It was a nice chance to say hi – I first met Dave a few years ago at the outrageously funny Hypotheticals panel co-run by Dave and Lee ‘Budgie’ Barnett – as Dave was in Borders Glasgow to promote Watchmen and his Watchmen book ‘How to get paid for drawing a 50-foot blue penis‘ (OK, it’s actually called Watching the Watchmen but how often do you get the chance to write blue penis unless talking about naked eskimos?)

I mentioned the fact that Dave was in town to the online editor of the Daily Record Iain Hepburn and he thought it might be a nice interview. When he mentioned he planned to record it using the Flip Mino camera, I asked if I could come along as it’s a bit of kit I’m interested in (especially after seeing it used for reporting in Afghanistan), though I’ve had my doubts about how it would compare to a ‘proper’ video camera.

Now, Iain’s going to put the full interview up at the Daily Record soon, but he’s posted a little teaser where Dave talks about his work on Doctor Who – and some scripts that were written by other comic legends like Pat Mills. Have a watch if that’s your thing and after the box, I’ll talk about what I thought about the Mino.

It’s hard to judge the colours and so on because the codecs involved in getting it onto YouTube may have stripped some detail (Dave’s shirt was definitely more colourful than the video suggests), but it looks as good as any other YouTube video I would say.

The sound on the other hand is a little bit different. Iain was asking the questions and even though he was about a foot to my left hand side, he’s hard to hear. Dave comes across perfectly fine though.

In use, it seems fairly simple – though I don’t know if I would trust the digital zoom on it – and we did have a heart attack at the end when I tried to stop recording by pressing the big red button and it frooze. Iain had a heart attack that the video would be lost. Fortunately that doesn’t appear to be the case.

I’m still not convinced that the original footage would be good enough for TV, but Iain’s going to pass on the footage so I can judge for myself (he claims it is), but for web events/web-only video I would certainly say this is a decent piece of kit. Sadly I never got the chance to compare it the N95 (T in the Park footage here) but I think they would seem similar.

The sound is the only thing, but having a slot for an external mike would defeat the purpose of this being an all-in-one/point and shoot camera. I’d say papers and PRs should be picking these up at the earliest opportunity because they are cheap and easy to use. It’s certainly easier to lug about than a full ‘proper’ camera kit.

Of course, with video, shooting’s only half the battle. You still need it edited…

Well, boy did I get who’s the new Doctor Who completely wrong then eh? In my defence – as my Tweets show – I still called it before the reveal, but there’s more of a story to it than that.

After I ran my posts on Friday night, a couple of people contact me to say that I was wrong and why hadn’t I considered Matt Smith. Now, I had heard that Peter Davison had told a fan that New Who was an unknown, but for all I knew, that meant he had never heard of Chiwetel Ejiofor, so I stuck by what I had been told.

Then someone else got in touch, pointing out that as I had got it right the last time – and was first to do so – they just wanted to point out that I was wrong this time. And that they would tell me at lunchtime on Saturday who it was on the condition that I never broke it to media or tried to profit from it.

(at this point, someone is going to call bullshit and say a) ‘what’s the point in knowing if you can’t break it to media or profit from it’ and b) ‘call yourself a reporter’ to which I say a) plenty and b) I was a reporter, I’m in PR now. If I was still a reporter for a news outlet they could have had the story six hours early, but I’m not so I didn’t.)

So anyway, this person was an unknown to me – they had good credentials, but still an unknown to me – so I was sceptical.

Anyway, true to their word they got in touch with the name Matt Smith. (and I picked it up a few hours later when I got back into an area with a signal – was out doing personal stuff). And I mulled it over because – nothing against Matt – it seemed incredibly out there as a choice. And I asked a few people, who were sceptical. And I contacted some others… who said it was possible. And I checked the odds on Betfair, which had gone nuts overnut, indicating something was going on.

So I took it to be true with a pinch of salt – but sticking to my word didn’t seek to profit from it – but told a few close friends and journalist chums who I knew wouldn’t be interested in putting it up online for the sake of a few hours of scoop, so that they knew I knew.

So I’m taking it as ‘was the first journalist to reveal to the world David Tennent was Doctor Who, was one of the first media types to know Matt Smith was Doctor Who’ and that’ll do me.

I must confess to being surprised at the choice – I really did think it would be a black actor – and as Iain Hepburn points out, what about the sidekicks?

What I have learned since from people is that the two people I mentioned were on the shortlist and auditioned – as did someone else from Firefly (it’s not my scoop to break so I’ll leave that to the person that told me). And my Beeb contacts are all being very apologetic for not getting it, but it’s not their fault – well done to the BBC for keeping it so secret.

