#British fantasy TV

[joncronshawauthor]

Magic, Myths, and Misfits: A Journey Through British Fantasy Television

Whether you’re a wizarding world devotee or a chronicler of Narnia, if you’re in the mood to mix a bit of televisual magic into your high fantasy diet, you’ve landed in the right place. Here’s a list of ten British fantasy series that are as alluring as a freshly brewed cuppa. Doctor Who This one’s older than your granny’s favourite rocking chair. With a time-travelling alien who changes faces…

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#alternate realities #apocalypse #Arthurian legend #BAFTA-winning #Being Human #British fantasy TV #Doctor Who #Good Omens #high fantasy series #His Dark Materials #In The Flesh #Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell #magical lands #Merlin #Misfits #Philip Pullman #supernatural shows #televisual magic #The Fades #The Worst Witch

[david-tennant-in-chairs]

Je t'aime, Jean-François Mercier

#david tennant #david tennant in chairs #legs for days #just like all the limbs #Jean-François Mercier #spies of warsaw #good lord he's beautiful #curly hair david is a special treat #also he looks so sexy when smoking #it's gross in real but so delicious in fantasy #soft scottish hipster gigolo #playing a french military spy #with a British accent #the power of TV/movies! #honestly this show was super slow and boring but he's the right kind of sad and beautiful #the DT special as it were #i want to summit him #1930s fashion is a good look on him

[morganhopesmith1996]

Imagine this is the look on the toymakers face when he see’s you coming into his shop again and again ♥️

#the toymaker #doctor who the toymaker #villian #doctor who villian #neil patrick harris #behind the scenes #doctor who #imagine #toymaker x reader #toymaker x you #the toymaker x reader #the toymaker x you #doctor who the 60th anniversary #doctor who 60th anniversary #the 60th anniversary #60th anniversary #russell t davies #bbc #bbc doctor who #bbc one #sci fi and fantasy #scifi #fantasy #doctor who 60th specials #Doctor who 60th anniversary specials #Doctor who the 60th anniversary specials #60th anniversary specials #the 60th anniversary specials #tv show #british

[takaraphoenix]

Seeing Lou and Siobhan fight over whether raspberry mustard or grape jelly is more weird is so funny because I have never heard of either of these things.

This season is just The Most cultural study into both American culture and British culture, because this is like the fifth thing to come up this season where Siobhan is weirded out by American culture and the others are in return weirded out by whatever British thing Siobhan brings up to counter and I am just sitting there, weirded out by both but also deeply fascinated by them.

#Adventuring Party #Fantasy High Junior Year #American Culture #British Culture #Food #it's wild though because I spent... all my life #watching American movies and TV shows #many set in high schools. yet I feel like THIS is #the most Deep Dive into American high school culture?? #and it UTTERLY FASCINATING #and also disturbing and confusing and unsettling

[melinoegoddessofghosts]

Guys, I binge-watched Lockwood & Co. and now I don't know what to do with my life.

I've purchased the book series, and it should be here soon, but I want more of this show so bad!

It has vague (v. vague) Percy Jackson vibes, in that it's a young adult urban fantasy with extremely snarky protagonists, but it's also just so unique.

It's a great concept. (Ghosts that only kids can see, creating a world that necessitates child soldiers and forces children to grow up too fast.) It has great characters (They're all so funny, and somehow the romance of two of the main three doesn't third wheel the other one). It scratches that young adult urban fantasy itch that seems to be really hard to pull off without it feeling contrived or self-aware.

And it is soooooo British. I love it! (Seriously they are always either drinking or talking about tea. Always.) The main romance is cute and respectful and sweet, and NEVER HYPERSEXUALIZED!!!

I love this show so much. So excited for the books to arrive so that I can start reading them. Fingers crossed it gets a season 2!

