Big Chief Studios - 1/6 Doctor Who - #10 David Tennant

[murdomac]

This thread seems to be slipping toward the sycophantic, if anything it's Mr. Tennant that needs to be thanked for going the extra mile.

People seem to be getting way to emotional about BCS and need to take a step back and try to view things objectivly.

As a company thier communications and customer service are at best poor which does not inspire confidence they have produced two figures to date one at, I would say, Sideshow quality one which should probably have never seen the light of day in it's current form. This is not a good track record so far.

I can only judge what a company has produced so far not what the might produce in the future or prototype photos.

Please don't take these comments the wrong way I do sincerely hope this company can get it together and produce good quality figures in the future but they do need to up thier game substanially at least to the point where the product quality reaches the price point they're asking.

 

[Captain Britain]

This thread seems to be slipping toward the sycophantic, if anything it's Mr. Tennant that needs to be thanked for going the extra mile.

People seem to be getting way to emotional about BCS and need to take a step back and try to view things objectivly.

As a company thier communications and customer service are at best poor which does not inspire confidence they have produced two figures to date one at, I would say, Sideshow quality one which should probably have never seen the light of day in it's current form. This is not a good track record so far.

I can only judge what a company has produced so far not what the might produce in the future or prototype photos.

Please don't take these comments the wrong way I do sincerely hope this company can get it together and produce good quality figures in the future but they do need to up thier game substanially at least to the point where the product quality reaches the price point they're asking.

What I've put in bold is just not true. They communicate brilliantly - mainly in this forum - are ready to post self-criticism and admit their mistakes, and as far as customer service is concerned they really do try hard to provide good CS and usually do.

On the other hand... grrrrrrr seeing those lovely looking sigs reminded me of the hell that was the pre-order... I decided that I wanted one only to find myself accidentally buying three and then having my cart emptied... never again will I try to get a sig. Glad for everyone who got one though.

 

[Niceman]

What I've put in bold is just not true. They communicate brilliantly - mainly in this forum - are ready to post self-criticism and admit their mistakes, and as far as customer service is concerned they really do try hard to provide good CS and usually do.

On the other hand... grrrrrrr seeing those lovely looking sigs reminded me of the hell that was the pre-order... I decided that I wanted one only to find myself accidentally buying three and then having my cart emptied... never again will I try to get a sig. Glad for everyone who got one though.

If you haven't, I strongly suggest you ask them to put you on a waiting list for a sig edition. There will be cancellations.

 

[DGTWoodward]

This thread seems to be slipping toward the sycophantic, if anything it's Mr. Tennant that needs to be thanked for going the extra mile....

Whilst I like Mr Tennant very much, I suspect that he was not the one that came up with the Signature Edition figure. That was all BCS, Mr. T had two choices, to sign the plaques or not. The fact that he did says to me that he probably was contractually obliged to do so in some way.

As a company thier communications and customer service are at best poor which does not inspire confidence....

I forget, did you get these, or not? Genuine question. If 'Yes' then great. How many times did you have to contact them and how long was it between question and then answer?

I have contacted them many times, and I have never had to wait for longer than 2 days for a response. A good few times I'd had answers with 10 minutes.

And I say again, can you find any company that has had such an open door policy with its buying public? Hot Toys....Medicom....Enterbay? Even SSC which is perhaps a little better, is still nothing like as open.

I can only judge what a company has produced so far not what the might produce in the future or prototype photos.

Well, I cannot totally disagree here but then a company has to be at least partially judged on some of its forthcoming items, like the #10 Tennant figure. This has already sold out on PO so expectation and anticipation is high. I have this on PO and now that we have seen the Sig Ed pics too, I think it will be a steal.

Please don't take these comments the wrong way I do sincerely hope this company can get it together and produce good quality figures in the future but they do need to up thier game substanially at least to the point where the product quality reaches the price point they're asking.

No, I don't take this the wrong way at all. I welcome your views. I don't agree with them, but I welcome them, they were very clearly and concisely expressed.

 

[Niceman]

Whilst I like Mr Tennant very much, I suspect that he was not the one that came up with the Signature Edition figure. That was all BCS, Mr. T had two choices, to sign the plaques or not. The fact that he did says to me that he probably was contractually obliged to do so in some way.

