Survival started off as a Doctor Who fan film project by my friend Daniel Pederson, which was ultimately hijacked and warped down a dark path by myself and my friend Will. Set more so in the classic Doctor Who universe than the modern Whoniverse that everyone knows and loathes, two doctors, but not the definitive article, you might say, discuss the impending doom of their race.

They are all terminally ill due to a pandemic on their world, and the only way to survive the contagion on their homeworld is by placing the squishy brains of their fellow people into the metallic and robust bodies of androids who may or may not dream of electric sheep. It seemed that we were building a Cybermen origin story at least according to Daniel’s script.

Daniel Pederson who wrote the short project was doing it, for a university project. I and fellow Doctor Who fan Will Grantham, (known for the Absorbaloff, which he created and I became) assisted in its filming and creation. I and Will adapted the project slightly and made it a little more horrifying than Daniel had really wanted.

Dan was persuaded against his better judgment and to my glee to make the film as gory as possible, which I think really sold the narrative. The story was actually a violent one by Doctor Who’s standards, which was Dan’s fault as he actually wrote it, and featured the death of one of the characters at the hands of a killer android. In the Colin Baker episode, Attack of the Cybermen, Lytton has both of his hands crushed by Cybermen, falling to the floor and leaving a smear of blood. Naturally I pounced on this excuse to bring in one of the secret experiments I’d been working on!

I had crafted some awesome fake blood, a combination of food dye, milk and saliva, and with this in hand and over everything in the scene, we started work on making the project as horrifying as possible. All of us wanted the story to be a dark one, with the audience questioning which character was ultimately in the right.

I think overall the film worked quite well. Will is no stranger to acting and did a great job of bringing across his character’s conflict with mine. He wasn’t hurt during the making of this film, and I emphasise the word: this.

Overall, I was so happy with the project that I begged Daniel to have the right to upload it and put it on YouTube. Considering it’s violent and graphic nature, it’s probably one of the darker things I have worked on, and I am very happy to be able to bring it to you!

 

 

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