We Stargate fans owe a tremendous thanks to Richard Hudolin, Production Designer on Stargate SG-1. For the first five seasons he was responsible for constructing the look of the show, from Stargate Command itself to the Asgard base in the Adara System.

We are privileged to sit down and talk with him about his Stargate career, from building the Milky Way gate to bringing the next 100-plus episodes in on-time and under-budget.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
00:25 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:20 – Welcoming Richard Hudolin
03:56 – What Stargate Means to Richard
07:10 – Back in the Day: Smaller Art Departments
08:43 – Richard’s Original Team
11:15 – Rest in Peace, Ken Rabehl
14:51 – The Stargate
19:34 – Designing the Gate
23:42 – Jaffa Helmets
24:48 – Differences from the Movie Gate to the SG-1 Gate
26:20 – Problems with the Stargate Prop and Cost
29:30 – The Set Catches Fire
34:53 – Adapting the Helmets
40:05 – Designing a Typical Episode
46:01 – A Great Writer at the Helm
47:30 – The State of the Business Today
49:27 – Changes in Filming On-Location
51:48 – Superman: Richard’s First Big Movie
53:14 – Don’t Design with a Calculator
55:20 – Stargate Command’s Walls Aren’t Concrete
1:02:11 – Working with Richard Dean Anderson on “The Serpent’s Lair”
1:04:39 – Collaborating with Great People
1:07:06 – The Biggest Enemy is Time
1:13:06 – Same Sets, Different Episodes
1:19:54 – Richard’s Favorite Set: Stargate Command
1:22:06 – Thoughts on Modern Production Technology
1:24:20 – Apprenticeships in the Business
1:27:42 – The Vancouver Industry Has Exploded
1:31:27 – Good, Quality Work
1:34:50 – Post Interview Housekeeping
1:36:28 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello, welcome to episode 216 of Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read, I appreciate you joining me today. I am privileged to welcome Stargate SG-1 original production designer, Richard Hudolin to my show. He was responsible for the first five seasons of the show as production designer. He’s done, you can look him up on IMDb, his body of work is extensive; Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, Doctor Who. He is responsible for so much of what it is that many of us watch in terms of sci-fi and consider bedrock science fiction. I can’t wait to have him share some of these amazing stories with you and have you get to know him a little bit. Before we get into the thick of it, if you enjoy Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, click that like button. It makes a difference with our with our profile and will continue to help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. Clips from this episode will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and the GateWorld.net YouTube channels. This is a pre-recorded episode so the moderators in the YouTube chat will not be collecting questions for Richard, they’ll be there to enjoy the show with all of you. I appreciate you tuning in, I’m really excited about this episode. We cover a lot of ground here, a lot of fundamental Stargate SG-1 stuff in terms of the building of some of the most important set pieces of the mythology. Here’s Richard Hudolin. Richard Hudolin, production designer, Stargate SG-1 seasons one through five. This is such a treat for me, sir, to have you on. You are responsible in so many ways for the aesthetic that was Stargate SG-1 from the movie into this whole new world, you and your team of wizards. I can’t begin to imagine the workload from the day to day that you guys managed to pull off. And of course Battlestar Galactica and Caprica. Sir, it is an honor to have you. You can’t see but I’m pinching myself here.

Richard Hudolin
There’s lots of great shows, Doctor Who was in there. Yeah, all kinds of great shows that I’ve worked on, not all of them sci-fi. Little Women, I was an art director on Little Women way back when Christian Bale was a little boy for god’s sakes, he was the guy, little kid.

David Read
I was by no means exhaustive at the beginning of that there. So much of the stuff that you’ve worked on people are still watching to this day. What does Stargate mean to you?

Richard Hudolin
It was a pretty important part of my career. I had just finished, I can’t remember what I had just finished but I got this call from Brad, I think it was Brad Wright. They were over at the Bridge Studios and I went and I met them, I think Jonathan was there as well. They were talking about this Stargate and I had seen the movie which I thought was fantastic. James Spader and that whole thing, was a gorgeous movie, great concept. They said, “we have this concept for a television series that’ll take you here, they’re and everywhere and Richard Dean Anderson is the star.” I said, “Wow, MacGyver, that’s a great show as well.” “…and we’re going to get 44 episodes.” “What? 44 episodes! Are you kidding me?” I had a great team already in progress, I had people that I worked with. I worked a lot. While a lot of people were learning computers I was busy getting the next gig. They’re tapping away and I’m going to L.A, I’m going here, I’m going there, I’m going to do that thing. I was kind of the guy who kept the thing going, this big.. actually it was a small machine, it wasn’t a big machine.

David Read
You were feeding the machine.

Richard Hudolin
I was feeding the machine. I had brought Bridget along and Doug McLean and Ken Rabehl and Thommy Wells. Thom Wells was our construction coordinator and the Davidson’s who are props people, sorry, decorating people. A whole tight art department. After you’ve worked with people a little bit you either work again together or you don’t. You get a team together, you get a cohesive unity where the short form is there. Parts of Stargate, I could be on a location on a phone, again, this was pre-computer and pre-sticky notes and pre-cell phones. It was like you have a roll of quarters and are describing something or whatever. Later on Battlestar days, christ, I’d be in a survey van six hours a day. I could do a sketch on a sticky note, photograph it, send it to the art department. By the time I got back to the art department there would be a drawing on a computer. It was that fast because a) they could understand what you were saying and talking about b) the physical information was transferred electronically so quickly.

David Read
But not in 1997,

David Read
Ink is permanent.

Richard Hudolin
Not in 1997. Back in the day we had smaller art departments. Your choices were likey a HB, a 2H, an F pencil or primer print or do you want to do it in ink and really screw yourself up?

Richard Hudolin
It was a smaller group back in those days and we did everything. I’ve had art department of three people, four people and that was it. This is a television series, The Hat Squad, three people, three people. You know, done, that’s what you do. “You’re gonna be the assistant, you’re gonna be the Junior, you’re gonna be this and I’ll do that. I’ll do what I have to do. I’ll go and get the coffee, I don’t care. We’re all part of the same deal here and if I have to stay overnight, I’ll stay overnight. That’s not a problem.” When the work is there and it has to shoot, it has to shoot. When it’s not there I don’t care if you gotta go, go. You want to take an afternoon off? I’m cool with that. You don’t have to tell me where you’re going every five minutes. I don’t need to know. All I need to know is when that camera turns on they’ve got something really good to shoot. If it’s your responsibility and it’s not there, we’re going to be talking.

