“Would you like to visit the offices of the special effects company which creates the visuals of Doctor Who?” I was asked.

The chance to tinker around with the iconic vehicle from one of Britain’s top television exports was too much to resist.
Milk VFX has recently opened its second branch at the GloWorks building at Port Teigr in Cardiff, and is one of the many companies to surf the ever-increasing wave of creative industry businesses moving to Wales to bolster the burgeoning film and TV industry that has exploded since the return of Doctor Who in 2005.

With projects including current Matt Damon blockbuster The Martian, Sherlock, The Bastard Executioner, new Luke Evans film High Rise and ITV’s 13-part warrior drama Beowulf, it was with great excitement that I visited the GloWorks, which is also the Welsh Government’s flagship for creative industries.

Getting the chance to make Doctor Who’s Tardis materialise on screen in a scene from the BBC One show was almost too much to handle for this Time Lord lover.

And before you ask, yes, in my head I was making the grating, warped noise made by the blue police box, as I struggled to get to grips with the hellishly complicated technology this special effects business needs to function.

All I had to do was make the Tardis fade in and out in typical fashion on a rooftop from a scene which featured in last Christmas’ Doctor Who special, until it appeared solidly on the screen.

Easy, I thought. But as I took a look around the hub of Milk’s VFX action and witnessed the work being done by the staff present, I started to get nervous – this looked hard.

And for someone who can barely use a touch-screen phone – chubby fingers alert – using a wireless pen to painstakingly cut around the Tardis (courtesy of a computer program somewhat worryingly called Nuke) was not as easy as it sounds.

To create the Tardis materialisation effect, not only do you have to remove it and its shadow, but you also have to reproduce everything that’s meant to be in its vicinity, in this instance Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Father Christmas (played by Nick Frost) – all this while having shaky hands. I get nervous around new things, okay?

The trick seems to be in the layering of different components of the image and then using a slider to achieve the cool effect of the Tardis entering and leaving the picture.

The whole clip I worked on was just around four seconds long, but it took me about half an hour to get to grips with. I would love to learn more, but I fear it might be too intense to be a hobby, and I couldn’t afford the technology.

I know special effects skills are developed over years of learning and practice, but I don’t think my work would have made it into the final cut.

It was, however, quite exciting to create a famous visual effect with a legendary time machine. Next time I watch Doctor Who, I’ll have a better appreciation of how hard it is to make something appear so effortless on screen.

I also chatted to Milk’s CEO Will Cohen about why the company chose to come to Wales to open their second branch.

“I think a lot of people thought, ‘why Cardiff?’ but if they look into it, they’ll see it’s a no-brainer,” he said. “They might think, ‘who’s going to work there?’ also, but with time there’ll be a complete community. There’s some great university courses in Wales and it will take a bit of time, but soon there’ll be gaffers, directors of photography, all flooding into the industry in Cardiff.

“They want the lifestyle Cardiff can give, too. The city’s up-and-coming and within a few minutes you can be in really nice countryside.”

And he added: “A Cardiff hub for Milk is perfect to support our growing roster of work, build on our long-term relationship with BBC Wales and allow new clients to collaborate with Milk. The timing is right with connectivity now provided by Sohonet, the opening of Pinewood and the new opportunities presented by the Welsh Government. We’re excited to be able to join in with the emerging infrastructure for creative business in Wales.”

News Source: Wales Today