watch them through first, as in, like, purist mode, I guess you call it, with the original stuff.

And then we go back afterwards and we either just watch it through again with all the new visual effects and model shots, or we just go through and just watch the effects stuff to see what's changed and whatnot.

So when we got to that bit in the rewatch and you had completely done away with that stuff and you did the arm and everything, that was one of those moments where it was like, yes, this is what exactly these guys are here to do. It's just to take those things that were. I guess nobody lost sleep over it back in the day. It had a certain charm about it and stuff like that.

But fast forward to now. It just makes so much more sense to have shots like that.

Well, according to Matt, apparently there was just nothing in the script because he would do his shot breakdowns and things. And, yeah, literally there was nothing to film.

So that's why whenever he was quite surprised himself, whenever he got to see the episode and it had the shot. The. The stock footage in it.

Oh, so there's just nothing, Just a hole in the script?

Yeah, well, basically, I think there's just a bit of it goes in and then they dock and then they go ahead.

I see. So that's filling the gaps. Gotcha. Okay, excellent. Let's move on to some of the visual effects stuff for series B.

Did you have similar question for the model stuff? Really? Did you have more time? Were you able to dive in and do some cool stuff that you perhaps didn't have a chance to do on series A.

Just trying to think like there was a few bits and pieces, because series A, we did cut a couple of things like the head and the jar in the web and things like that, which we didn't really have time to engage with.

Whereas for season B, I was able to get my friend and puppeteer Ben Page to do us a new claw for weapon, because I think the original one was kind of an ice Warrior claw that they'd recycled, whereas he did something a bit more spider like, which we wouldn't have had time to do like on season. Season one. Broadly, though, I think I. I think. I think we had a bit more easier time of.

It was really one thing, because I remember one of the things that super slowed me down on season one was all those shots in Breakdown. There's a lot of shots of people walking in front of a static photo at the Liberator outside the space station.

And I remember that took me days to kind of rotoscope them all out and rotoscope the new Liberator in. Whereas there was nothing quite like that in season two. There were. They didn't break out the CSO screen quite so much, which I thank them for.

So, yeah, I think. I think I may have actually had an easier time, even though there was more shots, I think.

But, yeah, it's just your normal teleport up, teleport down, screen goes wibbles. I did dial back the teleport effect a little bit, just because that's the.

That was the thing that sort of got the most pushback, I think, from the fans. But even then when season two came out, there was barely any in terms of that. So I guess they expect it now.

Right. I reach. Yeah. There is a difference, isn't there?

Yeah, a little difference. It's not particularly huge.

Yeah, I was gonna say it's a subtle. Yeah, I really like that, that teleport effect. The first. The very first time we saw it. I meant.

Excuse me, saying to Adam in that episode, the first time we saw it, I was like, yep. Did you notice the subtle change in the teleportation? And he was like, yeah, of course, yeah.

Um.

So, yeah, it's. I can't imagine why would you get pushback on. It wasn't. I wouldn't say it was ott.

I think it was.

I think it was the biggest deviation, I think, which was what got people because, like, the logic behind it was because there's a very big lighting change in the teleport whenever, like, it gets used in the original. So what will happen is that if the camera's facing towards the teleport operators, the lights will.

Could dip down, a huge orange glow will come up and then. But that usually won't be represented on the side where everybody wibbles and then disappears. So that's why it is there.

And some people really like it. I think.

I think if there's obviously a big debate when it comes to doing alternative special effects and that is like this, should we be doing this at all? And when people who are obviously in the no camp see stuff like that, which is quite different, I think that is kind of what sets off the.

No, you shouldn't be doing this. Stop. So I think that's where a lot of it comes from.

I think the other side is preference at the end of the day, like the planetside teleport is the same, it's just slightly more 3D.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think the.

The good thing about these Blake's 7 sets, though, is I don't know who made this decision was to include both versions of the episodes, because it's not like a George Lucas thing, is it, where you make the changes and that's it. You will watch, you know, this newer stuff. So, yeah, I think it was. I think it's great that you can.