David Read
Absolutely. Do you have your phone near you?

Richard Hudolin
Pardon me?

David Read
Do you have your cell phone handy?

Richard Hudolin
Yeah.

David Read
I’m going to send you something. I’m not sure how long it’s been since you’ve seen this, you may have a copy of it on your desk. I came across this and I was like, “oh my gosh, I’m sharing this with Richard.”

Richard Hudolin
Oh my god. I have this photo somewhere, I really do. I’m not sure where it is at the moment, but yeah, I remember that.

David Read
So I have first names on here. On the left it’s Ginny. Ginny who?

Richard Hudolin
Sakamoto. Ginny, Doug McLean, Ivana [Vasak], Bridget [McGuire], me, Michael Wong and Ken Rabehl.

David Read
Wow, that was your team.

Richard Hudolin
That was the Stargate gang. All of these people I’ve worked with quite extensively. What I’ll call the core crew that were with me for the longest period of time would be Doug McLean, Ivana, Bridget and Ken, we were the hard rock core. Ginny then went on to do, she was a junior at that time, evolve into whatever position she’s evolved into. Michael, he’s a great illustrator. Ken and I got along really well and we just went from movie to movie to movie. Here’s the kind of guy Ken Rabehl was, he was so talented. I would get a gig. I remember getting a gig one time and I called him and I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m scraping linoleum off of the floor doing a rap on some show” because there’s nothing in town for him to work on, or all the good illustrater jobs for taken and he couldn’t get a gig. I said, “I got one for you” and that was Stargate. I said, “whoever your coordinator is, go and tell him that I called” and the coordinator said “just go. Just go right now with Richard.” He was on Little Women and a whole lot of shows. He was fantastic guy, fantastic guy. They all are. That’s one group of talent right there.

David Read
Ken in particular, we lost him a few years ago.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, I was with him just before he…

David Read
To ALS.

Richard Hudolin
He went, it was a choice that he made. I remember him coming into my office, he told me and Bridget at the same time that he had ALS. We kept him as long as possible. We would have kept him as long as he wanted to stay, I couldn’t care less if he was even drawing, I just wanted to make sure he had an income.

David Read
Was this Battlestar at this point?

Richard Hudolin
This was on Arrow at this point. We told him, “as long as you want to stay…” and he just reached the point where he physically couldn’t do it anymore. I remember I asked Katie, our office assistant, to go and get me a six pack of Coronas. I had called Ken, I said “I am going to come and visit you.” I sent her out and said “get me some Coronas and get me some limes.” I went to visit Ken and a week later he had people come over and take him away and do the assisted dying thing. He knew it was coming, he said “Richard, I just can’t live like this anymore.” He was a very proud and a very strong man and that’s the decision he made. He said to me “Richard, a lot of people have been coming by to say hello and goodbye and you’re the only guy that ever asked me what kind of beer I like.” That’s the kind of sense of humour he had. We had a few of those wobbly pops and…

David Read
Wobbly pops, that’s great.

Richard Hudolin
That was the last time I saw him, great guy. I have things around my studio here and illustrations that he’s done for my birthday, car, stuff like that. He would just do this. Christ, I think Bridget told you this, he would want to finish a drawing to the nth degree. I would have to go and do the presentations and meeting with executives who weren’t coming to Vancouver, I would fly to L.A. I get my package together and make sure it was of a big enough size that I can carry it on, I’m not putting this in cargo. I remember a couple of times, I go up to his desk because I got the limo pulling up in five minutes to take me to the airport and that flights gonna leave. I’m literally grabbing the thing, “you’re done man, just fucking finish right now.”

David Read
Pry it out of his hands.

Richard Hudolin
I literally was prying it off of this board to take it with me. I said look, “I’ll sell the rest, I know what it’s supposed to be.” It was like that. He was a mountain climber, he did all kinds of stuff. He was very interesting, I knew him for a long, long time.

David Read
I am privileged to have so many examples of his work to be able to show. You’re surrounded by some large grey thing. I don’t know what this possibly is…some kind of Stargate or something? Is this yours or are these the salvaged pieces from the feature?

Richard Hudolin
No, I brought it from home.

David Read
No, I mean is it Stargate productions original or is this one salvaged from the movie?

Richard Hudolin
Once I got the gig we were in what was called a baby stage because the effects stage we didn’t have access to at that point. The studio that we eventually wound up in wasn’t even built yet.

David Read
Yeah, stages five where SG-1 was and six, which was like a secondary, those were were still parking lot space. I wanted to establish this first and foremost.

Richard Hudolin
I remember looking at drawings of those stages as they were in progress. They would come to me and say, “is there anything you want in these stages?” I would say, “yeah, we did it a couple of water taps and a couple of sinks.” All architects always forget when they build a studio that a couple of water taps and a couple of sinks in a studio are a tremendous help to people like the painters and whoever has anything to do with water. Anyway, we had both but they were being built. We were in the baby stage, I got the gig and we were setting up. I was talking to the execs and I flew down to Los Angeles and I was in the middle of nowhere north of L.A. I went to MGM and they assigned me a wonderful person. Oh my God, I can’t remember her name, great woman. They check me out obviously and she told me this in the car as we were driving around. She says “part of my job is to check people out before we hire them. I’ve never had anybody say a bad word about you Richard and believe me, I’ve checked you out.” Which was pretty nice I thought because one of my favorite lines is “if you ask about me, you’re gonna get varying opinions” which is fair enough.

David Read
So you’re in L.A, you have no idea what you’re going to work with yet I’m guessing?

Richard Hudolin
No, no, none.

David Read
How far are you from day one of shoot? Are we months out at this point?

