Tag: Fine Line

Revisiting Fine Line Doctor Who with AI

I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, thanks to reading the excellent Justyce Served by Alun Harris and Matt West, their excellent guide to the old Audio Visual Doctor Who stories produced by fans, many of whom went on to contribute to Big Finish Productions. Back in the late Nineties I was inspired by them to create my own Doctor Who tapezine stories, which eventually became CDs and MP3 downloads. I called them Fine Line Productions. and they are still available. If you are interested in hearing them please check out this earlier post. I had also recently read an amusing article where the author had used AI to create ‘improved’ box artwork for hobby games based on their titles. This has prompted me (sic) to revisit my old audios and see what AI made of them.

I entered the following prompt into chatGPT, with slight variations of style as I went: Design a textless book cover with the top third of the picture left empty for a logo to be added later. The style is illustration. The content of the picture is based on this story description: After which I pasted in the story blurb from the Fine Line website. I gave myself the rule that I would accept the software’s first attempt, unless it went seriously off-piste. Hence the variety of Doctors who appear on the following covers.

The general format I decided on was the Eighties Target book covers, simply because I liked that concept and I feel its been unfairly marginalised by the nostalgia for the influential artist Chris Achilléos. I used the marvelous Metebelis Two Target Cover Generator to finish them off.

So here are the covers I generated, together with the story blurb.

1.1 Death Deals a Hand by Gareth Preston
All the Doctor wanted to do that day was attended a key moment in human space exploration at a humble science conference. But when he hears about homeless people disappearing en masse from the capitol’s streets, he can’t walk away.
In a secret room, the mysterious Rand Gerling is building up a rich clientle around a game that is like nothing literally on Earth. A high stakes card game where the players risk the experience of death. What is the true cost of this tournament. Can the Doctor expose a hideous trade in human lives?

1.2 Shakedown by Gary Phillips
The Doctor finds himself in a grim industrial colony in the far future, where everything is subsumed by the pursuit of profit. Joining forces with the rebellious Tictac, he adopts the indentity of an Earth Examiner to investiage a murder, and uncovers an alien invasion by shapechangers.
(Tictac has had a sex change but aside from that I think this captures the story well)

1.3 Present Infinite by Lawrence Ahlemeyer
A frozen world and the ruins of a long lost civilisation may hide an incredible secret which could change the course of human civilisation, if the team exploring the site can live long enough. Some kind of monster is hunting them.
Meanwhile, the Doctor has his own problems. His TARDIS has been invaded by a mysterious man called Raman Varuna, who tells the indignant time lord that he is his new guide and protector.

1.4 The Ultimate Soldier by Paul Phillips
It almost seems too obvious. A upsurge in violent attacks by teenage boys, and at the same time a brand new video game console that is the success story of the year. The Doctor and Raman investigate and soon find themselves the target for a new generation of super soldiers, controlled by a sentient artificial intelligence.

1.5 Trick of the Light by Gareth Preston
Something very odd is happening in the wintery seaside town of Howick. Strange visitors are walking its streets and shores. Impossible creaturs are glimpsed in the waves. On the corner of the high street, an old police box has appeared from nowhere. Ben Tilvern and his friends want to know what is going on, but their search unearths some sectrets uncomfortably close to home.
The circus has come to town and the true price of its wonders is very high indeed.

1.6 Second Chance by Adrian Hudson
The TARDIS is forced down to Earth during a brutal war betwwen the millitralistic powers of the planet and a race of powerful four-dimensional beings. Soon the injured Doctor has been projected into an alternative future of peace and contentment, a future he knows he must prevent. Only a young woman called Mo can help him.
Whilst Raman must become the Doctor to save his own life. He must find a way to save the Earth when the aliens are poised for a crushing victory.

1.7 Final Frame by Lawrence Ahlemeyer
Dr Lynn Frewin is intrigued by her latest patient, a strange young man who calls himself the Doctor and talks about travelling the universe in a blue box. The Doctor is more than intrigued, he’s very worried. Why has he been committed to Lowlands, a mental health ward? Where is the TARDIS. When did he become a human man?
Just what happened when the Doctor finally went to Raman’s home planet?
(This was the story that gave chatGPT the most trouble. It kept producing covers which were too cartoonish or romantic. In the end I intervened and effectively told it what to draw. The chairs are a bit odd if you look at them closely, but ironically that suits the story, if you know what happens.)

2.1 Walkabout by Adrian Hudson
The Doctor is stranded on a desert planet and becomes caught up in a hunt for a legendary treasure. He also meets a young woman called Jenny, whose destiny is caught up with his. She wants to know what happened to the parents she lost as a child. Deep in the wreck of a space cruiser, the truth of the treasure is far stranger than anyone can guess.