If you are one of the, you know, you prefer the old original, as it were, stuff, then it's all there, isn't it, to enjoy still?

I think so. I think at the end of the day, that has to be the caveat. The original version needs to be available.

And in these instances, the original version is also the default. You have to turn on the new effects.

And from an archive point of view, I think that's completely fair because ultimately it's the original version of the episodes which we're trying to elevate.

And then if you want this additional material, like, you have to go other routes because I know obviously there's a Star wars situation, but also there was the Star Trek situation, because on some versions of Star Trek, the original series, you had the ability to change back to the original episodes, but there's a lot of the DVD versions where you couldn't. Like, it was just the remastered ones. And obviously that got the fan base a little bit.

Oh, this feels like you're trying to replace as opposed to give an alternative. So, yeah, I think that's. That's a factor. And like, sometimes it's not entirely feasible.

Like, we just did warriors of the deep for season 21 and the special edition has new effects and stuff, whereas the regular edition, well, the new edit has the new effects and the regular edition doesn't.

And that's just because it would have been so much work to do the additional set of effects for the original version that we kind of just decided to prioritize the one.

Okay. Yeah, it makes sense.

And one of the other things that's cool about the either version that you watch for Blake is the picture restoration stuff that Paul. Paul Venises has done on these doesn't go too ham fisted in terms of color grading and. And all that stuff.

It still looks reasonably close to the original one. It doesn't. Because you mentioned some of the Star Trek remastered stuff. I believe there was a problem with. I don't think it was Next Generation or.

No, the original series. I think when that came out, the remaster, it was. Everything was super, super oversaturated and the color grading was really bad.

And so you had this sort of double whammy of sort of forced effect shots without having the original versions. Plus the remaster just looked really bad and all that stuff.

So fortunately for you guys, with the working on the Blake's 7 stuff, it looks exactly as you would expect it to look without being too crazy, if that makes sense. You know, you're not sitting there thinking, oh my God, this looks like they've tried to make it look like a show that was shot yesterday.

It still adheres to that original artistic profile, which is really good.

And for whatever reason, like Blake7 just looks better than Doctor who these days. And I don't know why that is like part of it.

Like, I guess the original sets were really vibrant, but yeah, like it just for some reason, I know some, in some instances, some of the film survives.

But yeah, like even just watching just episodes like Remember Deliverance and not Deliverance Redemption and things like that, like, it just does look really sharp and really colorful and really vibrant, but in like a natural way, which I do enjoy.

Yeah, yeah, Snap. Yeah, it does look good. In terms of working with some of the guys that you did before. Was it a big team effort? Like before you.

You mention Matt Irvine and Mike Tucker.

Yeah.

So it was in our England group we had Mike Tucker, Matt Irvine, Jeremy Bishop, who was our DP on the England stuff and then making the models up in Chesterfield, Richard Ashton built us obviously the new Liberator in that freighter ship. And he's been building new models for me for season three and four.

And then over in the Belfast side, we've got myself, we've got Andrew Clements, Ben Page, Conor Flanagan and Ryan Wade. And we're all.

And then for season two, it was mainly any of the spaceships that didn't survive, which to be fair, Matt does have most of them, but stuff like the Federation scout ship, so we build a new one of those. And yeah, mainly just the Liberator herself, really gotcha.

So, yeah, quite a few people involved as before.

Oh, and Callum Ward as well, doing our Andromedan fleet.

Oh, yes. Yeah, you mentioned. Yes. And so more. More shots to do for series B and presumably moving forward throughout the. The remaining seasons as well.

More shots to do. Bit more time to do it, which is great in the planning side of things.

I think I forgot to ask you this in our first interview, but when you get, say, I don't know how the process works in terms of sort of teeing you guys up to actually start working on it when you get the green light, etc.

But in your head, because you're fans of the show already and you've obviously watched it all through already, do you already know in your head, like, okay, I know for that episode I'm gonna do this effect, or I know we're gonna do that.