#lockwood and co #lockwood & co #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood & co netflix #netflix #based on a book #bookblr #british #british tv #tea #romance #locklyle #ghosts #urban fantasy #ghost #percy jackson

[lifewithaview]

Caitriona Balfe and Mark Jeary in "Outlander (2014) The search

S1E14

Ian has survived the ambush and has returned to Lallybroch telling Claire that Jamie has been taken prisoner by the British. She and Jenny set out to find him and soon come across the British patrol. They quickly spot Taran MacQuarrie but there's no sign of Jamie. They intercept a British courier and learn that Jamie has in fact escaped. While Jenny returns home to care for her newborn, Claire is joined by Murtagh Fraser and they set off in search of Jamie. Murtagh's approach is to let their presence be known and once Jamie hears they are about, he will contact them. He presses Claire to sing in pubs - she uses a very modern melody - but contact is slow in coming. When she does finally get the long-awaited message, it turns out to be from Dougal MacKenzie and he has bad news - Jamie has been caught and is being held in Wentworth prison.

#Outlander #2014 #tv series #the search #s1e14 #Caitriona Balfe #Mark Jeary #british courier #drama #fantasy #romance #time travel #searching #fortune teller #gypsie #Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy #tracking #dancing #just rewatched it

[severalowls]

Unfortunately lordings of the powerings seems to just be basically fine and if you take it on its own merit outside of the review bomb trainwreck its basically just A TV Show and I don't think there's much point inventing things to make fun of it for because there's no way that it's living up to the Media Franchise Launching Merch Juggernaut Everybody On Earth Watches level they're banking on and would require for it to even begin to make a fraction of its budget back and sustain further seasons. Because it's just basically fine. And it needed to be revolutionary. But its just a TV show.

#a streaming show cannot reach that level that was a cable TV phenomenon that GoT basically marked the end of #stranger things approached it but only because of some very blatant social media viral marketing #and the inherent mass appeal of teen adventure nostalgia wank #where lotrop can't bank on nostalgia because it HAS to be legally distinct from the beloved movie series #things ive seen criticised actually so far: #a test footage promo reel being presented as the shows opening #a scene where elves look weirdly formal (theyre elves) #and the fantasy races falling into victorian british national/class stereotypes of irish/scots/regional english #which is just a problem with the genre tbh and it seems less blatant than most because it isnt also being racist about it

[weirdlookindog]

Myrte and the Demons (1950)

#myrte and the demons #fantasy #kids movies #tv movies #british weird

[kai-j-moriarty-author]

Distant Tardis Noises

Hello and welcome, Like many people, I’m a fan of Doctor Who. My first introduction to the series was with Christopher Eccleston with the 2005 reboot (I believe I started watching around 2010, so I had plenty to watch and get caught up). It was a fun departure from what I normally watched. I enjoyed getting to learn about the (at the time) nearly 50 year old series about a time traveling alien…

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#2023 Special #a retrospective of my connection to a british tv show nearly twice my age #bbc #catherine-tate #David Tennat #david-tennant #Doctor Who #fantasy #Ncuti Gatwa

[gloomiedyke]

Top Sit-Com Dramedies:

1. Schitt's Creek

2. Letterkenny

3. Ted Lasso

4. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

5. Heartstopper

~

Top Fantasy/SciFi Shows:

1. Good Omens

2. Our Flag Means Death

3. Willow

4. Star Trek: TOS

5. The Sandman

6. What We Do In The Shadows

7. The Good Place

8. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

9. Warrior Nun

10. Charmed (OG)

11. Star Trek: DS9

~

Top Animated Shows:

1. The Owl House

2. Arcane

3. Steven Universe

4. Gravity Falls

5. She-Ra Reboot

6. Helluva Boss (+ Hazbin Hotel)

7. Avatar: The Last Airbender

~

Watchlist So Far:

- Over The Garden Wall

What other suggestions do y'all have for my watchlist? I have severe ADHD and escapism is my main coping mechanism, so hit me

#shows #series #tv #comedy #drama #dramedy #fantasy #scifi #british tv #canadian tv #american tv #watchlist

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Oooh! A great Gavin Finney (Good Omens Director of Photography) interview with Helen Parkinson for the British Cinematographer! :)

HEAVEN SENT

Gifted a vast creative landscape from two of fantasy’s foremost authors to play with, Gavin Finney BSC reveals how he crafted the otherworldly visuals for Good Omens 2.  