2.2 Madhouse by Zoltan Dery
For years, Hammer Manor has been infamous for its atmosphere of evil. The madness of its original owner, Sir Lumley Hammer, has become part of local folklore and the mysterious deaths and disappearances during seances in 1891 and 1910 have only confirmed the house’s haunted reputation.
But now in 1935, a group of ghost hunters have arrived to apply their modern techniques to the mystery and discover the truth. By accident, amongst their number are the Doctor and Jenny. Together they must face a night of terror and solve a mystery which has been waiting since before the Stone Age, because unless they can, the future of our world may be wiped out.

2.3 The Chattath Factor by Will Hadcroft
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Jenny to a not so sleepy 19th century English village, where a vicious monster is stalking the population. In his country house, Dr Winston is working on a grand project to evolve the human race beyond sin. Mad science mixes with lust and only the time travelers can unravel the mystery. If they can’t – a new race of monsters will be born.

Because I was having fun, I decided to do some covers for stories which were scripted but remained unmade as the lives of myself and my friends moved on.

The Wreck of the Valarue by Gary Phillips
For years, historians have pondered the unexplained disappearance of The Valarue, a luxury starliner carrying celebrities and explorers. Now it appears an unnamed jungle world might be its last resting place and an eccentric group of investigators, including the Doctor’s old friend Pilbeam, have landed to learn its secrets.
Why are they soon under attack by long extinct predators? Who already knows the truth of the Valarue?
(This was actually quite a quirky light-hearted story but when it comes to covers I feel its best to go for the danger and action.)

Turf War by Gareth Preston and John Isles
The Doctor and Jenny land in near-future Moldova, now the heart of a technological revolution which the Doctor knows shouldn’t have happened. A new gang of cybernetically enhanced criminals have taken over the underworld and somehow there is a link to the the country’s revered president. When the friends investigate, the Doctor discovers an old enemy is secretly rebuilding and soon the whole world may be under their domination.
(Whilst I did not make this story as I hoped too, I eventually donated the script to another fan group called Darker Projects who did make it for their Doctor Who series, starring Mark Kalita.)

Enter the Reflection by Gareth Preston
A mysterious crimefighter called The Reflection battles the 1940’s New York underworld. An alien historian works in hiding looking for evidence of a great but notorious artist. The Doctor and Jenny answer a distress call and become entwined in a scheme that threatens every soul in the city.
(Yes it is the Doctor Who / Shadow crossover probably only I wanted. The Reflection was created by my friend Rik Hoskin, who kindly let me use him for this story.)

Mentioning Rik Hoskin, he was recently interviewed by John Freeman of Down the Tubes to celebrate 30 years of the Deathlands series, a post-apocalyptic series for which he has become the lead writer. You can read it here: https://downthetubes.net/downthetubes-exclusive-interview-author-and-comic-writer-rik-hoskin/

Interviewed by The Time Scales

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by Greg for his Youtube channel The Times Scales, a place dedicated to Doctor Who. I’d originally planned to try and keep to a disciplined hour, but we ended up talking for nearly three, so the interview is being released in two halves. You can watch part 1, about being a fan of the classic series, thoughts on the so-called Wilderness Years, and the joy of its mainstream success when it returned. We also talk about my BBV productions, Audio Visuals and my own fan audio stories. The second half will continues with more about Westlake Films, my pantomimes, the future of Doctor Who and the excellent writing advice of Georgia Cook.

We had met online via Will Hadcroft, whom Greg had already interviewed as part of Will’s promotion of his BBC audiobook The Resurrection Plant. Greg was interested in covering my journey as a creative too, so we arranged a date and had an enjoyable conversation. Greg proves to be an excellent interviewer and I think he’ll only get better. You can watch part 1 now below and I hope you get something good out of it. If you have any questions yourself as a consequence, feel free to drop me a line here or on Twitter @gazhack.

Interview on Time Scales Part 1

Doctor Who – The Resurrection Plant

It’s surprising to realise that Doctor Who has rarely used the Industrial North as a setting. We have seen adventures set in futuristic factories and warehouses, visited the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in Mark of the Rani and had a few romps into Steampunk. Big Finish has touched on it in The Peterloo Massacre and Industrial Evolution but that landscape of terraced houses, looming smoke-belching factories and municipal buildings that could be found from Birmingham to Newcastle has remained the province of Coronation Street and contemporary drama. So having the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe land on the corner of a cobbled street in Will Hadcroft’s The Resurrection Plant feels quite fresh.

Not that this is the actual North of England. In fact the TARDIS has brought our friends to Calico Three, a small habitable planet where the rural colony the Doctor remembers is in the grip of an unexpected mechanisation. What’s more the factories are capitalism run wild, with human workers mere expendable cogs in the machine. But nobody minds because on this planet everyone can be brought back to life thanks to the Resurrection Plant, even if occasionally they change gender along the way. The travellers investigate but are soon captured, just in time for a factory accident to lead to the creation of a terrifying mutation in the newly grown humans.

