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99-402: The series was created as a joint effort between several people and groups. Matt Burch programmed all three games in their entirety except for the registration system and various libraries. He also devised and created the scenario for the first game. Ambrosia Software , headed by Andrew Welch, managed marketing, registration, and distribution, as well as providing several external libraries used by

198-415: A "used" look. Toy cars and vans were used when filming vehicles in long shot , and vehicles built in-house were equipped with basic steering and suspension for added realism. To simulate dust trails, the crew fitted the vehicles' undersides with miniature fans and Jetex pellets that emitted chemical exhaust or jets of air. Another of Meddings' inventions was a closed, cyclical effects stage nicknamed

297-476: A 1992 version of Atari, Inc. 's Asteroids from 1979. The company also published utility software. Its products were distributed as shareware ; demo versions could be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. Later the company released some products for iOS . Ambrosia's best-selling program was the utility Snapz Pro X, according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch. In 2017, customers reported on Ambrosia's Facebook page that attempts to contact

396-419: A Supermarionation production. Supporting characters were played by puppets known as "revamps", which had plastic heads. These marionettes started their working lives with only a mouth and eyes; their faces were remoulded from one episode to the next. The most striking moulds were retained and, as their numbers increased, photographed to compile an internal casting directory. Wigs were made of mohair or, in

495-492: A departure from APF's earlier series, each episode's titles include a story preview in the form of a fast-paced action montage. Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn compare this device favourably to a film trailer . The montage is followed by introductions for each of the Tracy brothers plus Brains and Lady Penelope, the characters' portraits being superimposed on various vehicles and settings. John Peel describes this as "ostensibly

594-549: A form of faster-than-light travel. In Nova, wormholes or hypergates may also be utilized for instantaneous travel. Most systems contain stellar objects such as planets and space stations. Players can land on these objects, where they may be given the option to trade, gain missions, and purchase new spaceships or add-on outfits for their current spaceship. The plot is advanced through missions available from facilities on planets as well as NPCs flying through space. Players can choose which missions to follow and which governments to form

693-502: A good relationship with or to be entirely neutral. They can choose to be a trader or a mercenary or an asteroid miner among a number of things or a combination of several. The three games are alike in gameplay only; the universe and plot are completely separate and unrelated between the releases (though EV Nova contains the Kestrel from EV with a description of being from another universe). Each release's engine contains improvements on

792-404: A journey that took eight hours. In the end, 21 miners were saved and the other 29 died. Seeing the advantages of faster emergency response, Anderson came up with the idea of an "international rescue" organisation that uses supersonic aircraft to transport equipment quickly over long distances. Wanting to set this concept apart from APF's earlier productions, Anderson tried to pitch the stories at

891-468: A level that would appeal to both adults and children. Whereas earlier series had aired in afternoon children's timeslots, Anderson wanted Thunderbirds to be shown during the evening to attract a wider family audience. Series co-creator Sylvia Anderson recalled that "our market had grown and a 'kidult' show [...] was the next step." The Andersons retired to their holiday villa in Portugal to expand

990-422: A nearby United States Army Air Forces base. Drawn to the "punchiness" of " Thunderbirds ", Anderson renamed the series, whose working title had been " International Rescue ", as well as the star vehicles, which had initially been designated Rescues 1 to 5 . His inspiration for the launch sequences of Thunderbirds 1 , 2 and 3 came from contemporary US Air Force launch procedure: Anderson had learnt how

1089-404: A result, Thunderbirds became not only APF's longest and highest-budgeted production, but also one of the most expensive TV series ever made up to that time. The total budget for the 26-episode Series One was about £1 million (roughly £24 million in 2023). The production, which had been shooting two 25-minute episodes every two weeks, faced significant challenges in the transition to

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1188-480: A return to the 'series stars' concept long known in TV"; Garland states that the imagery demonstrates Anderson's commitment to "incremental realism" through convergence of human and puppet characteristics. Jonathan Bignell suggests that the use of portraits conveys Anderson's partiality to "visual revelation of machines and physical action". According to Daniel O'Brien, author of SF:UK: How British Science Fiction Changed

1287-762: A secret base on an island in the Pacific Ocean. International Rescue operates a fleet of technologically-advanced rescue vehicles, headed by five craft called the Thunderbird machines . The main characters are the leader of International Rescue, ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy , and his five adult sons, who pilot the Thunderbirds . Thunderbirds premiered in September 1965 on the ITV network and has since aired in at least 66 countries. Besides tie-in merchandise , it