Having said that, was Peter Davison right to leak it to a fan? I think so. Because at least the way it happened gave people a chance to find out about Matt. If he had been broken in without any warning, the online reaction would have been hilarious. (I think also for the hardcore there’s a lesson here: Who isn’t yours anymore. It’s always been an institution in the UK but now it’s up there with Coronation Street in terms of belonging to the mainstream.)

Anyway, good luck to all concerned, I’m sure it will work out for the best. There’s a couple of things from this of relevance to journalism though:

Journalism/PR Bit

1) The person who told me it was Matt Smith got in touch because he was able to see that I had nailed it right the last time and decided to get in touch with me because he could see online who I was and what I was about.

2) That person was only able to get in touch with me thanks to various online mechanisms.

The lesson here for future journalists is that: you have to be where others are and relatively high-profile about your work – ie, have it online and highlight your key strengths – so that people can come to you with stories when they want to. Note: this isn’t a complete advocacy of being online – you also have to do it in the real world. Sitting in a newspaper office all day long won’t bring you stories – and that’s a note for people who think blogging counts as journalism too: Repasting links is not journalism.

Three last thoughts:

1) This has been interesting to watch from a PR point of view. I’d love to chat to the person who devised the strategy for it.

2) If Robert Carlyle had got the gig – along with Stargate: Universe – he would never have had to work again and could have retired on convention appearances.

3) I wonder how many blogs got a spike from this over the last few days. I know I did – was there something here more businesses could have worked in to boost their online presence?

I’m shocked at the news. Well done to Matt, but so not what was expected – and I have a couple of insiders that I need to beat with a stick.

What makes it even more likely is the mental odds on Betfair and is it a coincidence that his local paper has run a piece here – http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/Matt-Smith-Man-of-many.4841468.jp

If Matt wants help in dealing with media, then he just has to drop me a line

(and yes, I acknowledge I could be getting played here…)

Now given that David Tennent is in the job for roughly a year yet, it seems terribly early to be announcing it as this is one that could have been milked for publicity worldwide. There’s nothing else on the BBC that attracts such attention globally? Who’s the next lead in Spooks? Who will play the lead in their next period costume character drama? Minor stuff compared to New Who.

There could have been lots done:

• online polls,
• red herrings,
• a tie-up with a newspaper to see who the readers wanted,
• interactive video site set up where they gave fans the chance to audition by recreating their favourite scenes,
• new showrunner Steven Moffat talking about the sort of Doctor he wants to see 

but that’s all lost now (or until Doctor 12) and it seems a terrible waste of opportunity.

I was told by a BBC insider from down south that one of the reasons for the early rush was to prevent what happened last time, where I got the tip-off about it and had it checked out and in the Scottish Daily Mirror just days after Christopher Eccleston’s debut and then the following day, everyone else ran it. Now I would love to believe that this as down to little ol’ me, but even I’m not that egotistical. More likely they are just combating the chance of a leak and are trying to control it.

However the point is there that if the deal was one over the festive period, then there was a chance of a leak over the coming months and even if you had the mainstream media in agreement not to run a story early, you couldn’t control the online element the same way.

But again, a clever disinformation campaign could have kept the identity under wraps for a while yet – remember the new Doctor won’t be on screen too much until the middle of 2010 and he won’t be filming much in 2009 (unless he’s being brought in early for some reason – Tennent is currently crocked after all)

But, apart from the worry about leaks, is there anything else that makes the timing sweet? It depends on who the new Who is – and I think the timing tells us a lot in advance of the actual reveal.

If it was Sean Pertwee, it would be seen as a decent enough announcement – lots of articles about him and his dad, looks at Sean’s roles to date, much chat about how good he could be (as you’ll get with any Doctor) and so on.

But if you go with a black Doctor, everything changes – and you get a lot more publicity in January – in part due to Barack Obama.

If it’s Paterson Joseph or Chiwetel Ejiofor – both of whom have strong enough geek credentials (though Chiwetel works better for international appeal – and foreign TV sales – thanks to his role in Serenity, the Firefly film) then it suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

It means that when the world gets round to doing all the press for Barack Obama and how black people are getting into positions never thought possible even just a few years ago, that Doctor Who is getting mentioned in those articles across the world.

There’s also 18 months of positive press publicity (and if there’s one thing I would imagine the BBC wants  just now after the Ross/Brand fiasco is some positive publicity) for the BBC for having a black actor step into the role.

It also means for those who – for whatever reason – are outraged at the idea of a black Doctor that they have more than a year to get used to the idea.

So one the one hand, the BBC could have milked this for a lot more in terms of build-up, but on the other hand, if it is a black actor, an early January reveal makes perfect sense.