I'm not sure what contract a man who retired from the role of Dr. Who would still be under 4 years later (notwithstanding a one-off appearance during the upcoming Christmas special.) It seems to me EXTREMELY unlikely that Mr. Tennant was forced to sign the plaques. He's a decent guy and clearly went out of his way to make this release special. He deserves our thanks for taking the time to sign his name so carefully to each of our plaques.

 

[The Mike]

Damnit that's beautiful.

Getting excited even if we do have to wait until Q4.

 

[jimjimmyjones85]

I'm with you bro !

 

[The Mike]

I'm with you bro !

 

[DGTWoodward]

I'm not sure what contract a man who retired from the role of Dr. Who would still be under 4 years later (notwithstanding a one-off appearance during the upcoming Christmas special.) It seems to me EXTREMELY unlikely that Mr. Tennant was forced to sign the plaques. He's a decent guy and clearly went out of his way to make this release special. He deserves our thanks for taking the time to sign his name so carefully to each of our plaques.

Yes...my bad, I didn't really express that very well did I? He's a very decent fellow indeed. We wrote to him via the BBC during his run as The Doctor and so much time went by without reply that we forgot that we'd done it.

18 months later, an envelope plopped onto our 'welcome' mat and in it were three individually personalised and autographed photos from David as well as a letter of apology for the delay in responding. So '...decent' is exactly the right word.

That said, this is the BBC we are talking about here, and they guard their properties very defensively indeed. Dr Who is their biggest property without doubt. If it is to do with the 50th celebration and there are likeness rights, as well as promotion rights (don't forget, the wonderful Mr Tennant has been back under contract as he has been back filming as The Doctor) there might easily have been a contractual attachment.

 

[pixletwin]

Contractual agreement forcing his hand to sign?

1) How is this even a point of interest?

2) it is doubtful such a contract exists. Even if it did, so what? (See #1)

 

[Ex-Parrot]

Whilst I like Mr Tennant very much, I suspect that he was not the one that came up with the Signature Edition figure. That was all BCS, Mr. T had two choices, to sign the plaques or not. The fact that he did says to me that he probably was contractually obliged to do so in some way.

He is in no way obliged to sign anything. In fact, unless the rules have radically changed in the last few years (and I doubt there is an actor's union anywhere that would allow such a thing), then actors can't be contractually forced into giving any autographs, no matter what other deals are in place as far as merchandising or whatever else goes. An actor always retains the ownership of their name and signature, just as they only ever sign over the use of their likeness as depicted in a given role, and even then, if used in actual merchandising (and not just standard promotional material) it has to be specifically contracted for. Now they can, of course, choose to sign stuff for free, or be paid for doing so, as part of promotional events or merchandising, and it is pretty much standard that most actors will sign for free, or for the price of return postage, for fans who write them, but no one is forcing anyone into doing so. Actors traditionally get paid an agreed appearance fee for any promotional work they do (including signings) for this very reason.

While I'm sure it was likely part of his contract that his likeness as The Doctor would be able to be used and replicated by BBC for merchandising purposes basically in perpetuity, there is no way he (or any other actor playing The Doctor) is being forced to sign anything, nor could anyone's signature be legally replicated without their permission to do so. No, BCS would have paid him for his time, and I don't imagine that David Tennant would have been all that hard to make a fair deal with, as he probably understands this stuff better than most actors, from both sides of the fence.

Besides, it's likely a nice chunk of change for a couple of hours easy work, signing a bunch of plaques and posing for a couple of promotional photographs. I mean the signed editions are an extra twenty quid each, for three hundred that's six grand. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the actor in question doing the signing saw half of that as their payment (depending on the actor could even be more, seriously doubt it would be less than a third no matter who it is). That's not bad for something that would be arranged to suit their schedule, and wouldn't impact on anything else, but instead would likely slot into a casual couple of hours when they had the spare time. In fact I'd say it's probably about the closest an actor gets to free money.

Hell, even if most of that money went to securing the actor's time to sign the plaques, BCS still have their profit margin built into the original figure cost anyway, and this is just a way to help sell more figures for BCS, so any slice of that additional six grand they might walk away with at all is pure win from their point of view. Especially combined with the amount of attention that the signed editions help shine on their products to begin with.

Point is, nobody forced Tennant into doing this, no matter what way you cut it. These kind of things just don't work that way.

It is going to be interesting to see what happens when they get to Christopher Eccleston's Doctor, assuming that they do. While the rest of the (still living) Doctors should be easy enough to make a deal with, that one I really could see going either way.