1386-610: A third unit to film model aircraft. This increased APF's total number of crews and filming stages to five each. A typical episode contained around 100 effects shots, with Meddings' team completing up to 18 a day. An addition to the team was Mike Trim , who assisted Meddings in designing the futuristic vehicles and buildings of Thunderbirds . Together, Meddings and Trim pioneered an "organic" design technique that involved embellishing models using parts from children's toys and off-the-shelf model kits . Models and sets were also "dirtied down" with powder paint or pencil lead to create

1485-408: A three-metre-high (9.8 ft) ceiling. As the art department 's sets needed to conform to the effects department's scale model designs, each team closely monitored the other's work. According to Sylvia Anderson, art director Bob Bell 's challenge was to produce complex interiors on a limited budget while resisting the effects team's push for "more extravagant" design. This task was complicated by

1584-521: A typical live-action series. He explained that fast cutting was needed as the puppets' lack of facial expressions made it difficult to keep the audience's interest for more than a few seconds at a time. Lew watched ["Trapped in the Sky"] and at the end he jumped up shouting, 'Fantastic, absolutely fantastic! This isn't a television series – this is a feature film! You've got to make this as an hour!' [...] I'm glad we did it, because it made

1683-421: A vacuum cleaner. The special effects in every APF series from Supercar to UFO were directed by Derek Meddings , who later supervised effects on James Bond and Superman films. Realising that Thunderbirds would be the "biggest project [APF] had worked on", Meddings knew that the effects department needed expansion. He therefore created a second unit , led by his assistant Brian Johncock , and

1782-653: Is a Carbon application and runs natively on both the original Mac OS and Mac OS X , and has been ported to Windows . Version 1.1.0 of EV Nova , released in December 2008, is a Universal Binary, and runs natively on Intel-based Macs. Adapted versions of the scenarios of the first two games that run natively in EV Nova are available for free. This series follows the general licensing rule for Ambrosia Software. All three games are shareware . Ambrosia's shareware system allows most distribution of unregistered games. Copies of

1881-584: Is a master criminal known as The Hood . Based in a temple in Malaysia, and possessing powers of hypnosis and dark magic , The Hood exerts telepathic control over Kyrano, his estranged half-brother, and manipulates the Tracys into rescues that unfold according to his own designs. This gives him opportunities to spy on the Thunderbird machines and, by selling their secrets, make himself rich. Thunderbirds

1980-523: Is a mining company that works exclusively for the Confederation, and as a result is often targeted by the Rebellion and its sympathizers. The Artemis Group are a family run organization devoted to eliminating pirates as well as ensure the galactic order remains balanced. They attempt to prevent either the Confederation or Rebellion from winning the civil war. The starting planet, Levo , which

2079-426: Is also Alan's girlfriend; and Tin-Tin's father Kyrano , the Tracys' retainer . In this remote location, International Rescue is safe from criminals and spies who envy its technology and attempt to acquire the secrets of the Thunderbird machines. Some of International Rescue's operations are triggered not by innocent misadventure, but rather sabotage or criminal negligence. For missions involving undercover work,

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2178-479: Is based on the Macintosh resource fork format, making it possible to develop plug-ins without using any purpose-designed editors (though several editors exist and are popular since they make the task much easier). Since Windows does not support resource forks and it is therefore impossible to preserve them when transferring files to Windows-based computers, an alternate format and a conversion system were devised for

2277-462: Is in a system by the same name, has a militia patrolling it to defend it from Pirates, though Pirates never appear in the system except when following the player because of valuable cargo in their possession. There are a number of Pirates in the game, who immediately attempt to destroy any non-Pirate ship they spot, with the exception of the player once they have achieved a high combat rating. The Pirates do not plunder their targets due to limitations in

2376-497: Is more limited. In addition to the attacks by Cap'n Hector, certain ships and technologies cannot be obtained after the thirty-day trial ends, and even before then, the game's story lines stop about two thirds of the way through, and plug-ins are not supported. Once the game has been registered, Cap'n Hector and all of the other restrictions disappear from the game. The entire series features an open-ended plug-in architecture, allowing new scenarios to be written by users. This technology

2475-655: Is seen only when the player is working for the Confederation. The Cydonians of New Cydonia and Letheans of Lethe Prime occupy two systems in the galactic southeast of the galaxy and are also locked in a war over water rights at the start of the game; more specific information regarding the conflict is never provided. Both sides utilize the Defender, the Argosy, and the Corvette when fighting in space. The Cydonians also use