So is there like a planning stage with you guys where you go through every episode and you pick out all the bits that are gonna need new stuff, new models, new effects? Do you already know that as a fan in your head?

Pretty much like what I've been doing on these is I've been watching the show with Andrew Clements just because he's not seen it before, so just kind of having that initial watch through his fans, remembering what this was all about and stuff like that. And then I'll do a second watch through and that will be in Adobe Premiere and I'll just be making notes on a Google sheet and just have the list.

And I'll just do a very basic description of what the shot is and maybe a little bit of a additional bit just to kind of be like, this is what I want to do. And then whenever the episodes, the final remastered version of the episodes comes in, I'll just kind of go through it.

Like, sometimes I'll know exactly what I want the shot to be.

Sometimes if it's just a stock Liberator goes from left to right, I'll just kind of come up with something like, either with the footage that we have, or I'll make a note to shoot some new stuff at the next major shoot we do.

Right.

So there's not a whole lot of, I guess Discussion on it. Like, I'm given a fairly free hand to do what I want, really.

Okay, nice. Because I'm not sure how it works with other shows and other remasters and stuff like that.

For some reason in my head, I always had visions of you guys sat around a big table with a projector and you got production people and all that stuff. And it's like, Yep. Pause it here, please, Chris. Okay, we're gonna need a new Liberator shot here. So timestamp that and do that. But I guess it's just.

They give it to you and you're like, you're the guy. Go and do your thing.

Well, I think it's really interesting because my career has been quite strange because I get sort of an unprecedented level of control over these sets in terms of. Or freedom, I guess, is the better phrase, where they do kind of unless.

Because ultimately I've got to run everything past Pete McTighe, who's kind of the quality control coordinator on these things. And so if there's something that doesn't. It doesn't look right or doesn't make sense, he'll flag it and send it back.

But beyond that, I'm able to kind of just do what I want as much as I want to a degree, and I don't really have to run it through anyone.

Whereas Rachel Tatalay, who works on the Doctor who series, has been putting out a lot of directing sort of videos recently, and I find them quite fascinating. And there's one she was doing about a shot from the Star Beast, which was a drone shot of the battle with the Vorth, the Varath, I think they were.

And then the drone comes up and then takes a left. And then you see the Doctor, the meep on everyone walking through this attic window.

And she was talking about how they almost didn't do the shots because of, like, cost and breakdowns and stuff. But then they did do the shots, but they wanted to have Wrath soldiers, like, flying through. Flying through screen.

And it ended up being this massive debate between production and the VFX houses. And they were, like, trying to cost it and trying to work it out. And in the end, what they did is that they were able to cost.

Reusing animation from one of the previous shots and just having them move through frame. And my brain is like, okay. Pete would have just been like, can you do this? And I would have been like, yes.

It would have been a much quicker, simpler sort of thing, rather than having to have these back and forths and having to consider Canning the shot and stuff.

And I'd heard from Mike a bit that the industry's slowly moving towards this thing where, like, there no one can make a decision, like, without having it go through 12 producers or something.

So I think I'm quite lucky in that regard that I have this unprecedented level of freedom and I don't have to make compromise upon compromise upon compromise upon compromise beyond the technical level that we're at. And like, by the looks. By the. By the look of the other creatives that work on this, this is apparently more fun, what we're doing.

Well, yeah, it sounds just incredible just to have that. What's the word to use? It's like if somebody just says to you.

Because the job that I do, which is like sort of software development and website and apps and all that stuff, typically there's a lot of constraints. It's very much. You have this design system, you have these things, you do that. So it must feel really freeing to just.

Just think about, you know, I'm just gonna have a cup of coffee, look at this bit. Yeah, I'll probably do that on this shot and stuff and not have to go and check with 15 people.

And you mentioned about the industry shifting to this kind of chain of decision making, which in my industry you have to go through quite a lot as well. And I can tell you, I would give.

I'll cut my salary in half if I could just go to, you know, go and work for somebody that just said, yep, here's the thing, we want. Just go and go and do that. So is that something that's. Would you. Would you go to a.