The author captures the the characters of the regulars extremely well. Patrick Troughton’s Doctor can be hard to capture in print, since so much of his character is in his delivery, but here he’s compassionate, curious, mischievous and has moments of righteous indignation. Jamie and Zoe both get moments to shine on their own too. The story seems to be setting up as a Frankenstein-influenced piece about Ren, a technocrat facing up to consequences of treating his workforce as commodities, together with a fearsome but misunderstood monster, but there’s a second act twist which takes us into another kind of drama, one that I was worried was going to ruin the authentic Sixties atmosphere that Will had recreated. Thankfully he skilfully avoids this.

Fraser Hines has been sharing his enjoyable Troughton impersonation for a while in Big Finish audio plays and books. It’s great to hear it again. Elsewhere he is an excellent reader in general and tells the story with animation and a good pace. Similarly impressive is the soundscape.

There are echoes of The Rebel Flesh and The Quatermass Experiment, but ultimately this is a great original adventure. It tells a story probably too difficult for the television series of the time to realise well, and instead takes advantage of the freedom of prose. An excellent addition to this year’s mini-Troughton celebration, along with the recently released animated recreation of The Abominable Snowmen.

CD cover

Will Hadcroft of course is a friend of mine and its been marvellous to see him achieve the ambition of writing an official Doctor Who story. He’s previously written several novels and many moons ago an adventure for my old fan audios Fine Line, called The Chattath Factor, which has recently been re-released on Youtube. It was a marvellous story to end my fan series on.

Doctor Who – The Resurrection Plant is available now from all good bookshops.

Fine Line Doctor Who audios are back online

Cover artwork montage

Back in the Nineties, when new Doctor Who had been absent from our televisions screens for a while, a fan mini-industry of fiction, audio and video adventures sprang up. I had become caught up in serious Doctor Who fandom in the mid-Eighties and it was in the pages of Celestial Toyroom that I first discovered adverts for the Audio Visuals, Doctor Who stories made by some of the talents who go on to found BBV and Big Finish Productions. They were extremely polished for the time and inspired me and some friends to create our own stories on cassette, selling them through fanzine advertisements. I decided to called our group Fine Line, after a quote from the marvelous comedy film This Is Spinal Tap. For me, these sonic adventures gave me a chance to write and produce credible adventures without the limitations that VHS films made in the local suburbs had.

In time, cassettes were replaced by CD-R’s, which in turn were supplanted by MP3 files. My old Fine Line website began as a way of advertising and selling my productions, and became the main means of distribution. Eventually I decided to concentrate on original work and gave up paying for the host.

Recently I have been learning up to date skills in website creation via my BSc degree apprenticeship. It’s been fascinating to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript in an organised course. The first time I was learning as I went, using magazine articles and whilst I made working pages, there significant gaps in my knowledge. In order to keep mind in the zone over the summer, I decided to create a website to host my old fan fiction projects. Audios which taught me a lot about writing, directing and seeing a creative project through.

You can find the results at http://18060801.webdevmmu.uk/ You’ll find two seasons of stories, trailers, some behind the scenes articles, and cover images and more. It’s an evolving site and I intend to add more material from time to time. Who knows I might even complete a couple of unfinished shorts we recorded back then. If you download them, I do hope you enjoy them. Love to hear what you think if you do.

Promoting Ladies in Lavender – and myself

One of the aims of this blog is to be a one stop shop for my work. It’s been busy lately, both with completing the first year of my Digital Technology Solutions Apprenticeship and supporting the last three productions of the Bolton Little Theatre season. But this does give me creative outlets: two new videos and my first self-created webpage in a long time.

Ladies in Lavender, based on the popular film written by Charles Dance and starring Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench. Adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna. I decided to go for a simple slideshow style trailer due to having limited time. Finding a good young male violinist photo was surprisingly hard. I shall also be designing the sound and operating the sound desk for that week 11th to 18th May.
Spring and Port Wine, the classic Northern comedy drama by Bill Naughton, which became a beloved Sixties Bolton movie starring James Mason and Susan George. Again a simple slideshow format, using vintage newspaper photos, a location from the film, and music from Youtube’s stock library. The music was originally intended to be “Times They Are A-Changin'” but that is not allowable due to copyright. I’m compiling the sounds for this final play of the season, but happily I am getting help on the sound desk.

Please visit Bolton Little Theatre’s website for more information about our excellent productions. You can also see more of my trailers for local am dram groups by browsing my Youtube channel.

Back in the late Nineties’ I was keen to join in the internet revolution and make my own webpage. I self-taught myself HTML and created a small website to promote my Fine Line Doctor Who audios, uploaded to the personal webspace I received as part of my NTL subscription. It was great fun but once my audio production days faded, my skills faded. One of my favourite parts of my current degree has been Web Development, and its been good to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript in an organised way, as well as updating my conception of how today’s web works.

As part of this I had to create a personal profile page as an assignment and you can take a look at it. The webspace comes courtesy of the degree course, but it is owned by me, rather than the university, and might well host a more interesting creative site in the coming months. Watch this space.