2574-720: The International Rescue Corps , was named after the organisation featured in the series. Set between 2065 and 2067, Thunderbirds follows the exploits of the Tracy family, headed by American industrialist and ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy . Jeff is a widower with five adult sons: Scott , John , Virgil , Gordon and Alan . The Tracys make up International Rescue, a secret organisation founded to save human life. They are aided in this mission by technologically advanced land, sea, air and space vehicles that are called into service when conventional rescue methods prove ineffective. The most important of these vehicles are

2673-540: The Strategic Air Command kept pilots on permanent standby, seated in the cockpits of their aircraft, ready for take-off at a moment's notice. In the DVD documentary The Thunderbirds Companion , Anderson explained how rising production costs made overseas distribution particularly important and essentially caused Thunderbirds to be made "as an American show". During the characterisation and casting process,

2772-516: The Thunderbird machines and the main locations, Tracy Island and Creighton-Ward Mansion. The finished island model was a composite of more than a dozen smaller sets, each of which could be detached from the whole and filmed separately. The mansion was based on the Palladian house at Stourhead in Wiltshire. In the absence of Reg Hill, the lead designer on APF's earlier productions, Meddings

2871-461: The Thunderbird 2 launch as "probably the most memorable" sequence that his team devised for any of APF's productions. The basic form of Thunderbird 3 was influenced by the Soyuz rocket. The largest of the spacecraft's filming models was six feet (1.8 m) tall. Ocean scenes featuring Thunderbird 4 were particularly difficult to film due to the mismatched scales of the model and the water in

2970-470: The Thunderbirds puppets to the accurately-proportioned ones that made their debut in Captain Scarlet : "The [ Thunderbirds ] puppets were easier to operate and more enjoyable because they had more character to them [...] Even some of the more normal-looking faces, such as Scott and Jeff, for me had more character than the puppets in the series that came afterwards." Rimmer speaks positively of

3069-427: The solenoid  – located inside the puppet's head – that synchronised the movements of the flexible lower lip with the syllables in the character's pre-recorded dialogue. The head had to be large enough to accommodate the solenoid, causing the torso and limbs to look disproportionately small. The puppets' likenesses and mechanics are fondly remembered by crew member Wanda Brown, who preferred

Escape Velocity (video game) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-403: The "rolling road": consisting of two or more loops of canvas running at different speeds, this device allowed shots of moving vehicles to be filmed on a static set to make efficient use of the limited studio space. Airborne aircraft shots were mounted against a "rolling sky", with smoke fanned across the stage to simulate passing clouds. One of Meddings' first tasks was to film stock footage of

3267-518: The Andersons' top priority was to give the series transatlantic appeal, increasing the chances of securing a US network deal and the larger audiences that the American market had to offer. British, Canadian and Australian actors formed most of the voice cast . To ensure transatlantic appeal, it had been decided that most of the main characters would be American; therefore, it was essential that

3366-821: The Atari ST game Megaroids (1988). Despite the concept being 13 years old at the time of release, Maelstrom was popular at a time when Macintosh action games were in short supply, and it won some software awards. Ambrosia Software was incorporated August 18, 1993, by Andrew Welch after he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992. Maelstrom was followed by more action games, including Apeiron (a remake of Centipede ), Swoop (a clone of Galaxian ), and Barrack (a clone of JezzBall ). In 1999, Cameron Crotty of Macworld wrote that "No other company has gotten so much mileage out of renovating mid-1980s arcade hits." Nearly all of

3465-520: The British aristocracy too." As well as Jeff Tracy, English-Canadian actor Peter Dyneley voiced recurring character Commander Norman, chief of air traffic control at London Airport. Many of Dyneley's guest characters were upper-class Englishmen. Shane Rimmer , the voice of Scott, was cast based on his performance as Russell Corrigan in the BBC soap opera Compact . Fellow Canadian Matt Zimmerman , who

3564-416: The Confederation government and a Rebellion against it. As noted earlier, the player may choose sides (or not) based on who they believe is right, who they believe is stronger, who they believe it is more profitable to support, or any other criteria. The player begins with a shuttlecraft resembling those from Star Trek . The Confederation is one of two main governments in the original game. According to

3663-482: The Creighton-Ward Mansion sets, Bell and his team strove for authenticity, ordering miniature Tudor-style paintings, 1 ⁄ 3 -scale Georgian - and Regency -style furniture, and carpeting in the shape of a polar bear skin. This realism was enhanced by adding scrap items acquired from electronics shops and household waste. For example, Virgil Tracy's launch chute was originally the pipe on