Richard Hudolin
Oh, at the very beginning, yeah, very beginning. We knew a couple of things so we could start laying out and designing, but not the gate, not the Stargate, not the whole deal. A couple of locations we could work on, stuff like that. She drives me to this warehouse, there was a big warehouse in L.A. where you had big creatures from the movie Stargate, you have this, you have that, they stored all this stuff. Then we went up to this ranch an hours north of L.A. and we found bits of the Stargate. It was in pieces, it was scrap at that point. I’m looking at the detailing on it and in my weird little mind I’m going “well, I can pull a mould off of that, I can do this or I can do that. At least I got something I can draw from or pull an image from it and multiply.” I sent back up two tractor trailers full of things like that. Nothing was complete, it was all bits and pieces. This thing’s like being an archaeologist; you find one bone and then you try and reconstruct more from that. I fly back up and I’ve sent two tractor trailers which will arrive here in about a week or week and a half. Those tractor trailers showed up, we spread everything out and we set up our prosthetic. We made the original helmets, the ones that open and closed. Those who are mechanical, we made those in a little lean-to shop outside of the Bridge Studios that we put up. It was polyethylene and two by twos and a lot of toxic chemicals. “What are you talking about, we got air conditioning here on site.”

David Read
I want to focus on the Stargate for a few minutes if you don’t mind, it is such, to this day, such a marvel of a prop. So you bring two tractor trailers up, you don’t even have a complete Stargate, you have pieces that you can take molds from. I think when the wider shot of the film, when it is spinning, they’ve got someone doing something with it. They faked a lot of those spinning shots and with the Chevron’s and everything else. What you ended up with you did not fake that. Tell me about the process that you went through to make such an amazing prop.

Richard Hudolin
I mentioned Thom wells name as a construction coordinator and he had a great guy working with him called Jan Kobylka. These two guys were like Yin and Yang, they were great. One complimented the other so much and Jan was totally into engineering and stuff. I said, “this thing has to work every goddamn time during the show, for one show. Not only that, we are up to 44 episodes. Don’t mess this up here, don’t fuck around.” Thom found a place, I think it was in Seattle or some place just across the border and he had a 20 foot gear made, one gear. The shipping of this thing was unbelievably difficult, it was just the biggest pain in the ass to try and get this thing to Canada. I told you the stage was still being built, right? The elephant doors are only a certain size so there I am measuring, off a drawing, the angle on the…

David Read
The diagonal.

Richard Hudolin
Diagonal on the elephant door to make sure, and I have to be careful of the thickness of the gear, so it goes into the set. I don’t think they’d like it if I’m saying you have to take out part of this wall, which is a concrete wall. That was the beginning of it. That gear, it was so precise. It was machined and it was like a gear in your transmission, it never failed.

David Read
So that gear was created for the show?

Richard Hudolin
Yes. It cost a lot of money and people looked at me sideways and I said “you watch, it’ll pay.”

David Read
It has to land on every glyph it’s supposed to. Apparently it didn’t have a fixed resting place, it had to remain free to float. What were the exterior pieces that were bolted in to it?

Richard Hudolin
It was shrouded in fiberglass pieces and the ring was within that. Each of the lights that lit up were like…I talked to the painter about this and I said “look, it’s got to be opaque when I’m looking at it and it’s not lit but it’s got to be transparent when it is lit.” There is such a thing but back in those days they had to look far and wide for it. When you look at the whole thing, unless it’s backlit, it does not light up so the painters had their problems cut out for them as well. It was a really tricky piece to build in every one of those departments. Again, I give total credit to all the guys; Thom and Jan, I think it was Ken Wells who was painting at the time. Man oh man, they did a great job. Sal D’Aquila did all of the helmet work and all of that. He was a sculptor and an incredible mechanical kind of guy. Those things were things of beauty. In the movie they were CG.

David Read
Those helmets were heavy, I wore them before I sold them for Propworx. I am going to get to them.

Richard Hudolin
I put one of those on one time. I’m claustrophobic okay? I don’t like hugs, maybe I’ll shake your hand but that’s enough, no touchy feely shit. I put one on and I couldn’t get it off. I’m running around, I’m in the art department and I’m going “Bridget get this goddamn thing off me right now.” They’re all trying to yank it off my head and pull my ears up to here.

David Read
Boy did you learn your lesson!

Richard Hudolin
I never did that again.

David Read
In the film there are several – and I’ve been dying to ask you this for years – there are several elements in the film that are not consistent from the series. Like you’ve already said, the Chevron’s were lit red, in the film it was solid naquadah, in universe. The glyphs were depressed in the movie version, in this version they were raised on top. Were these changes deliberate changes? Were they like, “okay, let’s do it this way because this looks better” or were they changes of design? I imagine the red glow would look better for the screen?

Richard Hudolin
It looked better for the screen, that was one thing. The glyphs themselves came down to what would look better for one thing and I would prefer that a shadow was cast on the glyphs which means you raised them as opposed to indent them. It worked on that level for me, visually, and also it worked in the manufacturing of them because it was easier to do it as an applique rather than the other way around. So it was win/win and I went, “yeah, we’ll do that. I’ll explain it later, don’t worry about it.”

David Read
Did you ever have problems with that gate? Did you ever have to shut down for maintenance issues?

Richard Hudolin
No. Even after I left it worked perfectly. It just worked.

David Read
Could you attribute a dollar figure to it if I asked you to. An estimated range in terms of R&D and parts and shipping and everything that put that thing together. Is it a million dollar item?

Richard Hudolin
Probably these days, I can’t remember. When you start totalling all those costs I can’t throw a number at that. If I were to do it today I would guarantee that if I said I wanted to build that now the gear alone would be a quarter of a million dollars. That’s the price of poker today.

David Read
It’s a marvel that you made that and I can’t remember who said it, but “it never missed a glyph.”

Richard Hudolin
Never.

David Read
They locked it a lot and when it went round it was cool.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, you spend the money. You gotta make those decisions early on and usually you’re by yourself when you have to make that call. You say, “well, are you gonna roll the dice or do you want to do it this way? I don’t want to make a mistake now, we’ve come too close and I’m not gonna blow it now.”

David Read
Now, everyone who’s listening in, picture all that we’ve said and now we’re a few episodes into the show and you get to take it all apart and do it again. Do you remember this?

Richard Hudolin
What the fire?

David Read
No, not the fire. You had to move it over to stage five when stage five was finished building.

Richard Hudolin
Oh, yeah.

