Mike Tucker (born in
South Wales) is a Welsh
special effects
Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual wo ...
expert who worked for many years at the
BBC Television Visual Effects Department, and now works as an Effects Supervisor for his own company, The Model Unit. He is also the author of a variety of
spin-offs
Spin-off may refer to:
*Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work
*Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity
* Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...
relating to the television series ''
Doctor Who'' and novelisations based on episodes of the television series ''
Merlin''. He sometimes co-writes with
Robert Perry.
Effects work
Tucker's early work for the BBC was as a holiday relief assistant on the 1982 history series ''Timewatch''. Following this, he became a full-time member of the BBC Visual Effects Department working on practical effects and models for a range of BBC programmes including ''
Casualty
Casualty may refer to:
*Casualty (person), a person who is killed or rendered unfit for service in a war or natural disaster
**Civilian casualty, a non-combatant killed or injured in warfare
* The emergency department of a hospital, also known as ...
'', ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...
'', ''
EastEnders'', ''
The Singing Detective
''The Singing Detective'' is a BBC television serial drama, written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon and directed by Jon Amiel. Its six episodes are "Skin", "Heat", "Lovely Days", "Clues", "Pitter Patter" and "Who Done It".
The ser ...
'', ''Proust'' and ''
Tomorrow's World
''Tomorrow's World'' is a former British television series about contemporary developments in science and technology. First transmitted on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003. The ''Tomorro ...
'' among many others. He was one of the principal effects crew for ''
Red Dwarf'' series 1 - 7 and worked as an effects assistant on the final four series of the original ''Doctor Who''. His association with ''Doctor Who'' continued long after the series was "rested" by the BBC, working on the
Children in Need special ''
Dimensions in Time''.
He became a fully fledged effects supervisor in the early 1990s, handling the effects for shows including ''I Was a Rat'', ''999 International'', ''Raging Planet'' and ''Twister Week''. Starting to specialise in miniature effects he went on to handle model sequences for ''Egypt's Golden Empire'', ''Disasters at Sea'', ''Nelson's Island'', ''Billy and the Fighter Boys'', ''Hiroshima'' and ''The Brighton Bomb''.
In 2005, Tucker became the first person who worked on the original series of ''Doctor Who'' to also work on the revived version starring
Christopher Eccleston, as model work supervisor, work which continues to the present day. Following the closure of the BBC effects department in 2004 he set up his own company The Model Unit-based initially at
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...
before moving on to Wimbledon Studios in 2012. As a result of the closure of Wimbledon Studios in 2014 the company returned to Ealing Studios once more.
The Model Unit has contributed miniature effects sequences for varied projects such as the
Munich air disaster segment of BBC's ''Surviving Disaster'' series, ''Krakatoa - The Last Days'', also for the BBC, ''Moonshot'' and ''Primeval'' for ITV, ''Human Body - Pushing the Limits'', ''Clash of the Dinosaurs'' and ''Last Day of the Dinosaurs'' for the Discovery Channel and the feature film ''Atonement'' for Working Title Films.
On 23 November 2013 the BBC Broadcast a special 50th Anniversary episode of ''
Doctor Who'', titled "
The Day of the Doctor
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
".
Mike Tucker's Model Unit was responsible for the miniature effects in the feature-length special which was broadcast on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
and simultaneously in many countries and up to 1500 cinemas in the UK.
Nominations & awards
In May 2006, Tucker won a
BAFTA Craft Award for his special effects work on the drama-documentary ''Hiroshima''.
In July 2008 Tucker was part of the team nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Television Series for his work on the "Strength" episode of Discovery Channel's ''Human Body - Pushing the Limits''.
In April 2014 Mike Tucker's Model Unit won a BAFTA craft award for ''
Doctor Who'': "
The Day of the Doctor
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
", along with Milk VFX, Real SFX
He has been nominated five times for an RTS Craft Award for his work on ''999 international - Missing in Action'', ''The Brighton Bomb'', ''Horizon - Last Flight of Columbia'', ''Human Body - Pushing the Limits'' and ''Doctor Who'' - "The Day of the Doctor".
Writing work
Tucker's first writing work was co-writing with
Sophie Aldred
Sophie Aldred (born 20 August 1962) is an English actress and television presenter. She has worked extensively in children's television as a presenter and voice artist. She played the Seventh Doctor's companion, Ace, in the television series ''D ...
the non-fiction book ''Ace!'' about the final seasons of the original ''
Doctor Who''. This was quickly followed by the short story "Question Mark Pyjamas" in the second volume of the
Virgin Decalog
The ''Virgin Decalog'' books were collections of short stories published by Virgin Publishing based on the television series ''Doctor Who'': they gained their name from the fact that each volume contained ten stories (although the last collectio ...
anthology series: this was the first story that Tucker wrote with his longtime writing partner Robert Perry. This was followed by several stories for the
BBC Short Trips
The BBC ''Short Trips'' books are a collection of short story anthologies published by BBC Books based on the television series '' Doctor Who'', following a pattern established by Virgin Publishing's '' Decalog'' collections. Three volumes wer ...
anthology, again all co-written with Perry.
In October 1997, the first book in Tucker and Perry's self-styled Season 27 run was published as part of
BBC Books
BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasti ...