Or work on a project where you had constraints, or is this a much more preferred way of working for you?

I think it's a much more preferred way.

Like, I think to a degree, I wouldn't necessarily mind a project that had constraints, though I have been somewhat spoiled by what's been happening up till now. But. No, yeah, I think, because obviously there's a degree in most art that you do have to make a certain degree of compromise.

And I think if producers and stuff are paying for stuff, they do have a right to get the way. Get what they're looking for. But I think with what's happening on these sorts of things, I do appreciate just the level of freedom that they give me.

Yeah, that's very cool. And did you get any pushback from Pete on. On certain things that you had to go and redo, or was he fairly happy with most of it on this one?

He was fairly Happy? I can't really think of anything that really got a pushback.

Every so often he'll sort of mention that a parallax of a planet's not quite working, or an asteroid shot doesn't quite work or something like that. But there was nothing particularly big. I think we didn't lock heads on anything on this one, so.

Okay. Yeah, that's a pretty cool answer. No, I just nailed. Just nailed it.

No, I just did it. It was immediately the best and moved on.

That's great.

And just to bring both of these things together, then the model effects, the visual effects, bringing them together, when you combine those things in 99% of these shots.

I guess when I interviewed you before, we spoke about not necessarily consistency or things like that, but trying to get that look and feel right in terms of making like, just little subtle things, like intentional jitter here and there, a bit of softness, things like that to make it kind of, you know, fit the mold, if you like, of. Of a. Of a classic TV show. Was that something that you still had as like a. Not. Not a part of the brief, per se, but you just.

You felt like that was something that you. You wanted to carry on instead of this ultra clean, modern looking feel?

Yeah, things like grain and jitter and things like that really, really help.

I think particularly one of the big concerns about shooting stuff digitally is that it doesn't really have a film look and it can really stand out in some ways. So by adding stuff like grain and jitter, it does unify everything in the frame.

So suddenly everything has the same kind of noise on it, and hopefully it looks like it's in the same shot as opposed to a bunch of elements stuck together.

Yes, it does. So mission accomplished with that stuff. Yeah, because I know that was. Yeah, you spoke about that in our first interview, so.

And I'm assuming that that's something that you're.

You don't have to go into too much detail, but the upcoming series for Blake, is it something that's like a layered thing where it's like, okay, we'll do the. Well, I'll plan in what I want to see for this shot in the upcoming series, and then I'll put the effects on. We'll do that.

And then is it like a thing that sort of sits at the cross, the top of everything?

It's like, okay, so Paul's doing this bit for the live action stuff, and I'm just gonna keep that sort of, you know, bit of grain, a bit of noise, a little bit of intentional Jitter. Is it something that guides you as you go through everything, or do you do it on, like a shot by shot basis?

I tend to have a kind of a procedure I'll just know to be like, right in after effects adjustment, layer film grain to 0.2, transform to 25 frames a second, 0.5, that kind of thing. Like, it's. I just sort of know on autopilot what to fire into the thing. And then I think Paul does some additional work after that.

Potentially the main thing is to not overdo it because if Paul is stabilizing shots and I'm adding film jitter, suddenly you can very quickly kind of go a bit AWOL with it. But no, I think. I think we have a nice process at the minute.

Yeah. And I guess that's just stuff that comes with experience. Right. Because you've done this a lot, not just with Blake, but with other stuff as well.

I've been trying to work it out because I think I've probably done over 2,000 special effects shots of the BBC at this point.

Wow. Yeah.

Because it was season 21 was 470, season 25 was 320. And then the various. I think Fang Rock was 175. Season 20 was over. Just over 100. And then.

Yeah, like, the first two seasons of Blake are about 450 between them. So season three is. It's going to be about the same.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, yeah, because you've done it so much, you've clocked up so many shots now I guess you're on autopilot in some respects.

You just whiz around after effects, like. Yep, I know what to do with that bit.

Pretty much like you sort of. You don't want to feel like you're on autopilot, I think is the key thing.

