Supermarionation

- [Director] And action!

(upbeat jazz music) - If only Luna could speak, she could tell us what's happened to Barbara.

- Yeah, puppets.

We wanted it to be as authentic as possible.

- If we could beam more signal off the asteroid-- - [Sean] I grew up watching Sting Ray and Thunderbirds.

(clicking) To see those types of puppets knocking around, and the sets, and the little costumes, and all that kind of stuff, I just thought it looked fantastic.

- When we knew that we were doing it, we just sort of scoured the internet and found this guy, Stephen.

- Really?

- [Man] Yeah.

- [Shaun] He was incredibly passionate about a supermarionation, and advised us on a lot of the puppet stuff, how it would be shot.

(film rolling) - [Stephen] Guys!

- It's actually a relatively complicated process, because you're shooting something that occurs very quickly in real time, and you're shooting it at a high speed.

(explosion) - [Director] Cut!

- [Stephen] And amazingly, the best bit of luck we had is that when the model shattered-- - Action!

(explosion) - A piece of debris comes flying out towards the camera, and actually hits the lens itself.

(action jazz music) (explosion) - [Director] Cut!

(clapping hands) We were asked to make the fictional series, Moon Rangers, which is being made in the episode.

- One more for Professor Drake.

- It's entrance was with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's production company, and they made Stingray and Thunderbirds, and Captain Scarlet, and this film is set in a studio that is very like the one that they had three years ago.

We made three brand new episodes of Thunderbirds to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show, and we made it exactly the same way that it had been made in the 1960's.

- But she's also a renowned astrophysicist.

- To keep the connection with the original Thunderbirds, we got in David Graham, the voice of Parker, to provide the voice of Colonel Crater.

- What did that box of wires and lights say?

- He's 93 now.

- If only Luna could speak.

- [Stephen] The puppet of Luna was sculpted by the woman who sculpted Lady Penelope back in the 60's.

We also had one of the original directors who was on set to advise, and back in the 50's, when they started out doing this, he came up with the idea of you could have human hands, or you could have a person in the foreground and a puppet in the background.

- Great Scott!

- We had to train the actors who were playing the puppeteers.

- Sorry, everyone, got our wires crossed.

Cut.

- One of our Moon Rangers characters is based on Colin.

- The design, they gave us some sketches, and he said, "I thought this one could be a bit of a tribute to Colin Dexter."

- That I think it's good, and like, tongue and cheek, and I know that actually, having known him, that he would find that amusing.

- It might just work.

- Christ, man, watch what you're doing.

- What are you two playing at?

- Do you think this is easy?

- These little puppets on a set, and then you have us on this set, and then something huge, people go, you know, into outer space.

There was something about it, I just was like, just really, I don't know, I find it really great.

(gun firing)