The Tenth Doctor - David Tennant
Screen-used prop from the 2013 50th Anniversary Special, “The Day Of The Doctor” .
The filming props used by David Tennant in his return as part of the 50th Anniversary episode, "The Day Of The Doctor" were actually off-the-shelf replicas of the Tenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver made by Millennium FX, a company founded by Neill Gorton, who made Monster special make-up and prosthetic effects for Doctor Who such as the Cybermen, the Zygons and the Weeping Angels. These replicas props were originally part of a limited run of 500 created in 2008/2009 by MFX.
During their development, MFX was given access to the original cream hero prop sonic screwdriver to help create two prototypes. One of these prototypes was later used by David Tennant during a Series Four promotional shoot. Unfortunately when the parts were made by the machinists errors occurred and the finished replicas ended up having differences from the original cream prop’s measurements. Another noticeable difference was the use of Heritage Gold Plastikote crackle paint on the handle, as opposed to the correct Aleene's Crackle effect paint for the handles, this led to the props having a very distinctive look that sets them apart from the other props of this design.
When the time came to film the 50th Anniversary special “The Day Of The Doctor” the production needed a prop for Tennant to use during filming. However the two original Cream and Grey derived hero props were no longer viable to film with. The Cream prop had been ruined during the filming of The Eleventh Hour and the Grey prop was gifted to Tennant after he’d wrapped filming on “the End Of Time” years earlier and so it was decided they would need new props for the special. To save time and money during production, Gorton loaned four of his personal replica sonics out. After filming they were retained by Gorton and this is one of those four filming props.
The Tenth Doctor
The Sonic Screwdriver Archive
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