 Alan Pattillo , a veteran <unk> and director for APF , was appointed the company 's first official script editor in late 1964 . This move was aimed to reduce the burden on Gerry Anderson who , while reserving his producer 's right to overall creative control , had grown weary of revising scripts himself . Direction of episodes was assigned in pairs : Pattillo and David Elliott alternated with the less experienced Desmond Saunders and newcomer David Lane for each month 's filming . Due to the difficulties of setting up takes , progress was slow : even on a productive day , it was rare for the crew to complete more than two minutes of puppet footage In a contemporary interview , Hill noted that Thunderbirds contained several times as many shots as a typical live @-@ action series . He explained that rapid editing was necessary on account of the characters ' lack of facial expression , which made it difficult to sustain the viewer 's interest for more than a few seconds per shot . 