David Read
Everything had to be bolted together, then unbolted and then taken away?

Richard Hudolin
Well, we had to not only move that, we had to move a number of sets, we had shot a couple of episodes in the effects stage. The effects stage is a very long stage, it’s got to be 350/400 feet long. It’s got a high ceiling because they used to build bridges in it, they built the San Francisco bridge in it, the Golden Gate Bridge.

David Read
That’s a good trivia question. That’s why it’s called The Bridge studios. That’s where The Golden Gate was built, in the effects stage.

Richard Hudolin
Exactly, so we had to move all kinds of other sets as well. The big thing with me was “this god damn thing better fit through that door” and it did. Boy I’ll tell ya, the champagne was flowing that night.

David Read
“Guys, wait until I’m there before you move this one. I just want to watch it personally as you take it out the door.”

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, it was like that. “Here, I’ll help you.”

David Read
The fire that you mentioned, they had just shot Antarctica set in stage six which rubs up against stage five which is the SGC. Stage six eventually became the Atlantis base. There was a stumble light – after Antarctica had been cleared for Solitudes – there was a stumble light that had caught fire. Were you there on set that day or did you hear about this later?

Richard Hudolin
I walked into that stage just before that fire. The set was done and it was all foam and whatever. To strike that kind of set you don’t have guys go in and take it apart stick by stick. You have a crane come in with a pick on it and it’s out of there in half a day. There’s no reclaiming it because it’s already carved and shaped into forms that nobody can use. It’s the only way to really get rid of it and not cost as much as the set cost to build. So the stage was empty…I like walking into an empty stage and quite often when I walk into an empty stage I keep saying “well we’re just gonna need more room aren’t we?” It really annoys producers. That stage was empty and right next to it is the main set with the office and the Stargate and everything else. That particular weekend I had made a date with a female friend of mine who was shooting a movie in South Carolina. She said she was staying at a place called Folly Beach in South Carolina. I said “there’s no such place as Folly Beach man.” She said “oh yeah there is in Charlotte.” Charlotte, North Carolina. No, Charleston. Beautiful city man, beautiful city. So I said “I’m gonna come and visit” that particular weekend. I go into the stage and everything’s cleared. The light is on because you walk through the trap and you think “okay, everything’s cool.” I didn’t notice that the light had fallen and was against the drywall. I get on my plane and I go to South Carolina to Folly Beach and have a great old weekend. I have my cell phone with me and my phone rings and it’s Andy Makita who was the production manager. He said, “Richard, where are you? The Bridge is on fire.” I’m going “well, that’s really bad but I can’t do anything about it man. I’m sitting here looking at the lobster boats out on the Atlantic Ocean.” We were very lucky that they were able to contain that fire enough, that it didn’t actually burn into the Stargate set. They had cleaners into that Stargate set for months afterwards, cleaning with a toothbrush. If you’ve ever been in a major fire there is a smoke and there’s a smell that’s left afterwards. It’s an acrid smoke and it annoys your nostrils and your throat, can you can feel it. They were in there with toothbrushes, cleaning and scrubbing every little crevice of that set trying to get rid of the smell. They had other things, ozonators or whatever, that they always had on the set to try and clear it up. They’re just very lucky that that set had been struck, the foam set. If that foam set went up the roof would have gone up because the roof was ashphalt and tin basically. I guarantee you all of that structure, the crisscross structure up above, would have melted and that would have taken care of that entire stage.

David Read
How would start Stargate have recovered if the SGC was burned to the ground?

Richard Hudolin
You could still shoot in the Stargate set but if they were going to rebuild that stage you’d have a big problem. Now you’ve got a scheduling problem because they’re going to build that stage, that’s their bread and butter. They want to rent the stage and they’ve got the space. To rebuild that stage would have taken months and months. The stage actually goes up pretty quick, they drop these big precast concrete panels and they just lift them up. The stage can go up fairly quickly but it’s still two or three months. It would have would have put a huge kink in Stargate as a totality.

David Read
The helmets for the movie were obviously CG and you guys went and did mechanical ones for SG-1. Had this been an unlimited budget every goa’uld and his Jaffa would have had their own helmet designs. We had the ones made for Apophis and you had them for Teal’c and Apophis, the mechanical ones, so that if you shot them head on you wouldn’t see the business in the back and they could do this [open and close]. At any one time that they went to the side of the side it was a different helmet.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah.

David Read
What was it like? I assume it’s a similar process to the Stargate? You’ve got pistons in these.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, it was simple basic hydraulics. Again, Sal D’Aquila was our model maker, specialist science, sculptor kind of guy, he figured all that stuff out. I don’t know how to do that. I’ll tell you what I want it to do, you’re the expert in that area. I’m a great fan of letting people do what they’re best at. I know what my limitations are, I’m not any good at doing hydraulics. I know what it’s supposed to look like and I know this and I know this and I know all of that stuff. But I know that you know how to do that shit and I’m going to tell you what, I am going to make your day today because here’s one for you. People are happy to do that because it’s what they love. Sal was happier than a clam and I didn’t have a problem anymore. It’s like win/win, right? I’m not the best illustrator in the world, Ken Rabehl is. “Ken, draw this. Here’s the sketch, here’s what I want it to look like, I want these colors. If you’ve got a better idea, please put it down. If it’s a better idea, I will not only take it and use it, I’ll give you credit for it.” Which is what I hope I have always done and I always continue to do.

David Read
James Robbins said no drawing is wasted. Ken did a drawing for an alien from an episode called the Gamekeeper that Dwight Schultz went and played. It did not have the alien makeup that was used, it had pneumatic tubes, not pneumatic. plastic tubes that would make the different parts of the face open and close. It was used later on in the season for another species. “Oh, we can use that, just not for this episode. We’ll use it later.”

Richard Hudolin
Yeah. You would be amazed how many things are changed over and reused in different ways. I remember I’m in my office in Stargate one day. It was late, it was a Friday, four o’clock. It was a late shoot, for whatever reason we’d wound up into a late start on a Friday which you try not to do because you try to give the crew a weekend off.