The next trick is how long they’ll keep his costume and the revamped TARDIS a secret though…I just hope the BBC has grabbed all the right Twitter accounts – oops, turns out that it hasn’t, judging by this, this and this, and I wonder how long before someone goes and gets 12 and 13.

( I still have a thought that there’s a chance for James Nesbitt or Paterson Joseph) but people better versed and connected than me say that it’s down to one of the following two:

Sean Pertwee

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Now the person who confirmed David Tennent as Doc Ten for me is long gone, so I can’t say for sure, but the inside gossip – or a very well run disinformation campaign – is that as of tomorrow either Sean Pertwee or Chiwetel Ejiofor will be confirmed as the new Doctor Who.

There’s a PR angle that I’ll come back to on this in a later post. I just wanted to get my thoughts up on this just now. And I’ll have some more thoughts on both men later too…

Of course I never knew there would be a few others in it, but hey…

And you may scoff, but may I remind you who it was who revealed David Tennant was the 10th Doctor (see the comments section to read that for free), who did the first review of the new series and who revealed that Tennant wouldn’t be using his Scottish accent (most of the time)?

That would have been me. So I’m standing by this one.

And here’s the article as a 3MB PDF…

I felt duty-bound not to rush it onto the site and give The Sun a chance to run it, but it never seemed to appear. And then my laptop died. And then the website went slightly dead due to some halfwit trying to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 and making a howler of it.

Anyway, as the website is now, getting back to life slowly – and it’s nearly six months on from when I went to interview Paul – it seems a decent enough time has passed. So here’s the Paul McGillion interview, not as it would have appeared in The Sun, but a mix of questions I asked for the fans, along with the Sun version and wee bits I can remember.

(for those who are about to moan that the article contains a lot of stuff Paul fans already know, all I would say is wheesht: this was written for a mainstream audience and Paul hasn’t had a lot of exposure over in Scotland – or the UK actually, so it’s a flavour of the man. In fact there’s a question, what flavour would Paul be?)

(and if the fans don’t mind, instead of lifting the interview, could they just post the link back here please?)

(also have to say: great interview with Paul here)

Useless factoid before we begin: I posted up an interview with Iain Banks/Iain M Banks and that attracted moderate interest. Those hits were nothing – a dot on a pin on a dotted thing – compared to what happened when Paul’s name went on it.