3762-637: The Escape Velocity line of games where the team's mascot, Hector the Parrot (known in-game as Cap'n Hector), would use her heavily armed ship to ceaselessly attack players of unregistered copies after the trial period had expired. Their software products therefore began to fall under the category of crippleware. Although the company no longer provides new expiring license codes, Ambrosia's founder Andrew Welch released Decoder Ring which allows anyone to generate new license codes. Matt Slot has written about

3861-573: The Lightning, whereas the Letheans supplement these ships with the Rapier. The game also includes several trading corporations, including Starbound Shipping , Consolidated Express , and United Galactic Express . Starbound Shipping and United Galactic Express are both in direct (and sometimes violent) competition with Consolidated Express, and are therefore de facto allies. Astex Mining Corporation

3960-478: The Penelope and Parker puppets needed to fit inside it, the largest model of all was the seven-foot-long (2.1 m) FAB 1, which cost £2,500 to build (about £64,000 in 2023). The car's name and colour were chosen by Sylvia Anderson. Rolls-Royce Ltd supervised the construction of the plywood model and supplied APF with a genuine radiator grille for close-ups of the front of the car. In return for its cooperation,

4059-560: The TV serial Quatermass and the Pit , provided the voices of Tin-Tin Kyrano and Grandma Tracy. Together with Sylvia Anderson, she was also responsible for voicing most of the female and child guest characters. Some small roles were played by Paul Maxwell , John Tate and Charles Tingwell ; Maxwell and Tingwell joined the cast in Series Two after working on Thunderbirds Are Go . None of

Escape Velocity (video game) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-474: The Windows version of the game. Much of the game takes place in two-dimensional space, with the player flying a ship from a third-person overhead perspective. The player has the option of engaging in both combat and trade. Players are able to fly through hundreds of star systems, which are connected to each other by hyperlinks. Ships travel between star systems along the hyperlinks by engaging their hyperdrive,

4257-557: The World , the title sequence encapsulates the reasons behind Thunderbirds ' enduring popularity. Dyneley's countdown is particularly well remembered and has been widely quoted. Dean Newman of the Syfy channel ranks Thunderbirds eighth in a list of "Top 10 TV title sequences", while Den of Geek 's Martin Anderson considers the sequence the best of any TV series. Thunderbirds

4356-719: The actors put on convincing accents. The only American actor on the cast was David Holliday , who had been spotted in London's West End and given the role of Virgil Tracy. Following the completion of Series One, Holliday returned to the US. For Series Two and the feature films, Virgil was voiced by Jeremy Wilkin . British actor David Graham was among the first to be cast. He had previously voiced characters in Four Feather Falls , Supercar , Fireball XL5 and Stingray . Outside APF's productions, he had supplied one of

4455-426: The background colours of the set. Glanville explained the time-consuming nature of this process: "[The puppeteers] used to spend over half an hour on each shot getting rid of these wires, looking through the camera, puffing a bit more [paint] here, anti- flare there; and, I mean, it's very depressing when somebody will say to us, 'Of course the wires showed.'" Positioned on an overhead gantry with handheld cruciforms,

4554-416: The case of the Penelope puppet, human hair. Bodies were built in three sizes: "large male" (for the Tracys and The Hood), "small male" and "small female". Sylvia Anderson, who was also lead costume designer, devised the main characters' attire. To increase the puppets' mobility, the costume department avoided using stiff synthetic materials, opting for cotton, silk and wool instead. Between 1964 and 1966,

4653-520: The challenge facing the effects department was to strike a balance between the "conventional science fiction imperative of the 'futuristic'" and the "seeping hyper-realist concerns mandated by the Andersons' approach to the puppets". Thunderbirds has been praised for the quality of its effects. Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, authors of Collins Telly Guide , call the miniature model-work "uniformly impressive". To Paul Cornell , Martin Day and Keith Topping ,

4752-412: The characters were sculpted in duplicate. The puppets had replaceable heads with different facial expressions: in addition to a blank-looking "normal" head, each main character was given a "smiler", a "frowner" and a "blinker". The finished puppets were about 22 inches (56 cm) tall, or 1 ⁄ 3 adult human height. Each puppet had more than 30 individual components, the most important being

4851-416: The collapse of a nearby dam flooded an iron mine in the municipality of Lengede , trapping 50 men underground. Efforts to save them were hampered by the length of time it took to bring rescue equipment to the site. Lacking the means to drill an escape shaft, the authorities were forced to requisition a heavy-duty bore from Bremen , more than 80 miles (130 km) away, and transport it to Lengede by train, in

