Three Months In
Art Is Art & Life Is Devious
Happy March
It’s the third month of 2026 and things keep tick tock (ing) along! Devious episode 6 is still pushing towards it’s April deadline for the Doctor Who Convention at Gatwick. Super Charly is still growing; on the script front and the tec required to make the picture.
Those are my main priorities at present, personally I’m looking forward to April and then I will get an opportunity to give Super Charly my full attention. I made a promise to David that I would support and help him take Devious over the finish line and a promise is a promise. It’s been 10 years (13 years) if we take the Never Was into consideration.
Back in 2013, during Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary year I decided to pool all my filming friends from over the years and make a short fanfiction movie that celebrated the fanfiction community of Doctor Who, which we did, and great fun was had.
From there attentions turned to Devious, the long in the making fanfiction created by David and Ashley, who became friends through their mutual love of Doctor Who and with the support. The third member of the party, Stephen joined the gang, and they were off, with the help of many other fans (and begrudging partners) the epic voyage (which began in the 90s) began.
I was one of those fellow Doctor Who fans, and it was a joy to be part of the gang and all these years later I found myself becoming the fourth member of the core team, to make up the post-production crew, as we hit the ground running once the Never Was completed.
Episode one took quite a while as there were lots of discussion regarding presentation. Do we stick to 4:3 ratio or re-format and upscale to 16:9 at 1080p; which would add to the post-production time.
There was an argument which supported both, but in the end, we decided that a hybrid of the two would be best. On old style 60s/70s Doctor Who presented in a modern format. Personally, the framing of 16:9 does help elevate the material, as, at the end of the day it is a zero budget fanfiction affair and, when conceived, there was no You Tube or online communal presence which we now enjoy allowing many to share their projects far and wide (Worldwide in fact!) believing that only the people making their fan fictions would be interested in watching the final product.
With that in mind and the inspiration with all the other Fanfictions that had preceded us with their online presence, we’ve done what we could to raise our old 90’s and early 2000 footage to a watchable level.
Lots of work on David’s part and the advancement with software over the recent years have really made a difference to the final look of Devious, it blows me away with what we have managed to achieve.
On a personal note, I have achieved stuff I never thought I would. Learning to do CGI, special effects, motion capture, animation within the computer, audio restoration, and music composition (Of sorts, or as much as a person who can’t play an instrument without lots of time and re-takes!) and now the end is in sight! That alone is amazing.
The end of another chapter, but not the end of the story.
