Charles Daniels said:
I worked with various teams on trying to reconstruct various missing Dr Who stories, and while that is very hard stuff to do well, it would be peanuts compared to what Harmy has done.Really? I’d think that would be harder, since so much footage is actually lost, unlike Star Wars, where much of the footage was just low-quality.
For a lot of stories there are pictures taken off television at the time. For some there are 8mm off air clips - taken by fans. And for a few there are film trims and clips salvaged from other shows.
But, for some there is NOTHING. Well other than behind the scenes photos, but not a frame of broadcast.
This means reconstruction is often rather a case of making it up as you go along.
For example if you have a story set in the Renaissance you look for the same actors appearing in other productions in period costume.
All the audio for every episode exists in full, thanks to dedicated fans who recorded it on reel to reel in surprisingly amazing quality.
So a lot of times it’s just a slide show, showing pictures to match the action as close as possible. Sometimes you have a clip to add in at the correct point.
If you are very lucky you have scenes which focus on props, or close ups of Daleks or monsters firing web guns, and you can go ahead and film those scenes and slot them in.
Sometimes you can even get access to the original props.