But yeah, like, it's like what I've been doing lately is going to just cafe near or down the road for a couple of hours, doing about two, three shots, and then, you know, moving on to the next thing.

Yeah. Guy walking past you getting his coffee. Oh, that guy's doing some. Some interesting coloring in on his computer.

Little does he know that your shot is going to end up, you know, in front of millions of people.

You say that like I was working in the Mac, which is a big art center in Belfast, and I was just. It was literally. It was the shot from Shadow, the last shot of the Liberator, where you get that, like, pullback from it. And this guy just came.

One of the people who works There just came up behind me. He's like, is that the Liberator? And had a conversation with him about that. So, yeah, sometimes you get noticed, but not that often.

Yeah, you're like one of the sort of the heroes behind the scenes.

Yeah. I think if you want the unsung heroes, like, Ryan does all my 3D printing and he does a lot of sort of model making and painting as well.

Ben is a phenomenal puppeteer. Connor and AC are really good to have on shoots and stuff like that. It's all. Everyone pulls their weight in the team, which is quite nice.

And you mentioned some Doctor who shots there, of which there were many. And the work that you've done on these Blu ray sets for Doctor who versus the work that you've done on the Blake's 7 stuff. What's your preference?

So when you wake up in the morning, you're like, okay, today I've got all the Doctor who stuff. And then another day you wake up, you're like, okay, I've got all the Blake stuff on.

Which one of those mornings is like, ugh, or which one is like, oh, wicked. Like spring out of bed coffee?

They both are wicked, I would say.

I sometimes lean towards the Blake stuff because it's my safe space, but also there's only so many shots you can do at the Liberator before it gets a bit samey. And I think that's the real plus side of Doctor who, is that, like, every story is different. Like, you're not going to be, like.

From production design to location and everything like that. Like. And don't get me wrong, you could have a super dull story and nothing's terribly exciting. But, yeah, the Blake stuff.

The Blake stuff's a lot easier in a lot of regards, so it tends to be a bit of a comfort zone. Whereas sometimes with Doctor who, you could have those moments where you feel out of your depth. Like, there was.

There were points when I was working on the Miracle, I was like, this is terrible. And then, like, you sort of bounce back, then you get a very strong reaction of the BFI and it's like, oh, actually, this isn't so bad.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And that was going to be one of my final questions, actually, for you, is when you're working on something and you're.

You're really into it, of course, and you want to do your best work when you've then gone on to see the reactions of that, whether it's not necessarily online, because you get a lot of sort of echo chambers and Keyboard warriors and stuff.

But certainly at events where you've got an audience in front of you and you can see and feel their reaction to things, whether it's Doctor who or Blake or something else. Are there any shots that you've worked on that you were like, this is just amazing.

And then you've watched and then the audience are just no reaction. You're like, okay. And then the other end of the scale as well, like something that you worked on that was like a bit of a rush job.

And then the audience is like, wow, that's like amazing. Do you ever have moments like that?

I don't know if I've had no reaction really. Like, funnily enough, the Merkas.

The Merka kind of has both of those at one point because I remember because I was really nervous for people to see the Myrka and.

But like watching at the bfi, watching the episode, like the people have been laughing at bits between it, like the guy knocking on the door or like some of the line delivery. So I was properly waiting for people to burst out laughing when they saw the murka and it was like silence when that door came down.

So I was like, oh, okay.

Like, I don't know quite how to take this, but obviously whenever you got to the bit where Dr. Solo gets munched and it was this like almost minute long reaction that like the episode kept going where people were still laughing about it.

So yeah, I remember. Yeah, those were.

Those were good moments. I don't know. I think it's because, like, this isn't really America, so people don't necessarily cheer or anything.

That's true. Whipping and.

Yeah, yeah, like everyone. It's not as silent as it would be if it was a Japanese cinema. But at the same time it's not as like we're kind of in the middle somewhere.

I do remember actually it was season one of Blake's 7 in. It was Orac and it was near the start and it was, I think because you don't see the screen activate in seek locate the story.