David Read
No Fratudays if possible.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, so we wound up shooting late that day. One of the AD’s comes running into my office and said “we need an alien object man and we need it right now.” I said, “well, what are you talking about? There’s nothing in the script.” “No, no, no, we just come up with this.” I had a round stainless steel ball about the size of a baseball. I picked this ball up and I had some…I don’t know if you know what Letraset is but back in the day it was like a little thin black tape. We would use it in the art department for drawing, a line, boom, done. You could apply it to wood or to plastics are create a design with them. I took this thin strip of electric tape and I wrapped it in various random series of circles around this stainless steel ball and I said “there you go, it’s naquadah” and it made it to camera that day.

David Read
I think that’s the goa’uld grenades, they roll on the floor and let it go. Those were used throughout the rest of the show. Sometimes you just have to think on your feet, man.

Richard Hudolin
When you need something there’s no time to chit chat about it. Who are you gonna ask? You’re gonna ask me because that’s part of my job so okay.

David Read
I remember there was a junket, special feature, I think on season one of the DVD for SG-1. You’re like, other shows do offices and courtrooms, we do worlds…and you did week after week. What was the process like? Can you take me through the process for a typical show, with a typical offworld planet? How many weeks did you have in advance? The budget, I’m assuming John Lenic, you would all sit down. Maybe John wasn’t at that point…

Richard Hudolin
John came in later. What happened at the beginning of every season is..I’ll go back a little bit and give you a little history here. We would know our start date for the crews to come in and do the prep and art department start dates and all that and the shoot date, day one. I would come in a week or two before the art department and I’d meet with Brad and Jonathan and Robert and whatever other writers were there at the time. There were maybe five or six of us and we’d sit in Brad’s office and have coffee. I would ask questions like, “okay, give me the arc for the first half a year or six episodes or as much as you can.” These guys were smart enough that they’d have an arc almost half of the year. I’d make notes and say, “okay, so in this episode…” and I don’t need the specifics, I just need the broad strokes. “So you’re going to be going to this plant and this world and now you’re going to flip and do a dual thing over here and we’re going to flip back to this. Now I can see where I can take from episode two and apply to episode five.” These are big kinds of thoughts, we’re leapfrogging from one to the next and you’re planning six months to a year in advance of shooting. Sometimes they could give me enough clues of what their intention was. “Just give me your intention and we will see what we can do.” Quite often we would come up with ideas and sketches, Brad or whoever would drift through the art department say, “Oh, that’s a good idea, I’m gonna write for that.”

David Read
You’re giving them ideas.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah, well, no, they came up with their idea first.

David Read
Yes. But everyone’s feeding off of each other’s energy.

Richard Hudolin
It’s a synergy. We took that and we did that and he looked at that and went “wow, okay.” I already had the jumpstart so when the art department started, my crew of six people or however many it was, I would be able to have a meeting with them. “Bridget, you’re the art director, but here’s how this is going to go. I think he should be doing this and she should be doing that.” We would assign each of these things to one of the art department people so everybody got a shot at designing something. It wasn’t like “your job is doing the coffee and your job…” Everybody had a shot to do something, creative. Now we had an overview of where we were going to be in a month or six weeks and how we can take what was on Ken’s desk right now and apply it to what’s on Doug’s desk in two more episodes. When you’re designing this, you’ve got that in mind, so you’re designing with the capability of changing it into something else. That was a huge plus, to be able to have that one or two weeks with the writers. I’d go into my office, parking is really easy because there’s nobody around. Drive in and poof, done. On an episodic basis, they were pretty good. If they couldn’t get us a script they could tell us pretty much where they were going to go and what they were doing. You don’t design and build the stuff in seven days, or eight including second unit day, it’s impossible. As Bridget said in your interview with her, by the time a visiting director would show up, they’d sit down, they’d read their script and they’d say, “okay, here’s what I want to do.” I’d say, “well, here’s what we’ve got.” We’d have a package and it would be notes and props and set deck and illustrations and floor plans and what we’re building. Sometimes that pack would be as thick as the script and everybody in that room would get one. It’s something I’ve done on every show that I’ve ever really worked on, everybody gets what’s called “the package.” Quite often they’d say, “oh, I see the ship has already sailed” and I said “the ship sailed four weeks ago.”

David Read
Welcome aboard.

Richard Hudolin
Welcome aboard. Would you like tea or coffee? Enjoy your space sir. The writers were very good in forewarning us or telling us where they wanted to go with these things, especially Brad and Jonathan. Jonathan left I think, after the second or third season.

David Read
Yeah, at the end of season three, yep. Back to L.A.

Richard Hudolin
Then Brad took over, they’re both great guys. Brad just picked up the ball and he’s such a nice man. I think I was telling you in our first conversation that in each of these great shows that I worked on, be it Stargate, Doctor Who, Battlestar, Caprica, whatever, there’s always been a great writer at the top of it. Brad Wright on Stargate, Ron Moore on Battlestar…

David Read
They’re amazing at what they do and you can trust them for anything.

Richard Hudolin
What was his name on Doctor Who? He was amazing. If any one of those guys called me right now and said, “I’ve got a movie in wherever,” I’d just go. I’d say “sure, tell me about it” but that’s fine, I’ll go wherever. David Nutter as a director, I’ll go with him anywhere. These are very cool people. Their talent is unbelievable, they’re nice people, there’s not a screamer in there.

David Read
When you’re surrounded by people who love what they do, if you’re lucky enough to get to work…There’s some people that you’re like, “you know what, I under certain circumstancesit’s great to be paid.” But if it’s doing something that I could be willing to do for free with these people, you’re a lucky person.