It started with a letter from beyond the grave. Following fantasy maestro Sir Terry Pratchett’s untimely death in 2015, Neil Gaiman decided he wouldn’t adapt their co-authored 1990 novel, Good Omens, without his collaborator. That was, until he was presented with a posthumous missive from Pratchett asking him to do just that.  

For Gaiman, it was a request that proved impossible to decline: he brought Good Omens season one to the screen in 2019, a careful homage to its source material. His writing, complemented by some inspired casting – David Tennant plays the irrepressible demon Crowley, alongside Michael Sheen as angel-slash-bookseller Aziraphale – and award-nominated visuals from Gavin Finney BSC, proved a potent combination for Prime Video viewers.  

Aziraphale’s bookshop was a set design triumph.

Season two departs from the faithful literary adaptation of its predecessor, instead imagining what comes next for Crowley and Aziraphale. Its storyline is built off a conversation that Pratchett and Gaiman shared during a jetlagged stay in Seattle for the 1989 World Fantasy Convention. Gaiman remembers: “The idea was always that we would tell the story that Terry and I came up with in 1989 in Seattle, but that we would do that in our own time and in our own way. So, once Good Omens (S1) was done, all I knew was that I really, really wanted to tell the rest of the story.” 

Telling that story visually may sound daunting, but cinematographer Finney is no stranger to the wonderfully idiosyncratic world of Pratchett and co. As well as lensing Good Omens’ first outing, he’s also shot three other Pratchett stories – TV mini series  Hogfather  (2006), and TV mini-series The Colour of Magic (2008) and Going Postal (2010). 

He relishes how the authors provide a vast creative landscape for him to riff off. “The great thing about Pratchett and Gaiman is that there’s no limit to what you can do creatively – everything is up for grabs,” he muses. “When we did the first Pratchett films and the first Good Omens, you couldn’t start by saying, ‘Okay, what should this look like?’, because nothing looks like Pratchett’s world. So, you’re starting from scratch, with no references, and that starting point can be anything you want it to be.”  

Season two saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

From start to finish 

The sole DP on the six-episode season, Finney was pleased to team up again with returning director Douglas Mackinnon for the “immensely complicated” shoot, and the pair began eight weeks of prep in summer 2021. A big change was the production shifting the main soho set from Bovington airfield, near London, up to Edinburgh’s Pyramids Studio. Much of the action in Good Omens takes place on the Soho street that’s home to Aziraphale’s bookshop, which was built as an exterior set on the former airfield for season one. Season two, however, saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including the bookshop, record store and pub, to minimise reliance on green screen.  

Finney brought over many elements of his season one lensing, especially Mackinnon’s emphasis on keeping the camera moving, which involved lots of prep and testing. “We had a full-time Scorpio 45’ for the whole shoot (run by key grip Tim Critchell and his team), two Steadicam operators (A camera – Ed Clark and B camera Martin Newstead) all the way through, and in any one day we’d often go from Steadicam, to crane, to dolly and back again,” he says. “The camera is moving all the time, but it’s always driven by the story.” 

One key difference for season two, however, was the move to large-format visuals. Finney tested three large-format cameras and the winner was the Alexa LF (assisted by the Mini LF where conditions required), thanks to its look and flexibility.  

The minisodes were shot on Cooke anamorphics, giving Finney the ideal balance of anamorphic-style glares and characteristics without too much veiling flare.

A more complex decision was finding the right lenses for the job. “You hear about all these whizzy new lenses that are re-barrelled ancient Russian glass, but I needed at least two full sets for the main unit, then another set for the second unit, then maybe another set again for the VFX unit,” Finney explains. “If you only have one set of this exotic glass, it’s no good for the show.” 