4950-437: The company asked APF to add a miniature Spirit of Ecstasy and ensure that character dialogue refer to the car's make by its full name, "Rolls-Royce", not the abbreviation "Rolls". Scale explosions were created using substances such as fuller's earth , petrol gel, magnesium strips and Cordtex explosive. They were filmed at high speed  – up to 120 frames per second (fps) – then slowed down to

5049-519: The company were unsuccessful and they were unable to make new purchases. As of July 2019, the website is offline. As of May 2021, the website resolves but leads to a domain parking page with ads unconnected to the company. The first game distributed under the Ambrosia Software name was Maelstrom , a 1992 remake of the 1979 Asteroids arcade video game. It uses raster graphics similar in style to Atari's later Blasteroids (1987) and

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5148-547: The company's ten employees were laid off in 2013, but Welch denied rumors of the company closing. In late 2018, the company's last remaining employee announced that Ambrosia was officially shutting down operations. Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release: Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova card-driven board game. Ambrosia Software's utilities, in order of release: One of Ambrosia's founding mantras

5247-418: The control wires make this impossible) or pick up a coffee cup (although their fingers are not in fact jointed)." If particularly dexterous actions were required, the crew would film close-up inserts of a colleague's hands interacting with full-size props. The puppet stages were one-fifth the size of those used for a standard live-action production, typically measuring 12 by 14 metres (39 by 46 ft) with

5346-429: The deliberate caricatures of its earlier series. Jeff Tracy was modelled on Lorne Greene , Scott on Sean Connery , Alan on Robert Reed , John on Adam Faith and Charlton Heston , Brains on Anthony Perkins and Parker on Ben Warriss . After several test heads were rejected, Turner modelled Lady Penelope on Sylvia Anderson, the character's voice actress. Anderson was initially unaware of this. The heads of

5445-474: The department's stock comprised more than 700 costumes. Since we always tried to minimise walking, we'd show the puppets taking one step only, then promptly cut. Through interspersing the programmes with "meanwhile" scenes – that is, showing what else was going on in the story at the same time – we would then cut back to the puppet who was now already in his craft.      — Writer and director Alan Pattillo on

5544-404: The effects were "way beyond anything seen on TV previously". Impressed by their work on Thunderbirds , Stanley Kubrick hired several of Meddings' team as effects supervisors on 2001: A Space Odyssey . The title sequence , storyboarded by Gerry Anderson, opens with the following countdown: "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Thunderbirds Are Go!", provided by Peter Dyneley as Jeff Tracy. In

5643-534: The factors that played into the policy change. Thunderbirds (TV series) Thunderbirds is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson , filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) and distributed by ITC Entertainment . It was filmed between 1964 and 1966 using a form of electronic marionette puppetry called " Supermarionation " combined with scale model special effects sequences. Two series, totalling 32 fifty-minute episodes, were made; production ended with

5742-403: The first two Escape Velocity games will work without limitation for 30 days. Afterwards, the player is simply reminded at startup that they have not registered, and told how many times they have run the game, as well as for how many hours it has been run. There is also the character called 'Cap'n Hector' (named after Ambrosia's mascot and office parrot ) who reminds the player to register. During

5841-475: The five " Thunderbird machines", each assigned to one of the five Tracy brothers: The family live on Tracy Island , International Rescue's secret base of operations in the South Pacific Ocean . They own a luxurious villa that they share with four other people: Grandma Tracy , Jeff's mother; scientist and engineer Brains , who designed the Thunderbird machines; Brains' assistant Tin-Tin , who

5940-459: The game, as humanity expanded into the Milky Way galaxy, the new colonies operated independently of each other. However, an invasion by an unknown alien race forced the colonies to unify under Earth's leadership. This became known as the Confederation. The Confederation and the aliens fought a bloody war, with millions of humans being killed. Eventually the Confederation prevailed. At the start of

6039-802: The game, the Confederation and the Rebellion are locked in a bloody stalemate. The Confederation uses four ships in its military, namely the Confederate Patrol Ship, the Confederate Gunboat, the Confederate Frigate and the Confederate Cruiser. The Rebellion is the other main government in Escape Velocity . According to the game, after winning the war with the aliens, the Confederation did not relinquish its naval power and began exploiting

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6138-555: The game; the player, however, is allowed to board ships, and may from there steal money, cargo, fuel, or ammunition, or attempt to capture the ship for use as their own or as an escort. Another key detail, Pirates may board the player's ship if they disable it. In EV Nova , Pirates do board and plunder ships, including the player's. MacUser named Escape Velocity the best shareware game of 1996. Escape Velocity has two sequels: Override (1998) and Nova (2002). Many subsequent games explicitly cite Escape Velocity as an or

