Fanderson's HD21 trip report

Dear Friends,

we are finally able to let you have a short summary of our trip to England to attend the Fanderson’s event “HD21”, held at the Pinewood Studios.
During the trip, we also took the opportunity to visit some other locations where the series was filmed.
Here are the details.

As soon as we landed in London, we didn’n miss the occasion to visit a peculiar location close to Enfield, i.e. the area where Ed and Mary Straker park their car, just after the wedding, to allow the groom to change from his US AF uniform into a civilian suit.
The ISOSHADO archive has recently acquired a new original “studio item” which was in that specific site near Enfield; we are referring to the wood post carrying a sign located in that exact place.
We have also acquired some other items, such as a part of the gate and one of the iron hinges holding the gate.
There’s no doubt on the genuinity of such items because their preservation state clearly shows that they date back at least to 40 years ago.
A great thank you goes to Chris, Cheryl – and Bella!

We then moved to another London area to see the building of Paul Foster’s apartment in Exposed. It’s a complex of 4 tall buildings each very similar to the other and we can assure you that it has been really hard to identify the right one.
The Friendly Alien Gito Santana has generously supported us in the search, and was then so kind as to host us to an exquisite dinner together with his wife Connie and lovely Maria.
Gito has confirmed that he will come to Italy in 2008 and looks forward to meeting his numerous Italian UFO fans.

On the day after, Sunday Sept. 23, before reaching the Pinewood Studios where the HD21 event was scheduled, we didn’t miss the opportunity to visit once again the Black Park and its famous Lake, close to the Studios (Black Park and its Lake are shown in various episodes: Identified, The Sound of Silence, etc).

HD21
At 10.30 sharp we have been welcomed by the Fanderson Staff that has introduced us to the agenda of the day.
The only negative aspect of the event has been the precise indication that no photos nor videos could be taken in the Studios and, for this reason, we are showing here only a small photo reportage.
The event started inside the fabulous Theatre 7 (Mindbender, Reflections in the water) where we have been amazed by the incredible quality, definition and sharpness of the episode Timelash, made in HD.
Unfortunately the 16:9 format, vs. the traditional 4:3 format, implies that part of the frame is cut, but this is a small problem when compared to the very high audio/video quality of the HD images.
Just think that Malaguti himself, who in his life has watched Timelash dozens of times, only in this occasion has been able to notice a big “fly” that at the beginning of the episode lands on Henderson’s jacket and after a few seconds flies away.
It was not clear if the fly was inside the episode or something real that had stopped on the Theatre 7 screen for a while.
The day went on with a “location tour” dedicated specifically to UFO, during which Chris Bentley (one of the Fanderson representatives) talked about the numerous corners that we can find in the UFO episodes, also giving some very interesting descriptions/account.
After the location tour, Gerry Anderson in person has taken part to the event for some 15 minutes, officially confirming that, finally, it seems that a new UFO project may be about to start. Unfortunately we are unable to give more details.
When leaving Theatre 7, just before the dinner that was going to be held inside the Heatherden Hall, we had the pleasure of meeting Shane Rimmer again (Shane acts in some of the UFO episodes) who has assured us that he wishes to be one of our future guests.
In the following hours we freely wandered around the non-production area of the Studios where we all had the possibility of taking some pictures and walking around the beautiful gardens.
Thanks to our friend Jim Fielding, we have also tracked down the “giant chess pieces” that are included in the striking Timelash sequence, starring Straker chasing after Turner, in the artificial fog of one of the Pinewood sound stages.
A nice buffet inside the “Gatsby Hall” concluded the evening. The Gatsby Hall is an additional room built on purpose on the south side of the Heatherden Hall (the white villa that can be seen in the episode Mindbender) for the movie “The Great Gatsby” in 1973; we learned with pleasure that the Hall will soon be demolished to bring the Heatherden Hall back to its original look.
After the dinner a raffle was held and we had the nice surprise to be one of the winners of a beautiful “Andersonian” diorama...
Overall, the outcome of HD21 has for sure been positive, both because the event was held inside the Pinewood Studios, and because we had the opportunity of watching UFO in HD for the first time, as well as for having met many kind people who share their UFO passion with us (to name some: Lorraine and Charles, Cindy and Raymond, Koichi and the other friends from Japan, Jim Fielding and, of course, Giovanni P.).

On Monday Sept. 24, after a quick stop at the Sara Lee Factory (one of the location of the episode ESP), we have paid a visit to Mike’s grave in Braywick cemetery and, after a short trip, to Ed’s grave in Napton on the Hill, where we have been welcomed by dear Jessica Bishop.

This trip has refreshed our enthusiasm to carry on our activity as well as to plan a new visit to the Pinewood Studios that we’d like to schedule in summer 2008.

PS: a more detailed report on the Pinewood On Location Tour, by Charles & Lorraine, can be found here.