He tested a vast array of lenses before settling on Zeiss Supremes, supplied by rental house Media Dog. These ticked all the boxes for the project: “They had a really nice look – they’re a modern design but not over sharp, which can look a bit electronic and a bit much, especially with faces. When you’re dealing with a lot of wigs and prosthetics, we didn’t want to go that sharp. The Supremes had a very nice colour palette and nice roll-off. They’re also much smaller than a lot of large-format glass, so that made it easy for Steadicam and remote cranes. They also provided additional metadata, which was very useful for the VFX department (VFX services were provided by Milk VFX).” 

The Supremes were paired with a selection of filters to characterise the show’s varied locations and characters. For example, Tiffen Bronze Glimmerglass were paired with bookshop scenes; Black Pro-Mist was used for Hell; and Black Diffusion FX for Crowley’s present-day storyline.  

Finney worked closely with the show’s DIT, Donald MacSween, and colourist, Gareth Spensley, to develop the look for the minisode.

Maximising minisodes 

Episodes two, three and four of season two each contain a ‘minisode’ – an extended flashback set in Biblical times, 1820s Edinburgh and wartime London respectively. “Douglas wanted the minisodes to have very strong identities and look as different from the present day as possible, so we’d instantly know we were in a minisode and not the present day,” Finney explains.  

One way to shape their distinctive look was through using Cooke anamorphic lenses. As Finney notes: “The Cookes had the right balance of controllable, anamorphic-style flares and characteristics without having so much veiling flare that they would be hard to use on green screens. They just struck the right balance of aesthetics, VFX requirements and availability.” The show adopted the anamorphic aspect ratio (2:39.1), an unusual move for a comedy, but one which offered them more interesting framing opportunities. 

Good Omens 2 was shot on the Alexa LF, paired with Zeiss Supremes for the present-day scenes.

The minisodes were also given various levels of film grain to set them apart from the present-day scenes. Finney first experimented with this with the show’s DIT Donald MacSween using the DaVinci Resolve plugin FilmConvert. Taking that as a starting point, the show’s colourist, Company 3’s Gareth Spensley, then crafted his own film emulation inspired by two-strip Technicolor. “There was a lot of testing in the grade to find the look for these minisodes, with different amounts of grain and different types of either Technicolor three-strip or two-strip,” Finney recalls. “Then we’d add grain and film weave on that, then on top we added film flares. In the Biblical scenes we added more dust and motes in the air.”  

Establishing the show’s lighting was a key part of Finney’s testing process, working closely with gaffer Scott Napier and drawing upon PKE Lighting’s inventory. Good Omens’ new Scottish location posed an initial challenge: as the studio was in an old warehouse rather than being purpose-built for filming, its ceilings weren’t as high as one would normally expect. This meant Finney and Napier had to work out a low-profile way of putting in a lot of fixtures. 

Inside Crowley’s treasured Bentley.

Their first task was to test various textiles, LED wash lights and different weight loadings, to establish what they were working with for the street exteriors. “We worked out that what was needed were 12 SkyPanels per 20’x20’ silk, so each one was a block of 20’x20’, then we scaled that up,” Finney recalls. “I wanted a very seamless sky, so I used full grid cloth which made it very, very smooth. That was important because we’ve got lots of cars constantly driving around the set and the sloped windscreens reflect the ceiling. So we had to have seamless textiles – PKE had to source around 12,000 feet of textiles so that we could put them together, so the reflections in the windscreens of the cars just showed white gridcloth rather than lots of stage lights. We then drove the car around the set to test it from different angles.”  

On the floor, they mostly worked with LEDs, providing huge energy and cost savings for the production. Astera’s Titan Tubes came in handy for a fun flashback scene with John Hamm’s character Gabriel. The DP remembers: “[Gabriel] was travelling down a 30-foot feather tunnel. We built a feather tunnel on the stage and wrapped it in a ring of Astera tubes, which were then programmed by dimmer op Jon Towler to animate, pulse and change different colours. Each part of Gabriel’s journey through his consciousness has a different colour to it.” 