Richard Hudolin
My Mary, I hate to put a label on her. I don’t want to say my partner, my wife, it sounds like I own her and I don’t, she’s her own individual free spirit. My Mary, not in a possessed way, she’s a costume designer and she’s done a lot of big movies. We were talking about the state of the business today and what with the writer’s strike and the actor’s strike and it’s very difficult. I’ve never seen it this bad and I’ve been doing this for over 40 years now in one way or another. Be it CBC television or features or television series or whatever. I just don’t know what’s going to happen, it was a different time, man. I know this is all gonna get solved. I’ve worked with some of the greatest people in the planet. I’ve worked with Sir Ken Adam, this is the guy that invented James Bond, Dr. No, Goldfinger and all that stuff. I worked with Harry Lange, 2001, I’ve worked with Philip Harrison, Aliens and all that stuff. I’ve worked with great directors; the Frankenheimers, John Badhams, Peter Hyams, unbelievable people. Every one of these people was very generous. Richard Lester, an amazing director, he did Superman 3 when I worked with him. He did the Beatles movie, Help; these are world class people and there’s little ol me. I remember Richard Lester, we were out in High River doing something on Superman. We surveyed there three times, the camera’s gonna do this, that and that, done. Well we get there and I go to open the set “where’s the goddamn cameras?” “It’s over there.” I said, “what are you doing?” He said “I want to shoot over there. What are you going to do?” I said, “well, you never told me.” He said “well, Richard…” He was very cool about it, he could have ripped me a new asshole, but he didn’t. He put his arm around me, he said to the AD “give me a second, I’d like to have a word with Richard.” Not in bad way, I’m looking as if he’s gonna give me shit or something. He put his arm around me, we took a little walk and it was at the end of the street. There was this bank, a Royal Bank, which you only have in Canada.

David Read
We don’t have those down here.

Richard Hudolin
You don’t have them anywhere except here. He said “look, never trust a director when they say they’re only going to see this. Here’s how I’m going to fix that for you and something you can put in your back pocket.” He said to the AD “get me an extra, get me a ladder and get me a squeegee.” He put that extra in front of the sign or the building to obscure it enough with the squeegee as if they were cleaning the window or the sign. He said, “and that’s how you do it but don’t ever trust the director when he tells you he’s not going to see something.”

David Read
You made it work.

Richard Hudolin
And we made it work. He shot with three cameras; he shot with a close up, a medium and then he had a huge telephoto in the far background. He would finish shooting at two o’clock in the afternoon and they would come to the art department and say “what can we shoot tomorrow?” I would say “we’re not ready. We can’t generate this stuff fast enough because you’re shooting so fast.” He would just chew it up, unbelievable. The first time I saw that long lens I went holy shit, “that’s gotta be a 1000 mm lens” and he’s way out there and he just picked it off, this and that and that.

David Read
This was for Superman?

Richard Hudolin
That’s Superman. Yeah.

David Read
Wow. That’s wild.

Richard Hudolin
That was the first really big movie that I worked on. This is back when you flew Superman on wires. We were in Calgary and we have to fly him down a street in downtown Calgary. We changed the direction of traffic in the street. We dug trenches in the street in downtown main street of Calgary, which is a big city. We had a guy with this big drum and cable, 80 feet in the air, windup Superman and then track him, fly him, move him on a trolley up there. The city let us do whatever we wanted, we did whatever we wanted. We treated them very well by the way, they did alright by us and we did alright by them. It was my first experience with hush like phrases, a big, big movie. That attitude stuck with me for a long time. I guess a whole lot of combinations of everything of all of these people that I’ve just mentioned and their approach to something. I would tell people in my art department “you do not design with a calculator next to your drawing board. You design with this [head] and with this [heart], you got a script and you know what you’re trying to accomplish here. It’s an emotion, it’s a feeling, it’s a visual, it’s a whole lot of things that are intangible. What it costs we’ll figure out later. You get it right and we’ll figure it out, believe me.

David Read
If you’re starting with a calculator, you’re limiting yourself.

Richard Hudolin
You’re totally limiting yourself. They would say “we’re over budget.” I would say “we’re not over budget. Let’s get it right and either I will change it so that it is right or I will find the money to make it right. You got to trust me because I’m trusting you and we’re all here to do this thing.” Part of my reputation was that I like to design big. Vis a vis the line, you show me an 18,000 square foot stage and I’m gonna say “we’re gonna need more room.” I literally build wall to wall. I leave the safety lane but I build wall to wall because I don’t want to lose that 10 feet of stage space. You have got to leave four or five feet on either side for laneway, I’ll leave the laneway but I’m using the concrete walls to hang scenery on but I’m flush. I’ve had arguments with the safety guys and I said “what I’ve got is safer than what you’re telling me I have to do.” Here’s the why, here’s the wherefore and that’s all fireproof and this is fireproof so it all worked out. People would look and say, “well, you’re breaking all the rules.” I said “well, I’m not breaking them really. I’m taking a different approach to them.”

David Read
Yeah. The visual trickery that you guys would would execute, it’s just like magicians. I remember going to set for the first time in season nine and in my brain the SGC is concrete. I put my hand against the wall and it’s a facade. Further up Bridget even said that it wasn’t even that material, it was something even thinner up above because no one was ever going to touch it and it made economic sense to do that.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah. That was Thom Wells talking to me while we were building it. I think it was above the 12 foot level, he said, “Richard, I know all of this is hard and it’s concrete and whatever but why are we building hard flats up there?” I said, “well, if you can make that cotton look like this, be my guest” and they did.

David Read
That’s just extraordinary.

Richard Hudolin
That saved a shitload of money which I can put somewhere else. You always want to put the money in front of the camera and where you’re going to see it. I couldn’t care less if there’s a finial on that stick that’s 80 feet in the background, you’re not going to notice it. You’re going to look for the actors, the action, the dialog, whatever. If you’re looking for that kind of detail, I’ve lost you already. Forget about it, who cares at that point? You may as well leave the theater. One of us has got to leave the theater.

David Read
We talked about recreating the gate, you also had to recreate the mountain complex. How much wiggle room did you feel you could have in terms of changing a couple of the details while making sure that other details were in place? You have got the main observation window from the gate room into the control room upstairs. You have got the secondary window for the Briefing Room. Certain things had to be in place, you needed certain hallways to look a certain way. How much freedom did you have for filling out the details and filling out the world? Also because it had been a year since too in the story.

Richard Hudolin
They literally said “do what you want to do.” That set was designed so you’ve got the Stargate and you’ve got the control room up top and then the spiral staircase gets you up and down rwith ease, which they hardly ever used. They should have used more, I thought.

David Read
Yeah, it was cool.