'
Past Doctor Adventures
The ''Past Doctor Adventures'' (sometimes known by the abbreviation ''PDA'' or ''PDAs'') were a series of spin-off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series '' Doctor Who'' and published under the BBC Books impri ...
series. The book, ''
Illegal Alien'', was originally to be based on a script which was in consideration for production had a twenty-seventh season of ''Doctor Who'' gone ahead. Tucker and Perry continued to write their Season 27 stories, with the novels ''
Matrix'' (1998), ''
Storm Harvest'' (1999), ''
Prime Time'' (2000, written by Tucker alone) and ''
Loving the Alien
"Loving the Alien" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie. It was the opening track to his sixteenth studio album ''Tonight''. One of two tracks on the album written solely by Bowie, an edited version of the song was released as a singl ...
'' (2003).
The fourth book in the series, ''Prime Time'', was Tucker's first novel written without Robert Perry, and instigated an arc that continued in
Dale Smith's ''
Heritage
Heritage may refer to:
History and society
* A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today
** Cultural heritage is created by humans
** Natural heritage is not
* Heritage language
Biology
* Heredity, biological inheritance of physica ...
'' before ending in "Loving the Alien", for which Perry returned. It sparked some small controversy amongst ''Doctor Who'' fans for stating that the
Ace
An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...
's last name was Gale: Ace's surname was never established on screen, but her creator
Ian Briggs suggested that if one was needed then Gale should be used as he saw the character as a parallel to
Dorothy Gale
Dorothy Gale is a fictional character created by American author L. Frank Baum as the protagonist in many of his ''Oz'' novels. She first appears in Baum's classic 1900 children's novel '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' and reappears in most of it ...
from ''
The Wizard of Oz''. However, the
Virgin New Adventures
The ''Virgin New Adventures'' (NA series, or NAs) are a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. They continued the story of the Doctor from the point at which the televisio ...
established after the end of the original series that Ace's last name was McShane, and Tucker's change was interpreted as an attempt to remove the New Adventures from the nebulous ''Doctor Who'' canon. Tucker, however, stated that the error was due to him not having known of the McShane last name, and later books have attempted to establish that Ace's full name is Dorothy Gale McShane.
Between writing his novels, Tucker also wrote for
Big Finish Productions'
audio adventures, writing the audios ''
The Genocide Machine'' in 1999 and ''
Dust Breeding'' in 2001. ''Dust Breeding'' featured the return of the Krill, a race of aliens created for ''Storm Harvest'', and also Bev Tarrent, a character from his previous audio. Tucker has also written for Big Finish's
Bernice Summerfield
Bernice Surprise Summerfield (later Professor Bernice Summerfield or just Benny) is a fictional character created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length '' Doctor Wh ...
and Tomorrow People range of audios.
During this period, Mike also had a brief stint as a university academic, giving multiple lectures on science fiction and other topics. Later, in 2003, Tucker and Perry also wrote the
novella ''
Companion Piece'' for Telos Publishing Ltd.'s range of
Doctor Who books
Lists of books based on ''Doctor Who'' cover different types of book in the '' Doctor Who'' media franchise.
These include novels, audiobooks, and short story anthologies. The lists are organized by publisher and imprint.
''Doctor Who'' nov ...
, again for the
Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series '' Doctor Who'', and the final incarnation of the original Doctor Who series. He is portrayed by Scottish actor Sylvester McCoy.
...
but introducing a new companion,
Catherine Broome.
His ''Doctor Who'' book, ''
The Crawling Terror'', published by BBC Books, is one of the first books to feature
Peter Capaldi
Peter Dougan Capaldi (; born 14 April 1958) is a Scottish actor, director, writer and musician. He portrayed the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor in ''Doctor Who'' (2013–2017) and Malcolm Tucker in '' The Thick of It'' (2005–2012), for ...
's
Doctor
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
. His previous work for that range include the
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the main protagonist of the BBC science fiction television franchise ''Doctor Who''. He is played by David Tennant in three series as well as nine specials. As with previous incarnations of ...
novels ''
The Nightmare of Black Island'' (his first published ''Doctor Who'' book not featuring the Seventh Doctor) and ''
Snowglobe 7''. His follow up novel featuring the Twelfth Doctor was 'Diamond Dogs'. He has also contributed comic strips to the magazines ''
Doctor Who - Battles in Time
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
'' and ''
Doctor Who Adventures
''Doctor Who Adventures'' (abbreviated as ''DWA'') was a British magazine devoted to the science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. Originally published by Immediate Media Company, the magazine launched in 2006 to accompany the revived ...
''.
Away from ''Doctor Who'' fiction he has novelised the ''
Merlin'' episodes "Valiant", "The Labyrinth of Gedref" and "The Traitor Within" for Random House, co-authored (with Mat Irvine) the ''History of the BBC Visual Effects Department'' for Aurum Press and co-authored (with Stephen Nicholas) 'Impossible Worlds' a guide to ''Doctor Who'' concept art.
In December 2019,
Big Finish Productions released the audiobook ''Star Cops: The Stuff of Life''.
Written by Tucker and based on the 1980s television series
Star Cops
''Star Cops'' is a British science fiction television drama series first broadcast on BBC2 in 1987. It was devised by Chris Boucher, a writer who had previously worked on the science fiction television series '' Doctor Who'' and ''Blake's 7'' ...
, it bridges the gap between their first two series of audio dramas. A second audiobook - "Star Cops: Sins of the Father" - was published in December 2021.
References
External links
*
The Model Unit official websiteInterview with Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tucker, Mike
British science fiction writers
Welsh science fiction writers
Welsh dramatists and playwrights
Welsh short story writers
Special effects people
Year of birth missing (living people)
BAFTA winners (people)
Living people
Writers of Doctor Who novels