Videos
Transcript of the 'From Oakfiends to Ironmen' documentary
When Dr Who came to Liverpool: The making of 'From Oakfiends to Ironmen'.
Voiceover
Thank you for watching our animation. My name is Eileen and I am the voice of the character Sam. I would like to explain how we made our animation.
Me and 11 other people from the Oakfield Day Service in Anfield, Liverpool took part in the animation course in the summer of 2008.
The course was run by the WEA tutors Tina Read and Sam Hatton. Animator James Munro also helped for some of the sessions. Veronica Astor, Linda Owen, Tony Howe and Joan Jones also helped and supported the learners.
We started off researching ideas for the story. We wanted to include different types of transport in the storyline. We split up into small groups and we researched ideas using books and the internet. And then we presented our ideas to the whole group.
Over the first few weeks the ideas for our story came together. We chose the main characters for the story: Dr Who, Peggy and Sam Mitchell from Eastenders and Karl who is part of our animation group. He plays a docker in Liverpool in 1850.
Another decision made quite early on was that the story was going to involve time travel around Liverpool. Luckily for us, the Tall Ships came to Liverpool in the summer of 2008 as part of the Capital of Culture celebrations.
We went on a trip to the Albert Dock and the Liver Building. Many of the photos used in the animation were taken on that day.
Another member of our group, Donna, also went to the Wellington Dock and took the photos of the Tall Ships used in the animation.
We were lucky to be able to visit the Dr Who exhibition which came to Spaceport in Seacombe, Birkenhead. As well as giving us more ideas for the story, we have also used many of the photos we took that day in the animation.
Karl and David from our group went to Crosby to photograph the cast-iron figures called 'Another Place' by Antony Gormley. In our story these are called the Ironmen.
Holly Lodge Girls' College in West Derby, Liverpool kindly let us use their computers over the summer holidays. We were also grateful to use the computers at Arts In Regeneration in Liverpool. We used the computers to do the internet search for the extra pictures that we needed. Paula found a car from the 1910 period. Her tracing was used in the animation.
This photo of Paula shows how we all did the tracings. The photo of the car is placed in a plastic pocket and Paula is tracing around it with a marker pen. Josephine's tracing of a lady in a Victorian dress is used in the scene outside the Queen Victoria pub. Peter and Jean particularly enjoyed tracing and were both very good at it. They did most of the background pictures for the different scenes. The photos were all altered using an effect called 'cutout'in Adobe Photoshop to make them look more like paintings. For example, this photo, taken by Denise was changed in Adobe Photoshop. It was traced by Michael who then dragged his tracing onto the photo.
Everyone in the group, apart from Karl appeared in the animation as an 'Oakfiend'. We struck our scary poses and photographed each other! We all traced round the prints of our own photos. As shown by Stephen. These were then scanned into the computer and we coloured them using Adobe Photoshop.
[sound of spooky fiend noises]
[sound stops]
We swopped between working on the computers and coming up with the script for the animation. Stephen, David and Karl photographed a Doctor Who money box from different angles and Jean traced around the photos
[sound of tardis flying through wormhole]
for the scenes when the tardis is spinning through the wormhole.
[sound stops]
Apart from me as Sam, Denise played Peggy and Peter was the voice of Dr Who. It was Dave's body used in the scene where Dr Who falls back into the wheelbarrow.
As a group, we decided which sounds we needed for the animation. We found many sounds available free on the internet. We also made many of the sounds ourselves.
[different sounds being made]
Peter makes a convincing Dalek with his 'Exterminate!' It is me and Denise who sang 'Farewell' to Peggy and Karl when they emigrate to America!
[sound of singing: "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye"]
[electronic music starts
The music for the battle scenes comes from a music workshop we had with musician Marcel Musset.
[electronic music stops]
He played a soundtrack he had composed before the workshop and we all played musical instruments.
[sound of musical instruments, then battle scene music]
We used Flash to make the animation. We all had a go at bringing in the sounds and pictures into Flash. For example, here Kevin is changing the direction track of Oakfiends moving up the street. In this video I am moving the position of one of the Daleks.
Tina Read, with lots of help from her husband Bob Read, brought all our work and ideas together to make the finished animation. We really liked making this animation and we hope you enjoyed watching it.