Elstree Studios

Uh, Oakley Court is at, near Maidenhead in Berkshire.

Um, and post-production was at Elstree Studios, which I, I think that those are kind of interesting to us.

But I, it, I have that Oakley Court is a Victorian Gothic used in a number of Hammer films.

Oakley Court, this is, now this is what I wrote.

didn't know anything about him.

I thought maybe I was meeting Stanley Kramer of I was doing a film in Boreham Wood at Elstree Studios.

He lived in Boreham Wood right next door.

So I went to see him in my lunch hour.

Pet.

I know, but how boring would it have been if I kept saying La Vida Zain Pet until I got it? La Vida Zain Pet fact, the Dusseldorf building site was actually built on the site in Elstree Studios that would later become the EastEnders.

Oh, really? Wow.

So, hold on, it wasn't filmed in Germany? That's right.

And then you see Colin Firth swimming underwater.

And those shots were filmed at the Elstree Studios outside London in the big tank, which is obviously used for lots of different types of filming.

So big, big water tank, which they can film underwater.

So you see him swimming underwater.

I'm here." So about two weeks later after that, I found myself, after quite a long trip, 'cause I lived in Central London at the time.

So after quite a long trip from Central London, I found myself very early in the morning at Elstree Studios, which is where the, the first movie was shot.

Nobody there, big sound stage just like this building here.

And in one corner was a mock-up of the original Millennium Falcon.

It was Fox employee Norman Reynolds who suggested Finse in Norway, a mountain hamlet not reachable by road, only by rail.

While they originally planned to film the Dagobah scenes on location, eventually George Lucas would fund construction of the Star Wars stage at Elstree Studios just outside London.

Construction for the stage, which measured 1.25 million cubic feet and cost $2 million, began at the end of August 1978.

Sets were the single largest expense of the production, costing a total of $3.5 million.

Production on the Star Wars sequel remained behind schedule without Stage 3, and it was forced to rearrange its stage usage, with crew finding places to work and the then incomplete Star Wars stage, AKA Stage 6, lacking protection from the cold weather.

Compounding Lucas's budgetary woes included the recent election of Margaret Thatcher as the UK's first female prime minister, and this election caused the British pound to start getting stronger in the financial markets.

Shooting at Elstree Studios was initially thought to be a cost-saving measure for the film, but it was now turning into an additional $3 million expense.

That wasn't the worst thing Margaret Thatcher did either, just generally, but this isn't an episode on the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.

So it's a little bit different.

It's set in 1958 around Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, where they were at that time making really big movies with all the big Hollywood stars.

And our heroine is Joyce, who is a British housewife.

She has been widowed and left penniless in slightly strange circumstances.

So John Nathan Turner, the producer, had to quickly do a turnaround in order to get the show done in time and on budget.

He had to figure out a way of doing the show without filming it indoors because if he was not able to do that but rumor was that the show would not be filmed at all you know that that was it end of play um and we would not get a chance to re-record it and this was the end of the line that they were not commissioning another doctor who series so yeah it was very much to the wire and um you know there's nothing that that's kind of out of our control you just do whatever is required but he was a bit of um he was the greatest showman we did the greatest show in the galaxy and it was aptly named because John Nathan Turner was the original you know the show must go on we will find a way And he very, very cleverly came up with the conceit that as this was a circus, there was no reason not to have a circus tent set up in the car park at Elstree Studios and therefore filming could continue.

And it's little moments like that, which seems to be the full Doctor Who experience, if you like, because it is quite a surreal story.

And I think to my mind, that's why it is so fondly remembered.

I think.

This story starts just outside of London at Elstree Studios during a taping of the TV show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

You know, that's where it started.

Okay.