Among the rigs built was a 20-strong Creamsource Vortex setup for the graveyard scene in the “Body Snatchers” minisode, shot in Stirling. “We took all the yokes off each light then put them on a custom-made aluminium rig so we could have them very close. We put them up on a big telehandler on a hill that gave me a soft mood light, which was very adjustable, windproof and rainproof.” 

Shooting on the VP stage for the birth of the universe scenes in episode one.

Sky’s the limit 

A lot of weather effects were done in camera – including lightning effects pulsed in that allowed both direct fork lightning and sheet lightning to spread down the streets. In the grade, colourist Spensley was also able to work his creative magic on the show’s skies. “Gareth is a very artistic colourist – he’s a genius at changing skies,” Finney says. “Often in the UK you get these very boring, flat skies, but he’s got a library of dramatic skies that you can drop in. That would usually be done by VFX, but he’s got the ability to do it in Baselight, so a flat sky suddenly becomes a glorious sunset.” 

Finney emphasises that the grade is a very involved process for a series like Good Omens, especially with its VFX-heavy nature. “This means VFX sequences often need extra work when it comes back into the timeline,” says the DP. “So, we often add camera movement or camera shake to crank the image up a bit. Having a colourist like Gareth is central to a big show like Good Omens, to bring all the different visual elements together and to make it seamless. It’s quite a long grade process but it’s worth its weight in gold.” 

Shooting in the VR cube for the blitz scenes .

Finney took advantage of virtual production (VP) technology for the driving scenes in Crowley’s classic Bentley. The volume was built on their Scottish set: a 4x7m cube with a roof that could go up and down on motorised winches as needed. “We pulled the cars in and out on skates – they went up on little jacks, which you could then rotate and move the car around within the volume,” he explains. “We had two floating screens that we could move around to fill in and use as additional source lighting. Then we had generated plates – either CGI or real location plates –projected 360º around the car. Sometimes we used the volume in-camera but if we needed to do more work downstream; we’d use a green screen frustum.” Universal Pixels collaborated with Finney to supply in-camera VFX expertise, crew and technical equipment for the in-vehicle driving sequences and rear projection for the crucial car shots. 

John Hamm was suspended in the middle of this lighting rig and superimposed into the feather tunnel.

Interestingly, while shooting at a VP stage in Leith, the team also used the volume as a huge, animated light source in its own right – a new technique for Finney. “We had the camera pointing away from [the volume] so the screen provided this massive, IMAX-sized light effect for the actors. We had a simple animation of the expanding universe projected onto the screen so the actors could actually see it, and it gave me the animated light back on the actors.”  

Bringing such esteemed authors’ imaginations to the screen is no small task, but Finney was proud to helped bring Crowley and Aziraphale’s adventures to life once again. He adds: “What’s nice about Good Omens, especially when there’s so much bad news in the world, is that it’s a good news show. It’s a very funny show. It’s also about good and evil, love and doing the right thing, people getting together irrespective of backgrounds. It’s a hopeful message, and I think that that’s what we all need.” 

Finney is no stranger to the idiosyncratic world of Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

#good omens #gos2 #season 2 #interview #gavin finney #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #gavin finney interview interview #s2 interview #bts #fun fact #british cinematographer #british cinematographer 2023 #jon hamm #2ep1 #2ep2 #2ep3 #2ep4 #2ep6 #2i1i1 #job's minisode #1941 minisode #1827 minisode #2i6i7 #bentley

[ibrithir-was-here]

How the heck is there not more talk about Tanith Lee??

Like my gosh, the woman wrote, according to her wiki, 90 books, over 300 short stories, two World Fantasy Awards, and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award/Augus Derleth Award and wrote for tv shows.

Like, it's not like she just wrote a heck ton but wasn't very good! She was clearly very good she won awards, and i've read a swath of her stuff across different genres and really enjoyed most of it. I mean that even if not each one has been my cup of tea I can at least appreciate the skill and quite a lot I have truly enjoyed. She's got great prose and style and imagination. Not everything obviously was a banger, but they've all been at least well written, which is harder to come by in writing than you might think.

