MIKE KELT
INTERVIEW EXTRACT

Summer 1986
This interview was first published in DWB 36/37.
Interview conducted by Tim Collins.
Permission granted by Mike Kelt.

I worked on all the Blakes 7 episodes after I joined the BBC. That was another show with no time and no money. It's something the BBC have to sort out and come to grips with because gone are the days when you could do a Blakes 7 type shot with a black circle round the Liberator and that sort of thing. This new DOCTOR WHO is the first to use a sophisticated system of shooting a model and nobody else has done it to that extent, except to a minor extent on Captain Zep. But now it's been done properly on DOCTOR WHO I'm hoping that this will be a precedent. On this new series Star Cops I'm working on at the moment we hope to do at least half of it using motion-control. All the space-flight sequences will be done with that.

How much of this new 'star cops' has actually been done? Has anything been shot yet?

Nothing has been shot yet and we start in August. The first three scripts are finished and in production and the second three are more or less in production.

Do you think it has potential?

Yes, it has great potential. It could be very good. The scripts so far are good and the first director Chris Baker has got the right ideas. The Producer Evgeny Gridneff also has a very straightforward way of looking at it that it has to look real and that it is NOT a fantasy. Although it is set 40 or 50 years into the future, it is based on fact and of what will supposedly be happening then.

Considering the peril doctor who is in at the moment, do you think that 'Star Cops' could become a replacement?

No, it's not intended as a replacement at all. Star Cops is a bit like a replacement for Blakes 7, but I would never describe it as that. It is a series of ten episodes of 50 minutes each and each episode is a set story. At the moment they are planning, if all goes well, to do at least three series.

Is it a cowboys & injuns in space ?

No, it's not really that. It's crime in space. It assumes that in fifty years time or so - once you have a couple of space stations in orbit above the Earth and a base on the Moon of some sort - that there will be a bit of crime. It's not just based in space, although the vast majority of it will be. Therefore there is a Star Cop office on the Moon and on the space station and it is the stories of what they have to deal with and the crimes of espionage or whatever they come up against.

It sounds a bit like the Sean Connery film 'Outland'?

It is, yes. That is probably the nearest thing that has been done before to it.

So therefore if it is very realistic and not fantasy, there will be no alien races in it?

No, there's nothing like that in it. For the first series, at least, it never goes beyond the Moon. It's very contained and it's not assuming that we would be going light years across space or anything. It's based on present technology, just pushed forward a bit where necessary.

So presumably, from the special effects point of view, instead of vast quantities of alien spaceships to build, you'll just have a few space stations to concentrate on?

Not entirely. There are a couple of space stations at the minute - we're still only talking about the first couple of episodes - and there are four or five different kinds of space vehicle ; a buggy for jumping across the Moon's surface and that sort of thing. It's very expensive. It's MUCH MORE expensive than Doctor Who or Blakes 7 ever was.

How does the budget for it compare with Doctor Who?

The budget is much bigger, there's no comparison. The budget is still not big enough though ! I don't know what we're going to do at the moment. I've just finished storyboarding the model shots with the director and to actually do the ones that I wanted will cost, more than has been allocated to the special effects at this stage, but it is still fairly fluid. What basically has to happen is that they decide what they want, and if there isn't enough money we have to cut things. We are not in the game of doing things at a lower standard, so if they haven't the money they do less of it at that standard. That's my theory anyway.

Speaking about low BBC SFX budgets

It's more noticeable a problem with Doctor Who, but it's not so noticeable in my experience with other programs. For instance, Star Cops has more money. It's a bigger undertaking and it has more money than Doctor Who by a long way. Although the production team on Star Cops would say that there isn't enough money - which there isn't – there's certainly a lot less in Doctor Who.

The psychology behind 'Star Cops' is strange because it may turn out to be a great international success but the BBC don't know that, where as Doctor Who is a guaranteed international success and they know they are going to get their money back.

There are lots of people asking that question, but nobody ever comes up with an answer, or a reason.

Are you the main special effects designer on 'Star Cops'?

There is a second designer who will be joining in July, Malcolm James, but I am what they call the Lead Designer.

The original rumours were that it would be ready for autumn transmission, but you're not shooting until August are you?

We have been asked to finish the series - not for transmission because no transmission date has been fixed - by around week 12 next year, so there is a possibility they might be thinking of showing it in the spring, but that schedule is ridiculously tight and it creates all sorts of problems like the one I have now. To meet the deadline they have to edit the first 3 episodes at the end of September, which means I have to finish the first 3 episodes of model filming by then. At the minute nothing has been built. Most of the models haven't even been designed yet and the storyboards haven't been finished, and so it's a joke !

What other projects are there?

To be honest I'm not sure what they all are. The way the BBC works is that we get an annual plan. It does name programmes but not always. It just tells you what commitments Visual Effects will be expected to provide in general terms, such as 50 designer days per programme. Star Cops has something like 500 designer days.

Do model shots look better on film rather than video?

There is a great debate as to whether you should shoot models on film or video tape. It is beginning to be easier to achieve the required effects on video, but at the minute in the BBC it can't be done for technical reasons. It can be done outside, but because of various things that the BBC do to cameras- which mainly boil down to them saving electricity - there are problems.

The spaceship shots in Season 23 are done on 35mm film and probably all the Star Cops stuff will be on film, certainly on 35mm. I would very much like to shoot some stuff on video, but not at the BBC because they aren't geared to doing that sort of shot and to expect a video camera to cope with a model is asking too much.

Many thanks to Mike Kelt for kindly giving permission for the use of this extract.
This is merely an extract from the interview which is mainly about Doctor Who. This portion is used for illustrative purposes and remains the property of the copyright holder, DWB ©.