EXCLUSIVE
By Craig McGill

HE’S travelled half-way across the universe in Stargate and Star Trek but for actor Paul McGillion, he wants nothing more than to be a corpse in Taggart.
The Paisley-born hunk might have fansites by admiring females across the globe, be chased by women at conventions and have a glamourous LA lifestyle – but Taggart is where he wants to be.
He said: “I’d love a role in Taggart, even a murdered body.
“Don’t get me wrong I’d be happier with a bigger role, but Taggart’s got such appeal and is so well known to my family that to be in Taggart would be great.
“I’ve actually just been arranging with agents to get more work in the UK as I’d love to be in more British dramas.
“Of course there’s also work like Dr Who and Torchwood and to be in them would fantastic.”
McGillion rose to rapid fame in the first few episodes of the spin-off of the hit Stargate show Atlantis.
Originally only cast for a couple of episodes he was made a recurring actor and continued to be a hit with the viewers across the globe, each episode pulling in more than 10million viewers.
But as he was starting to enjoy stardom, the rug was pulled out from under his feet.
Bosses told him that he was being let go.
He recalls: “I was surprised when they told me that the character was being let go. I had been promoted up to a series regular and then was told I was leaving again.
“I’m not going to lie – I was very disappointed, shocked and sad about it as it came out of the blue.
“But that’s acting and that’s a show like Stargate – they have to shake things up.
“Rejection is 90% of acting so you have to take your blessings where you can and to be in Stargate for three years was great and I realised that it was better to be grateful for the opportunity I had instead of being bitter about leaving the show.
“But as far as I was concerned, that was it and I set off to do other projects.”
But what no one anticipated was the reaction of the fans – and mostly females.
Outraged at the move, fans of Paul – mostly female – set up websites to save the character and emailed the studio, sending in things to the bosses.
They then topped that by hiring a pipe band to play outside the studios where Atlantis was filmed.
The first Paul knew was when a friend got in touch.
“A pal phoned me and said ‘turn the telly on right now’ and there it was on the news – a pipe band playing outside my old work.
“It was incredible.”
At that point the studio realised they under underestimated the character’s popularity and worked on ways of bringing him back for the end of season four – showing on Sky One at the moment – and the forthcoming season five, which started filming the last week in February 2008.
Paul’s delighted to be back.
“It’s great to be back amongst friends and it’s good to see the fans getting to see a character they want back in.
“And hopefully now I’m back, they won’t kill me off again, but I’m looking forward to catching up with all my old pals.
“I’m delighted to be coming back and seeing everyone again – and I don’t know what’s planned for me past these five episodes, but I would like to think that I’m not getting killed off again.
“Take from that what you will.”
That doesn’t mean it always as much fun as the fans would think. There’s been a few embarrassing moments, that have made Paul go red even so many million miles away in the Pegasus Galaxy.
“The one that alway sticks in my mind was when I was to do a kissing scene with Rodney and there we were before the take and he just grabbed me and planted one on me. Totally took me by surprise and everyone got a big laugh out of it.
(laughing)”It’s quite worrying that I can’t shake that memory”
But while he may have been given the kiss-off from Atlantis, science fiction wasn’t finished with him.
Paul was given the call to try out and audition for the role of Scotty in the new Star Trek film – and was endorsed by Chris Doohan – son of the original Scotty James Doohan.
According to Paul: “To have him vouch for me was really humbling and I owe him a pint if I get to meet him.
“I wasn’t bitter about not getting the role. It would have been fantastic and probably changed the course of my career, but that’s acting. Some you win, some you don’t and all the best to Simon Pegg.”
One thing he didn’t expect though was then to be called and told that he was getting another role in the film.
“My agent called me back and said that on the strength of the audtion they wanted to me to do another role. The director JJ Abrams wanted to find me a role.
“So I’ve done that but there’s not a lot I can say about it. It’s scenes with the new Captain Kirk and I don’t get killed off, so I could return if wanted…”
“What I will say is that I think moviegoers are in for a treat. The sets, the costumes – it all looks amazing and I don’t think anyone’s going to be disappointed.
“I’m also the first actor to go from Stargate to Star Trek, which is a nice touch.”
And while debate rages over the new Star Trek and if it’s a remake, reimagining or really something else, Paul says revisiting classics isn’t something he intends to do a lot of us – unless it’s a certain Steve McQueen film.
He said: “Classics are called classics for a reason and shouldn’t be touched. Having said that, who wouldn’t want to be Steve McQueen in Bullitt? What an incredible film that was – and how cool was he in it?”
“But for now I’m concentrating on the new season of Atlantis and having fun – I may be single but that’s no reason to be dull.
“Then I’ll be heading over to the UK to try and see what’s happening.”
Of course the plum job in Science Fiction is said to be up for grabs soon – that of Doctor Who – and would he want it?
He jumps in without hesitation: “Who wouldn’t want to be the next Dr Who? But I think it’s doubtful they would give the job to two Paisley boys in a row.
“And David has been incredible in the role. He would be a hard act to follow.
“But it would be great, as would working with the likes of Ricky Gervais. Extras and The Office were both incredible.”
One person who might not be too happy about him gaining his second doctorate is his brother – who’s a real-life medic with just one doctor qualification.
He said: “My brother just became a doctor not long after I did – on Stargate – and I used to call him and ask him how to pronounce jargon and then when he finished his studies I said ‘well done, now there’s two doctors in the family’ and the response was ‘piss off!’.
“But my family rip the mickey out of me all the time. We may have moved away from Scotland, but they still have the sense of humour that keeps you grounded.”
And while his family may not love him – or pretend not to – his fans certainly do.
And while some moan about fans, Paul can’t see him ever being that ungrateful.
“I could never see the fans as a burden or a problem.?
“As an actor, you want people to appreciate the work that you do, so how could I ever moan about people getting so engaged in the characters I play – it’s a compliment to me and to the people who write/create the characters.?
“Meeting with fans is a joy as well because they show you what they think of the character and their take can sometimes be totally different from yours.?
“There’s also another point of view that shows – from a business perspective – that I have an audience and a fanbase?
“But no, fans will never be a burden to me. I’m flattered that they take the time and spend the money to enjoy my work.”
Paul’s also concentrating heavily on keeping his workload strong, which means he won’t be at many fan conventions this year. A trip to Milton Keynes in May is as good as it got for him.
“I may manage a few more,” he says, “but the best way to find out where I’ll be is by checking my website at www.paulmcgillion.com.
“Cons like DragonCon I try to get to every second year.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky with the fans so I try to make sure that I get to see as many as possible to thank them for their support over the years – but sometimes you can’t get along because of filming or other work-related matters.”
But in the meantime, while waiting for his Taggart corpse call, Paul will just have to content himself with his treks amongst the stars – and his larks on Earth.
He chortles as he says: “David has always called the place I live the Ivory Tower – it’s a really nice flat and he’s always called it that.
“As for children in my future, well let’s just wait and see. I’m single just now and have my fun.”