But nobody ever seems to talk about her?? And I feel like the fantasy crowd on here would really enjoy her stuff. The woman has done stuff in pretty much every genre from what I can see, but I never see her listed on fantasy authors like Clive Barker or Diana Wynne Jones or Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett or Diane Duane even though she was writing at the same time and has a similar sort of '80s Doing Cool Stuff with Fantasy vibe' I feel like people who like those authors would enjoy though she's very much her own style of author.

Anyway this was really just me putting out a rant that such a prolific and talented author seems to have fallen by the wayside and I think it's really a shame

Heck she even did a witch-queen fighting againt vampire Snow White a whole decade before Neil Gaiman did his phenomenal Snow Glass Apples and it's also excellent, give a look here:

#tanith lee #fantasy authors #fantasy books #70s fantasy #80s fantasy #90s fantasy #british fantasy #British writers #i dunno how to tag i just want this woman to be remembered darn it #Youtube #i hope its ok to tag the authors mentioned #not trying to spam but like also want the fan crossover to get people interested in her again? #i dont know why i'm taking this so personally xD #neil gaiman #diane duane #terry pratchett #clive barker #diana wynne jones #vampire snow white

[morganhopesmith1996]

Me: 😍

#neil patrick harris #the toymaker #doctor who the toymaker #villian #doctor who villian #the giggle #doctor who the giggle #doctor who #doctor who the 60th anniversary #doctor who 60th anniversary #the 60th anniversary #60th anniversary #doctor who specials #Doctor who 60th anniversary specials #doctor who the 60th anniversary specials #russell t davies #bbc #bbc doctor who #bbc one #disney #disney plus #sci fi and fantasy #british #tv show #british tv show #british television #television #fantasy #scifi #science fiction

[table-top-horror]

Rereading Dirk Gently for the 3rd time and idk why no one has attempted a straight adaptation of the story, it could work

#The only 2 adaptations (TV I mean) only consist of loose ideas and don't actually translate the book #British one takes small ideas and the basic character of Gently and Macduff and put them into a setting #And the American one just takes the ability and name of Gently and sort of incorporated the Sci fi and fantasy in the book #*puts them into a realistic setting

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil!

I just went to the Fantasy exhibition at the British Library (which was fantastic and anyone reading this with the opportunity should go and support the library after the cyber attack) and saw lots of wonderful things relating to your work.

Some of your notes on Coraline were on display and I was wondering about how you tend to write now. Given the rise of the PC in the intervening decades, is your work now almost all written on computers or do you find writing on paper still to be most effective? I know a lot of writers who rigidly stick to one option but others who vary between notebooks, computer, phones, voice recordings etc and it's sort of fascinating how everyone has their rhythm.

Also big thanks to the doppelgänger who runs this tumblr account and gets such accurate answers despite Neil Gaiman's lack of social media!

Oh, we had computers back in the longago. The first book I wrote on a computer was Don't Panic! in 1986. The first third of Coraline was written on computer. And then in 1992 we moved to America, and Coraline was the book I was writing in my own time (because nobody was waiting for it) and I slowly realised that I didn't have any of my own time any more.

So the Coraline notebook in the British Library's fantasy exhibition is the book I bought in around 1998 and which lived by my bed, and in which I wrote about 50 words a night to keep Coraline going.

These days I normally write something in longhand first unless I don't. (Tragically, and it really is a tragedy for me, I've actually, somewhere in my travels in early January, lost the Good Omens TV notebook, so I need to start a new one.)

#I'm not desperately worried about spoilers because it wasn't written in my legible for anyone else handwriting #but still

[lifewithaview]

Sky (1975) What Dread Hand

E4

Finding Sky unconscious, Arby, Jane and their friend Roy rush him to hospital, where his life is put in further danger by Goodchild. However, he may be closer to finding the location of the Juganet.

#Sky #1975 #What Dread Hand #Ep4 #aliens #danger #Goodchild #tv series #mini tv series #teens #scifi #fantasy #British tv series #old #video #Sky tv series #just watched #Youtube