CyberBrig Adventures

Obviously I can’t take credit for CyberBrig. That double-edged honour belongs to the one and only Steven Moffat.

This project started a few days before the broadcast of the Doctor Who series 8 finales, when rumours began flying around the internet about a Brigadier appearance, albeit a Brigadier converted into a Cyberman. As the internet begun moaning and panicking about it, I had a different reaction. It’s probably my love of comic books, of absurd situations and ridiculous adventures, but this rumour started something growing in my mind…

To me CyberBrig sounded like a super hero; a crazy early morning cartoon or Marvel Comic. I instantly began thinking of those old 60’s super hero cartoons, with the stilted, only slightly animated, animation, and for some reason realizing this concept of the CyberBrig as one of those old fashioned animated heroes just seemed to click.

I spent the first few days of development with this style in mind, things like the famous Spider-Man cartoon opening, (CyberBrig, CyberBrig, does whatever a Cyberman does…)

A lot of the shots were created while thinking in this style, like the opening heartbeat, and the “look mummy, it’s CyberBrig!” However at some point K9 and Company got thrown into the mix there… I think I started thinking of the animation in terms of being a Doctor Who Spin-off, and that there might be some potential and angling it more towards being a poke at those. And of course, there is no Spin-off intro to make fun of like K9 and Company.

This new style brought in new concepts, like the wine drinking shot, as well as the very 90’s sheen on the logo. I think it’s true that drawing inspiration from a few different sources helps evolve something, stopping it from becoming a rigid parody of something. It really comes into its own as a video, rather than being a straight take on Spider-Man, or K9 and Company.

Of course there have been many different reactions to CyberBrig, both in this video and in the actual show, ranging from finding him a lovely tribute to the late Nicholas Courtney, to finding it super disrespectful. I myself found it a nice tribute. Don’t get me wrong it’s absolutely ridiculous, and this video is about leaning into the absurdity of that moment. So there’s really no disrespect intended, I love the Brig, and Courtney was absolutely fab in the role and a real legend. Hopefully that answers all the angry comments on YouTube shouting, “AUGH How could you do this to the Brigadier you disrespectful swine!!?”?”

Ideas in place, I moved onto production…

Mercifully the video was short in its concept, only lasting the length of the K9 and Company theme, so I wouldn’t have a pile of animation to do. I decided to do most of the work in After Effects, because I knew I would have more control in that program, with more effects available, and it being more familiar to me. As such my process was pretty much creating elements in Flash, exporting them, and then assembling everything in After Effects. So for example that early shot of CyberBrig flying was an image drawn in Flash, exported as a PNG and then brought into After Effects as a layer which I could scroll the clouds beneath as well as adding the lens flares and smoke trailers off of the thrusters in his feet.

Another example is the “Wine drinking scene” which was animated in Flash, just the normal way one would animate in Flash, but then exported and brought into After Effects in order to add the camera zoom and name credits. There’s probably a way to do most of this is Flash, however I just felt I could get it done faster in After Effects, and with a short video like this that kind of depends on coming out quite fast, I didn’t want to be spending hours figuring out smoke trails and camera zooms in Flash. Maybe next time.

The Flash animation actually had very little planning, no story boards or anything. I took on an almost stream of consciousness like style, just animating scenes as they came to me. I then edited them into the order they appear in the finished thing in After Effects, as well as placing them so they fit with the timing of the music. This is obviously not a highly professional production process, but I found it pretty fun and creative.

One of the best parts of CyberBrig was actually its inclusion in the 100% official and legit Doctor Who Magazine. Doctor Who Magazine?? That’s right! Flippin Doctor Who Magazine! That’s right, no longer am I a simple humble video maker, now I am among the stars. Be the glory radiate from this blog post. Bask in it. All right you right at the back, stop laughing.

But no, truthfully it was the most rewarding part of the process and I shall explain why. The early stage of making a video, coming up with the concept and such, always feels like a gamble. Is the video actually a good idea? Will people like it, can it be fun? Does the idea justify how much work it’s going to need? I’m not a very confident Flash animator, so these thoughts were buzzing around my head even more when I thought up CyberBrig. My main worry was that it was too indulgent, too in-jokey, and too rooted in a very current topic. Would anyone be talking about dear old CyberBrig in a years’ time? Would anyone be searching YouTube for him, let alone remember he existed for less than a minute of screen time. In the end I decided to go for it, not because I had dispelled these doubts, but because the jokes at got too real in my head. I kept chuckling at the very vivid image of CyberBrig drinking his wine as his credit popped up, and knew I just had to slog through a few hours of animating to bring it to life.

My point is to fight through all that doubt to make something you personally find funny, but are not sure anyone else will, and then to have that something recognized in a 100% official and legit magazine is really really cool.

Of course they do say that it’s series “We’ll hopefully never see” And wow. Like, how rude.

So, will there be more CyberBrig? I’ll waits and see. Like this video I have to wait and see if inspiration pops up and starts burning at the back of my mind, forcing me to pick up my drawing tablet. At the moment the Cybernetic Soldier is relegated to a running joke, popping up in videos here and there where a cameo makes sense.  But he’s out there… Waiting… Hiding… Biding his time…. He’ll wait for the forces of evil to make their first move, and when they do… He’ll be there.