Building Brian The Robot

Building Brian The Robot

By Js Adams 

Building Brian was a relatively painless process in comparison to other aspects of  Thundermaus. Mostly because, at the time I had a small crew helping me. (shock horror).  Actually I owe everything to Ahmed Latif for getting Brian to work at all. I may have dreamed up his good looks but Ahmed breathed that essential breath of life into his mechanics. Here is that story...

Dv Mission November 2011 - our enterpretation of Thundermaus is a resounding success, prompting the potential for some sort of Tv series to be made. Despite no backing from any funding or  corporate television entity what so ever, I figured that this could be a fairly plausible possibility. I based this decision on my film making experience and the fact that I knew Ahmed Latif. Around that time I had been doing a little work for him, at his new home in Portchester, turning his long garage into a semi-proffessional music studio. He had all the gear of course, we are not talking about a bedroom ambition with egg boxes, this was the real deal, at least as far as Portchester was concerned. Ahmed is a trained Sound Engineer and knows his stuff. Filling his studio with retro equipment from the likes of Abbey Road and such, while using industry standard electronica such as Pro-Tools. 

Besides music, his other passion were Fantasy and science Fiction and I guess that is where we clicked. He was almost as geeky about it as I was. His Dvd collection consisted of all the Dr Who episodes, Star Treck Movies, Star Wars, Red Dwarf, Blakes 7 etc etc. But his collection didnt end there. Oh No. How could it? No. He also had some of the original props and replicas of these childhood memorys. Over the 20 odd years I have known Ahmed, he has had at one time or other, a full size Dalek, Dr Who's Dog, numerous radio controlled boats, Helicopters and a Tardis or two. 

Anything Sci fi I had contemplated on wanting as a kid, (you know those urges) well, he actually did something about it. He went out there and got them. Much to his wife's despair, every other day the postman would deliver yet another huge cardboard box containing left overs from Elstree Studios or the BBC. Another full size R2 D2 would turn up, another replica model of Captain Nemo's Nautilas, it didnt matter but what ever it was, I was usually there to help pull off the bubble wrap and share in the awe at an old and dusty (but original) prop used in some sci-fi film that only geeks like us would know about.  At Ahmeds, it was like Xmas every day !  

Then would come the restoration process and this is the point I was trying to get to. Ahmed had the electronics skills to bring these things back to life again. I would be integral to making them look good but Ahmed got them all animated. Soon we were taking a full size all singing all dancing R2 D2 around ASDA shopping centre for charity events, much to the bemused look of trolly pushers and bored check out staff. Then Dr Who's dog was suddenly alive again and running around a church hall or the local theatre or some Sci-Fi convention. 

When Dr Who came back to our Tv screens back in 2005, Ahmed was already in good rapport with the props department responsible for bringing  back the Daleks. They even consulted with him on how to get the dalek domes to rotate and the flashing lights to work on radio control independently of the dalek operators (the dudes inside them had enough on their plate just pushing them around the studio). The University of Portsmouth were so impressed with his full size Dalek that they purchased it off him, it now resides outdside the refrectory of the Eldon Art college, Portsmouth.

Indeed, lets give credit where credit is due: Ahmed Latif was invaluable in getting Thundermaus off the ground. He even showed me Toytanic. One of those Adam and Joe type shows, floating about on You Tube.   Dv Mission 2011 was coming up and I was hoping to make some sort of improvement on our entry from last year. For Dv 2011, I wanted to try something different but I wasnt sure how. The Ahmed showed me Toytanic and it got me thinking.  Toytanic was pinnical in my decision to go with a story for the Dv Mission 2011 that consisted of stuffed toys. Of course at that period, I had no idea how that idea would pan out but my time working with Ahmed was essentially the genesis of Thundermaus and in particular, Brian The Robot...