It's also going to be interesting to see what kind of exclusive they go for with William Hartnell's Doctor (and Troughton and Pertwee when they get to them). Will they negotiate with the estate(s) for the right to replicate their signatures, and reproduce them as etchings or autopen, just to try and maintain a certain consistency across the line, or will they come up with some other idea for exclusives for those Doctors? I hope we at the very least get a named plaque for each doctor done in the established style, no matter what direction they decide to take for the Doctors that are sadly no longer with us.

 

[ProgMatinee]

Pretty cool that signature editions are available for those who want it, but to the guy at the top of the page that wants us to thank David Tennant for his time here, lets not get carried away with thinking its anything altruistic...its a business deal.

 

[Niceman]

That said, this is the BBC we are talking about here, and they guard their properties very defensively indeed. Dr Who is their biggest property without doubt. If it is to do with the 50th celebration and there are likeness rights, as well as promotion rights (don't forget, the wonderful Mr Tennant has been back under contract as he has been back filming as The Doctor) there might easily have been a contractual attachment.

This is silly. Why would there be a contractual requirement for a BBC actor to agree to a Big Chief figure carrying his signature? I can't imagine where you're getting this from.

 

[Niceman]

It is going to be interesting to see what happens when they get to Christopher Eccleston's Doctor, assuming that they do. While the rest of the (still living) Doctors should be easy enough to make a deal with, that one I really could see going either way.

I would be surprised if Eccleston did decide to do it. He keeps such a distance between himself and Dr. Who.

 

[ProgMatinee]

This is silly. Why would there be a contractual requirement for a BBC actor to agree to a Big Chief figure carrying his signature? I can't imagine where you're getting this from.

Prbably not involving BBC but certainly there would be a simple contract between Big Chief and Tennant that covers the basics like how much they'll pay him to sign x amount of placards.

 

[Niceman]

Prbably not involving BBC but certainly there would be a simple contract between Big Chief and Tennant that covers the basics like how much they'll pay him to sign x amount of placards.

Yes, but he wasn't forced. They offered him whatever pay for a few hours of work and he agreed. Then he bothered to give us nice signatures (unlike some doctors who couldn't be bothered.)

 

[pixletwin]

Yes, but he wasn't forced. They offered him whatever pay for a few hours of work and he agreed. Then he bothered to give us nice signatures (unlike some doctors who couldn't be bothered.)

That is the main point, I believe. If Tom Baker's sigs look anything like what we saw in that photo, they will be legible and classy. Those are the only sig editions I care about.

 

[ProgMatinee]

LOL. He wouldn't be forced to do anything. Hes a free man. He can show up or not show up.

While he didn't have to sign anything, IMO there's no reason not to. A company offers you a few grand to do a quick thing that your fans in the end will appreciate and enjoy. You probably get a few fun perks like some free figures, a nice catered lunch, and oh yeah a few grand again. Even for an actor that's a nice watch or a couple of suits or something. Actors, atheletes, these folks don't usually pass up opportunities to make some quick cash for an hour's worth of work because they know that 99.999% of the rest of the universe can't make such easy money.

So while I share the sentiment that he certainly had more respect for the fans than Matt Smith did, I'm not sure he needs to be congratulated for executing his end of a financed agreement that in the end the customer pays for.

 

[pixletwin]

The point he is making is that it could have been a crappy "I could care less" signature like Matt Smith's was.

 

[Niceman]

LOL. He wouldn't be forced to do anything. Hes a free man. He can show up or not show up.

While he didn't have to sign anything, IMO there's no reason not to. A company offers you a few grand to do a quick thing that your fans in the end will appreciate and enjoy. You probably get a few fun perks like some free figures, a nice catered lunch, and oh yeah a few grand again. Even for an actor that's a nice watch or a couple of suits or something. Actors, atheletes, these folks don't usually pass up opportunities to make some quick cash for an hour's worth of work because they know that 99.999% of the rest of the universe can't make such easy money.

So while I share the sentiment that he certainly had more respect for the fans than Matt Smith did, I'm not sure he needs to be congratulated for executing his end of a financed agreement that in the end the customer pays for.

I'm not nominating David for sainthood (for this) but you watch, Eccleston will probably turn them down. Anyway, my whole point was I appreciate him taking the time (he doesn't need the money) and signing these and doing such a good job. It was decent of him and appreciated!