6237-489: The games. Early test versions of the game went by the name 'Merc' (short for ' mercenary '). Peter Cartwright wrote the scenario for EV Override and the Australian company ATMOS created the scenario of EV Nova ; both originated as plug-ins for the preceding games before being picked up by Ambrosia as sequels. The fighter pilot voices in the original game were provided by Patrick Delahanty. A plug-in of additional phrases

6336-415: The idea that Russia was the enemy with a whole generation of children watching", Gerry Anderson decided that The Hood (voiced by Barrett) should be Asian and placed his temple hideout in Malaysia to defy viewer expectations. Although Lady Penelope and Parker (the latter voiced by Graham) were among the first characters to be developed, they were not conceived as main characters. Parker's Cockney accent

6435-465: The main characters were first sculpted in either Plasticine or clay. Once the features had been finalised, this served as the template for a silicone rubber mould. This was coated with Bondaglass ( fibreglass mixed with resin) and enhanced with Bondapaste, a putty-like substance, to accentuate its contours. The Bondaglass shell was then fitted with the solenoid, plastic eyes and leather mouth parts, as well as incisor teeth – a first for

6534-416: The new format: nine episodes had already been fully or partly filmed, scripts for ten more had been written, and major rewrites would be needed to satisfy the longer running time. Anderson lamented: "Our time-scale was far too drawn out. ITC's New York office insisted that they should have one show a fortnight [...] Everything had to move at twice the speed." APF spent more than seven months extending

6633-589: The organisation incorporates a network of field agents led by English aristocrat Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her butler Aloysius Parker . Based at Creighton-Ward Mansion in Kent, Penelope and Parker travel in FAB ;1 : a specially-modified, pink Rolls-Royce . International Rescue members acknowledge orders with the expression " FAB " (a shortening of the 1960s buzzword "fabulous", spoken as an initialism: "F-A-B"). International Rescue's most persistent opponent

6732-470: The original Dalek voices on Doctor Who . Cast at the same time as Graham was Australian actor Ray Barrett . Like Graham, he had worked for the Andersons before, having voiced Titan and Commander Shore in Stingray . With experience in radio drama, Barrett could perform a wide range of voices and accents in quick succession. Conscious of Cold War political sensitivities and not wanting to "perpetuate

6831-422: The premise, script the pilot episode and compose a writers' guide . According to Sylvia, the writing process entailed a "division of labour", whereby Gerry devised the action sequences and she handled characterisation . The decision to make a father and his sons the main characters was influenced by the premise of Bonanza , as well as Sylvia's belief that the use of more than one heroic character would broaden

6930-403: The previous version, although by far the most significant improvements were made in the third release. A turbo boost can be acquired which, when activated, plays an audio clip from the introduction to the British television program Thunderbirds . Occasionally the player will encounter Sinistar , including his voice files. The plot of the original Escape Velocity involves disputes between

7029-457: The primary influence on their design, such as 3030 Deathwar , Endless Sky , Gaia Beyond , Space RPG , and Naev . Ambrosia Software Ambrosia Software was a predominantly Macintosh software and gaming company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester , New York , U.S . Ambrosia Software was best known for its Macintosh remakes of older arcade games, which began with

7128-555: The puppet filming, the other to be added to the soundtrack in post-production. The tapes were edited at Gate Recording Theatre in Birmingham. The lead puppet sculptors were Christine Glanville and Mary Turner, who also served as lead puppet operators. Glanville and Turner's team built the 13 members of the main cast in six months at a cost of between £250 and £300 per puppet (about £6,400 and £7,700 in 2023). As pairs of episodes were being filmed simultaneously on separate stages,

7227-422: The puppeteers coordinated their movements with the help of a viewfinder -powered CCTV feedback system. As filming progressed, the crew began to dispense with wires and instead manipulate puppets from the studio floor using rods . Due to their low weight, as well as the fact that each of their legs had only one control wire, the puppets were unable to walk convincingly. Scenes involving movement were filmed from

7326-517: The puppets Each puppet's head was fitted with around ten fine tungsten steel wires. During filming, dialogue was played into the studio on modified tape recorders that converted the feed into electronic pulses. Two of the wires relayed these pulses down to the solenoid, completing the Supermarionation process. The wires, which were sprayed black to reduce their visibility, were made even less noticeable by applying powder paint matching

7425-496: The puppets' still being "very much caricatures", since it made them "more lovable and appealing [...] There was a naive quality about them and nothing too complex." The faces of the main characters were based on those of real-life actors and entertainers, often selected from the Spotlight casting directory. According to Glanville, APF wanted to give the Thunderbirds characters "more natural" looks to distinguish them from