You see like the planet Callisto appear on the screen. It just sort of wibbles into frame and somebody in the background went, ooh. And I was like, okay, fair enough. I didn't think of that one.

That's cool though, isn't it? Do you mentally log that stuff or do you just. Yeah, that's that project done and out.

The door and stuff like that. I think it sort of goes in the. It's because, like, as a.

The way I work, I don't get an immediate reaction from shot, unless it's Pete sending me an email. So having that in person stuff, like seeing that reaction at the BFI Dynamica, it's going to live with me forever.

Because that was really, really nice. Whereas on. And even that little reaction with that screen popping up was. Was really nice.

But I do tend to just, like, the thing arrives, the Blu Ray arrives from the BBC, it goes in the shelf and I'm on to the next thing. Like, it's very rare that I have time between projects these days unless I kind of enforce it.

Right, gotcha. Yeah. So, yeah, that's not. That's not a bad way to look. You don't want to be stuck on.

You don't want to dwell on stuff when you've got some really cool things in the pipeline to get stuck in. So just a fascinating chat on Blake7 and Doctor who. Is there anything else that you're working on that you're excited about?

Anything cool you've got coming out?

Well, I've just finished the Thunderbirds technical operations manual with my co writer Andrew Clements that goes out for pre order tomorrow, which probably by the time this podcast is out would be like a week ago. So there's that. And that's available at the Gerry Anderson store.

And yeah, beyond that, I guess just keep an eye out for Blake's 7 Season 3, when it eventually materializes.

Yeah, when that drops, which we've all pre ordered, by the way. All the other Blake seven people that follow on socials and the other crazes and so on. I think.

Yeah, as soon as that, that announcement dropped, we were all on there to get that pre ordered.

So, yeah, and I'm looking forward to people getting a proper look at it as well because, like, Lee's done some wonderful artwork.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. The package design and all that stuff. Yeah, it's beautiful. Wowzer. So, mate, I could chat to you for hours, I really could on all this stuff.

Thank you very, very much for taking the time out of your day to show me. Sorry, listener. To show me a few little model sneaky shots and to dive into your very clever creative brain. It's been very cool.

So thank you so much, Chris, for.

Joining us and thank you for having me again.

Cheers. And there you have it.

That was my interview with Chris Thompson to go through all of the fantastic details and behind the scenes and some insight into what Chris works on and his team to get us, the viewer, those amazing updated visual effects and so on.

So a massive thank you once again to Chris for taking the time out of his day to chat to me about all things Blake's 7 and a little bit of Doctor who and some other bits in there as well. And I'm sure it won't be the last time that Chris is on this podcast and I think we'll wrap it there for the final time for our second season.

There you go. That's all of our second season stuff now done and dusted. Thank you so much to all of you that have stuck with us throughout Series B.

It's been great to talk through all the episodes individually, go through those in detail, pick out the bits that I loved which was most of them, the bits that Adam loved, which again is most of them, and our wrap up episode last week where we waxed all things Blake's 7 Series B and all the details. It was great to chat about that. And lastly, I know I said thank you many times but another thank you to Chris for that wonderful interview.

We will be back towards the end of the year once the Series C Blu ray set has dropped.

We'll go through all of the episodes just like we've done in the past two seasons here, give you our reviews and our scores and some trivia and all the things. So we would love it if you could follow this podcast in your preferred podcast app of choice.

Just hit the subscribe or the follow button, whichever button is in your app. That way you'll get a notification when new episodes drop of Federation Strike.

We're on the socials too on Bluesky and X there are link in the show notes or just do a search for ake7 podcast. You'll find us on there. And we love chatting Blake7 with all the other people in on those communities.

So get involved, come and give us a like and a follow and chat all things Blake's 7. And if you've got a moment to leave a review or a rating in something like Apple podcasts or rating on Spotify or podchaser.com something like that.

That'd be amazing. So thank you so much to those of you that have done that already. Some very kind words. Thank you so much.

And with that being said, have a great summer and we will see you when we return for our third season of Federation Strike. A journey through Blake's 7. Sam.