“And now on BBC1, Tom Baker stars as Doctor Who” … UK 1975. My five-year-old self, hypnotized by the blue swirling time tunnel of the opening title sequence. The Doctor’s serious face zooms away from me. The next 25 minutes are dead silent. The only noise heard, apart from a screaming Davros, exterminating Daleks and whispering Zygons, is the “psssssssst” noise from my dad’s can of beer.

“And now on ITV, Burke, Virdon and Galen try to escape the Planet of the Apes” … another surreal opening title sequence. You get the picture, right?

This is where it all began … Who made those monsters, where did they make them, and how?

Then there were the films. The original Planet of the Apes, first shown on TV in 1975. One time when it was repeated, I remember being out in the garden and my mum shouting me that “The trailer for the Planet of the Apes is on telly!” I ran so fast that I forgot I put my pet hamster, Fred, in one of those rolling plastic balls. I was so desperate to see the Apes trailer that my foot slammed down onto the plastic ball and cracked it open like an egg, leaving Fred looking up in sheer terror and shock. The same look that Charlton Heston had at the end of the trailer as he saw apes riding horses.

1976, my mum takes me to the pictures to see King Kong. And then, in 1977, a film called Star Wars … In 1982, Ridley Scott’s Alien premiered on TV and still, to this day, remains my all-time favorite film.

All this would shape what I now do for a living … create characters for film and TV. And I still do it as they would have done in the 70s. With clay and hand-made tools.

Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be lucky enough to have worked at the place where the Muppets were created and Star Wars was made. With a good cup of English tea in one hand, I will do my best to create and design someone or something for your next film or TV show.

Cheers,

Darren