7524-657: The resources of the outer worlds. Those worlds eventually seceded, provoking a civil war. The Rebellion is in turn criticized for its aggressive nature, support of quasi-criminal organizations, and attacks on civilian shipping and liners. The Rebellion uses four ships in their campaign against the Confederation, namely the Manta, the Rebel Destroyer, the Rebel Cruiser and the Escort Carrier, the last of which

7623-446: The rockets were slow to ignite, the current quickly caused the wires to overheat and snap, potentially damaging the model and setting fire to the scenery. Conditions on the overhead platform were often dangerous due to the heat and smoke. Though many of the rocket exhaust sound effects were taken from an audio library, some were specially recorded at a Red Arrows display at RAF Little Rissington . Critic David Garland suggests that

7722-513: The same puppet techniques as the original, have also been produced. Widely regarded as the Andersons' most popular and commercially successful series, Thunderbirds has been praised for its special effects, directed by Derek Meddings , and its musical score by Barry Gray . It is also remembered for its title sequence , which begins with an oft-quoted countdown by Jeff Tracy voice actor Peter Dyneley : "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Thunderbirds Are Go!" A real-life search and rescue service,

7821-471: The scripts himself. Direction of episodes was assigned in pairs: veterans Pattillo and David Elliott alternated with the less-experienced Desmond Saunders and newcomer David Lane for each month's filming. Due to the complexities of setting up takes, progress was slow: even on a productive day, the crew could rarely complete more than two minutes of puppet footage. In an interview, Hill pointed out that Thunderbirds contained several times as many shots as

7920-467: The series much bigger and much more important. But it was still a very, very difficult job.      — Gerry Anderson on the format change On viewing the finished pilot, " Trapped in the Sky ", Grade was so impressed with the series that he told Anderson to extend each episode from 25 to 50 minutes – long enough to fill a one-hour commercial timeslot. He also increased each episode's budget from £25,000 to £38,000. As

8019-449: The series' appeal. The Tracy brothers were named after Mercury Seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter , John Glenn , Virgil "Gus" Grissom , Gordon Cooper and Alan Shepard . I started to think that there really ought to be dumps around the world with rescue gear standing by, so that when a disaster happened, all these items of rescue equipment could be rushed to the disaster zone and used to help to get people out of trouble [...] I

8118-650: The shooting tank. The crew used creative camera angles and fast cutting to give these shots a sense of realistic perspective. Thunderbird 5 , which Meddings found the hardest to design, was based on the shape of the Tracy Island Round House. With stock footage providing most of the space station's appearances, the model was rarely filmed. Pod Vehicles were designed episode by episode and were built from balsa wood, Jelutong wood or fibreglass. To save time and costs, some minor vehicles were built entirely out of parts from radio-controlled model kits. As

8217-402: The sixth episode of the second series after Lew Grade , APF's financial backer, failed in his efforts to sell the programme to US network television. Set in the 2060s, Thunderbirds was a follow-up to the earlier Supermarionation productions Four Feather Falls , Supercar , Fireball XL5 and Stingray . It concerns the exploits of International Rescue, a life-saving organisation with

8316-477: The standard 24 fps to give an impression of greater weight and scale. Gunpowder canisters were ignited to create rocket jets. The wires that electrically fired the rockets also allowed one of the crew, holding a cruciform and stationed on a platform over the stage, to "fly" the model across the set. The most unwieldy model was Thunderbird 2 , which Meddings remembered as being "awful" to fly. There were frequent problems with unreliable rockets or weak wiring: if

8415-531: The three were credited for their performances. Dialogue recording was supervised by the Andersons and associate producer Reg Hill , with Sylvia Anderson in overall charge of voice casting. There was one recording session a month and the cast acted out two scripts at each session. Guest parts were not assigned by the producers, but rather negotiated among the actors. Villains of the week were typically voiced by either Barrett or Graham. Two recordings would be taken: one to be converted into electronic pulses for

8514-458: The trial this is done by flying by the player's ship and sending a message. After the trial period has expired, the character starts attacking the player, but in EV Override , Cap'n Hector also steals the player's credits. Players can not damage Cap'n Hector directly, though in the original game it was possible for splash damage to disable or destroy her ship. An unregistered copy of EV Nova

8613-484: The unnatural proportions of the puppets: Bell struggled to decide whether the scales should match their bodies or their oversized heads and hands. He used FAB 1 to illustrate the problem: "As soon as we positioned [the puppets] standing alongside [the model], they looked ridiculous, as the car towered over them." He finally adopted a "mix-and-match" approach, by which smaller items, such as tableware, were scaled to their hands and furniture to their bodies. While designing

