15 Annoying Mistakes You Never Noticed In Doctor Who
10. The Poor Compositing Of Kroll
The go-to target when making fun of Doctor Who is the production values. Thanks to its age and constantly slashed budget, its a rich area for satire/mocking fans. And while Classic Doctor Who has plenty of effects that still hold up well so many years later, one that really takes the biscuit is the titular monster in 1978s The Power Of Kroll. The model used for Kroll isnt the problem. Its hardly Ray Harryhausen but it works considering that the brief of the largest monster ever featured in Doctor Who was never going to be easy to accomplish on a low budget. The reason its such a big mistake is how poorly its composited into the location footage. The way a model shot is added to live-action footage to create a combined shot is relatively simple in theory. Take the film of the model sequence, isolate the part of the shot you need frame by frame, and then overlay it onto the footage youre combining it with. But whoever was in charge of editing the model footage for the shots of the Kroll didnt have time for those kind of highfalutin filmmaking techniques. Instead, the footage of the Kroll model was added to the location footage by cutting both shots in half and sticking them together on top of each other. So not only is the join between the two shots incredibly conspicuous, but the Krolls tentacles frequently disappear behind the top of the location footage.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