Richard Hudolin
The office was next to that conference room and down below there’s the Stargate. That whole wall moved, it was on a track so I could build another room. If I’m looking at the Stargate to my left, I use that for other rooms all the time, all the tunnels and everything else. If I build what I would call an “I” kind of tunnel; there’s a tunnel up here, that big, tunnel down there, that big and I build one in the middle and I leave it open at both ends, it’s infinity. You have people going and coming and I’d turn the camera around and look the other way and now they’re in a different tunnel. Or I’d change the graphics. You can do amazing things with a couple of simple little things, be it a graphic or turning the camera around. People seem to think the camera’s god and it’s not, it’s a recording device. It’s the same thing with light, everybody says “ooo, the light.” Well you think that’s not designed? Every one of those illustrations you look at is lit. I remember one of our DPs on Stargate would come to us and he would thank us. He’d say “well man, thanks for lighting this set because I just looked at your illustration and I’m just gonna hang a couple of lights and it’s done.”

David Read
The light is built into the image.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah. Of the two DPs that I didn’t get along with I’d say, “wait a minute, you keep telling me…like you invented light. Look at the classic painters, look at those guys. They didn’t need 1000 feet of trucks to pull a light out of every five minutes to light something. There was one guy, the producer hated this guy. This producer would say to me, I remember being in a location at one point, different show. He said, “look at this” and we’re standing by one of the lighting trucks, it’s empty. He says, “look at this, the thing is already lit. He’s already emptied the entire god damn truck. This DP lights with available light you know that? Every available light in the truck.” I’ve worked with great DPs as well. I can tell you, there are DPs that are first class, I have the highest regard for them. Some, not so much.

David Read
The first class ones don’t need the kitchen sink, don’t need everything in the truck to make it work?

Richard Hudolin
No. They walk onto a set and they know exactly what is designed, what’s done and why it’s done. They may ask for a practical over here or something like that. It doesn’t look like a night baseball game when they light it, you know what I mean? It’s subtle, it’s beautifully lit. It enhances the space for the actors because you walk in and there’s a mood that they create with this light. That’s what we’re trying to do with anything that’s physical or a set or visual effect. We used to design a lot of the visual attacks. I remember at Stargate, I remember going over to Richard Dean Anderson and I had an illustration in my hand because he had to be on a catwalk kind of thing and look down and it was a green screen. I knew he was gonna say, “well what the hell am I looking at?” I made sure I was there when he was on that set. I walked up to him and he’s looking over this rambling and I’m saying, “here’s what you’re supposed to be looking at” and it was an illustration of what he was supposed to be looking at because we were going to put that in later. “Now, I got it” and you could see now he knew how to act with where he was.

David Read
He didn’t know what he was working with before. It’s just a blank space.

Richard Hudolin
It’s a green screen, it’s nothing. He went “oh yeah, that’s really cool” and then he got it and he could move his head or his eyes or he could kind of point at something and know that it was there, or going to be there. We used to do a lot of that. It wasn’t like you just put up a green screen and send somebody away and say “give me something” if it was basic graphics on a computer or something unless there was something specific you wanted. There were a lot of talented computer guys as well who could generate beautiful imagery. We’d say “keep it in this color range. I don’t want to see this bright yellow in this room because I’ve used these colors in this room, even with the greens and the reds and the blues.” They would understand and you’re not restricting them, you’re just kind of guiding them a little bit. I don’t want to restrict them, I need their help. I don’t want to piss them off but I also want to have what I want. You have to be a little bit selfish to be doing what I’m doing.

David Read
I would imagine if people were seeing that you were going out of your way to make sure that someone had everything that they needed that there would be in turn a place was like “okay, he really wants this. I really want to do everything I can to make it work for him as much as reasonably possible.”

Richard Hudolin
I got a lot of help from a lot of those people that I’ve worked with. That photo that you sent me, those are all great people. Those people I respect a lot, and to this day I respect a lot and hopefully they respect me. When you have that kind of thing where they know I’m not asking this just for my health. I’m asking for a reason and it’s beyond me. It’s not just about Richard, Richard, Richard, there’s no me, me, me here. It’s about what we’re doing here, why are we here? I hold people in high regard and I respect them and if they don’t have the talent and I don’t respect them then I’m sorry, I don’t have a job for you.

David Read
You don’t have time to handle it.

Richard Hudolin
That’s it. I’m quite happy to train somebody but understand, if I’m training you, you’ve got to listen.

David Read
Exactly.

Richard Hudolin
I’ve interviewed so many people that want to come in with no experience or very little experience. They want my job or the art directors job. They think you just point, right? “Well, no, you don’t just point. You should be able to draw something.” “Really?” “Yeah, with a pencil or pen, or a napkin, anything. I don’t care if you do it in a computer.” Guys like Ken Rabehl, he could pick a medium, he could work in a computer, he could work in water colours, he could work in ink, he could work anything you wanted? Squash, pick something, give him a stone and a chisel and he’ll make something out of it. Other people would go “oh no, oh, no.” I like to surround myself with good, honest, talented people and they are out there and they deserve the credit that they deserved. The others should find a different line of work.

David Read
In my conversation with Bridget I thought I was going to walk away with an impression that your biggest enemy was the budget, but it seemed to be more time.

Richard Hudolin
Time was always a problem, especially in episodic, you have seven days to shoot it. But if you got the right prep and if you’ve got people that are listening to what you’re saying and how to shoot it…If time was a real pressure I’d say “well, can we do a French reverse on this one?” Which means you’re building once. You’re looking this way, you’re still looking this way, you change a couple of little things, lighting or whatever and you can’t tell. Yet another of those little tricks you use. Or, “I’ll build you a three wall set and for the fourth wall you go this way.” I have built sets that are incomplete. Oh god, I remember one DP. I built this pretty big set. It was a street scene and it was, let’s say, 280 degrees finished. There was nothing in them from that point to that point. He called the producer instead of coming to me and the producer comes up “DP says he can’t shoot this.” I said, “well, why not?” He says “well look, there’s nothing there. Why is there nothing there?” I said, “well, first of all, that’s when the money ran out.” That got his attention because now it’s money and he’s a producer. I said, “well, if you do this and you do that and you avoid that, you shot it. Why do you need this? All he has to do is get off his ass and think a little bit and it’ll be fine.”

David Read
The audience’s mind fills in details.