8712-400: The waist up, with a puppeteer holding the legs out of shot and using a "bobbing" action to simulate walking or running. Dynamic shots could also be eliminated altogether: in an interview with New Scientist , director of photography John Read discussed the advantages of bypassing the puppets' lack of agility – so that they "appear, for example, to walk through doors (although

8811-482: Was acting in the West End, was hired at a late stage in the casting process. He was given the role of Alan on the recommendation of his friend, Holliday: "They were having great difficulty casting the part of Alan as they wanted a certain sound for him, being the youngest brother. David, who [was] a bit older than I am, told them that he had this friend, me, who would be great." Christine Finn , known for her role in

8910-430: Was additionally tasked with designing the five Thunderbirds and FAB 1. The filming models of the six vehicles were built by a contractor, Master Models of Middlesex. Models and puppet sets combined, more than 200 versions of the Thunderbird machines were built for the series. During the design and filming process, Meddings' priorities were realism and credibility. With the exception of Thunderbird 5 , each vehicle

9009-468: Was also created and later included as part of EV Override . A remake of EV Override named Cosmic Frontier: Override was launched on April 21, 2020, by Peter Cartwright, scenario designer at Ambrosia Software, and reached its funding goal on May 24, 2020. The first two Escape Velocity games are only available in their original forms for the Apple Macintosh and are Classic -only. EV Nova

9108-686: Was based on the mannerisms of a waiter at a pub in Cookham that the Andersons sometimes visited. On Gerry's recommendation, Graham started making trips to the pub to pick up the accent. Anderson's first choice for Penelope had been Fenella Fielding , but Sylvia insisted on taking the part herself. Her Penelope voice was intended to emulate Fielding and Joan Greenwood . On Penelope and Parker's secondary role as comic relief, Gerry explained, "We British can laugh at ourselves, so therefore we had Penelope and Parker as this comedy team. And in America they love

9207-539: Was built in three or four scales. Thunderbird 1 ' s swing-wing design was motivated by Meddings' wish to come up with something "more dynamic" than a conventional fixed-wing aircraft. He was unhappy with the Thunderbird 2 prototype until he inverted the wings to be forward-swept . This decision was not based on any expert knowledge of aerodynamics; in Meddings' words: "[A]t the time, all aircraft had swept-back wings. I only did it to be different." He described

9306-484: Was filmed at APF's Slough studios between 1964 and 1966. In preparation for the new production, the company increased the number of full-time crew to 100. Shooting on Series One began in September 1964 after five months of pre-production. Due to the series' technical complexity, this was a period longer than for any of the earlier productions. To speed up the filming, episodes were shot in pairs on separate stages and by separate crews, designated "A" and "B". By 1964, APF

9405-457: Was followed by two feature films: Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6 . Periodically repeated , it was adapted for radio in the 1990s and has influenced many TV programmes and other media. Its other adaptations include an anime reimagining ( Thunderbirds 2086 ), a live-action film ( Thunderbirds ) and a part-CGI, part-live-action remake ( Thunderbirds Are Go ). Three supplementary episodes, based on tie-in audio plays and made using

9504-423: Was that shareware software should not be distributed as crippleware . The company's software was released on the honor system with only a short reminder that you had used the unregistered software for "x" amount of time, creating what is commonly called nagware . This policy was later changed and the company employed typical shareware piracy prevention measures, as well as more innovative ones such as used in

9603-481: Was the UK's largest commercial user of colour film, consuming more than three million feet (570 mi; 910 km) of stock per year. Like their previous three series, the Andersons devised Thunderbirds as a 25-minute show. In late 1964, Alan Pattillo , a long-time writer and director for APF, became the company's first official script editor . This reduced the burden on Gerry Anderson, who had grown weary of revising

9702-574: Was the fifth series to be co-created by Gerry Anderson and filmed by his production company APF, whose studios were located on the Slough Trading Estate . Pitched in 1963, the series was commissioned by Lew Grade of ITC, APF's parent company, following the commercial success of Stingray . The series' premise was inspired by the West German mining disaster known as the " Wunder von Lengede " (Miracle of Lengede). In October 1963,

9801-473: Was thinking, 'Rescue, yes, rescue, but how to make it science fiction? What about an international rescue organisation?'      — Gerry Anderson on the premise The series' title was derived from a letter Gerry had received during World War II from his brother Lionel, an RAF flight sergeant based overseas. While stationed in Arizona, Lionel had made reference to Thunderbird Field ,

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