CREATING SPACE
Peter Wragg talks to The Short Crimson Page about creating the good ship Red Dwarf
The first glimpse of Red Dwarf by an unsuspecting BBC 2 audience in1988 had no dialogue and wasn't even funny. It was created by Peter Wragg and his special effects team at the Beeb.
The opening sequence over Howard Goodall's majestic opening theme music sees a space suited Craig Charles painting the letter 'f' of Red Dwarf on the outside of the ship. It then pulls back to see the whole painted name and scans along the side of the ship. Peter Wragg remembers creating the effect very well:
"It was something that was very ambitious but something we tried very hard to do. Unfortunately I was never happy with the way it turned out because it wasn't quite as successful as it actually could have been. The original intention was to pull back from a frame of red, Craig Charles painting, pulling back, pulling back until you eventually see the whole of the ship and it moves of which we initially tried to as one shot. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do it, so we had to do a mix in between, but sort of got half-way there and very nearly achieved it."
It was a question of mixing three different sections separately - Craig Charles painting, a large version of part of the Red Dwarf name, and the model of the ship itself.
"He was literally painting just a large panel of red. So the first shot we pulled back from a frame of red, paintbrushes coming in outlining back to him filling the frame. Then what we did, we had a large section with just an 'R' and an 'F' on with a little cut-out and then back-projected the original footage that we shot of Craig painting into that little square - so he was then put into parts of the 'f' as if he was painting it. Then what we tried to do was match up the 'R' and 'F' of Red Dwarf of the actual model to continue the pull back, but we had to get so close on the model to get the 'R' and 'F' the same size, we just couldn't do it. It didn't quite work, but it was close and I still think what we achieved was pretty good but that's just one of those things."
Spaceship builders for BBC Science Fiction shows at one time had a reputation for using anything that came to hand such as model aircraft parts, even hairdryers! But that wasn't the case with Red Dwarf. We obviously tried to get away from that situation with recognisable things, as it were. It was a case of make it as cost-effectively as possible. We managed to create the spaceship by creating the basic shape and then back-forming shapes that look interesting. But the idea was obviously being a spaceship five miles long, we never get close enough to identify exactly what you're seeing on the ship, so it was a case of creating shapes… We were trying to say this spaceship is pretty vast. Then by using optical fibres all over it we tried to create the fact that there were a lot of areas on it that were totally different.
"One of the shots I did like was the end closing credits where you move infront of it then up over the top, then run along the top of it then over the end of it and it makes it look as if it's going on for quite a long way."
Creating the look of the series also involved deciding what space would look like. Peter Wragg decided to steer clear of elaborate star fields of different coloured stars seen these days in shows like Star Trek: Voyager. (Incidentally Red Dwarf VII did see the introduction of complex CGI starfields) "My own preference is that you keep it conventional. I still prefer just black and white stars as opposed to aurora borealis and things like that [laughs]. I think in this situation, because you're doing a science-fiction comedy programme, you want to keep the model side of it as conventional as possible as to what people believe and expect to believe, to try and make the comedy work. My contribution to making the comedy work is that people are prepared to believe that they are actually in space."
Making a living out of Special Effects is obviously something that Peter Wragg enjoys. "I really do, and I have done for a long time. I started of with Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and thing like that. It's one of those things, its something I've always wanted to do and I still thoroughly enjoy it."
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