Richard Hudolin
“And you don’t have to light it. Look at the money you saved!” There’s a lot of ways to go at things and it just depends how you want to approach things. I have no fear of a person coming to me and saying “we’re gonna go through this budget.” Usually they’re “we’re gonna go through this budget…” like you’ve done something wrong because “this number is wrong.” I remember at least 2, 3, 4 times. I would sit and when I break a script down I’ll go line by line and I’ll put a dollar figure to it. “Okay, you want this shot? What are we gonna see? You’re gonna see that, you’ve gotta build that, you’ve gotta build that.”

David Read
That’s impressive Richard, that’s impressive.

Richard Hudolin
I would go through this budget and I’d say, “here’s a red pen for you. Anything that you see in this breakdown you don’t like, you strike a line through it and I won’t build it. See that number at the end? That goes away when you put the red line through it.” They never used the red pen. They found the money somewhere else because they knew I wasn’t bullshitting them.

David Read
You were going to build it.

Richard Hudolin
I was going to build it. I told you how to build the hallway with the two bits here and the one bit in the middle. I worked with a producer, who I liked, and the budget was a little high and he came to me and said, “well, what are you building here for god sakes?” and the usual bluster. I said, “well, tell me what you’re used to.” He said, well, we’ve built this thing on this show and it was like…” I said, “how many feet do you think it was?” He said “well, it was this many feet.” I took my scale out for my drawing and I said, “okay, so this hallway is this many feet. That’s pretty much the same as what you said there. This one is that many feet so they’re pretty much the same. Mine just looks different but it’s the same footage.”

David Read
You’re still gonna get a camera in there and do it.

Richard Hudolin
It’s the same footage. “Well, if you put it that way.” You have to understand I find these humorous and enjoyable experiences. I don’t find them like conflicts.

David Read
No. You’re figuring it out.

Richard Hudolin
If you’re not having fun with this stuff what’s the point?

David Read
No, it’s not worth it. The amount of stress, stress management is just a part of this. You might as well sit your butt on the beach just far enough into the water where the ocean is just lapping you in the face. Your brain recognizes, “okay, another few seconds, I’m about to get lapped in the face again. I gotta be ready for it.” That’s episodic television.

Richard Hudolin
I have a couple of lines that I use as a result of these pressures. One of them is “I don’t get ulcers, I give them.” The other one is, “you’re gonna have to whine faster, I’m a really busy guy.”

David Read
I love that. That’s great.

Richard Hudolin
When you say something like that to somebody, they understand they’re just whining.

David Read
If they’ve got a good sense of humor they’ll put a smile on their face.

Richard Hudolin
If they don’t get it immediately they get it within a few minutes.

David Read
Your ability to stretch sets was pretty spectacular. I remember the Tok’ra set in season two with the crystals, just making these hallways and hallways of crystals. Come season four you guys added bales of spray painted hay into the walls and you added to the set over time. You continued to evolve the asset that you had based on the budget that you had and made these awesome looking pieces of architecture that are just eye candy to watch.

Richard Hudolin
I’ve built entire sets out of egg crates, you know how you get your eggs in a little thing? I told Thom, the construction guy, construction coordinator, “we’re going to build a whole set of this stuff.” He said “what?” I said “yeah, it’s cardboard, and then we’re going to spray it like it’s concrete.” “You’re crazy.” I said, “no I’m not. Just do it. I’ll do a test.” We used to do a lot of tests, that’s something I should mention. If I had an idea I’d say “give me a couple of four by eight sheets of tests” or for paint, “give me a two foot square of this with the finish on it that we’re going to use.” Then I’d be able to hold it in sunlight, I’d be able to hold it in artificial light, to see what the camera would see or see what the eye sees, which are different things. It’s controllable what the eye sees. But yeah, a lot of tests and this egg crate set was fantastic. I loved it, the texture was unbelievable.

David Read
This was Stargate?

Richard Hudolin
Yeah.

David Read
I’m gonna have to go and have a look. Someone in the chat will figure it out.

Richard Hudolin
It was in stage six. Oh god I can’t remember. It had levels and a big walking level above it. Oh god, I think it was before the ice.

David Read
So season one. Okay.

Richard Hudolin
It filled that stage, it filled stage six and it was made out of egg crates.

David Read
Wow that’s amazing. One of my favorite pieces that’s routinely used and it was used in a lot of the Goa’uld sets in the show, it’s some kind of water filtration device. Instead of running water through it you rig lights inside of it and hang it on the walls midway through the set. The cargo ship set had a ton of them. They just looked cool because they had little grooves all the way down each side of them and the lights on the inside of it would shine out in these really cool patterns. It’s not exactly an appliance, it’s designed for a completely different purpose, but because the shape is so cool and because you can light it in a certain way, you can repurpose this unit for other things.

Richard Hudolin
I can’t remember. I can’t place it.

David Read
Just taking one thing and cannibalizing it into something else, like your egg crates.

Richard Hudolin
You take different things and apply them in a different way. Another thing that I did, it was Caprica. Placemats, our construction buyer went out and said, “I can get a million of these things really cheap.” They were placemats, 17 inches by you know, the normal placemats size. They were like individual little cubes, little Chiclets basically. Individual, all kind of strung together and it was flexible, it was great. I said, “really?” She said, “yeah, I can get all kinds of them.” I looked at them and I looked at them. They were rounded and they were joined so they’ve got a gap and now you got texture, right? You can’t buy square footage like that pre-made. I built a whole set out of this stuff, out of placemats, they couldn’t believe it. Thom came to me and said, “the biggest problem is how do we staple them to the walls?” “Nobody’s gonna notice the staple Thom.”

David Read
The camera’s too far away, it’s not going to get right in close to it.

Richard Hudolin
Get it on there, it’ll be fun. Everybody has their job and everybody focuses on their job. To a lighting guy, the most important thing in the movie is the lighting. To the hair and makeup person, the hair and the makeup’s the most important; that’s what makes the movie. To the craft service person, the food that you eat is the most important. Everybody has that approach. When you’re in a job like mine, you have to be aware of all of it. You take from all and you contribute to all and you have to be very wide open in all of those things. You can’t just look and say, “well, I designed things and that’s all.” No, you do more than that because you’re thinking of the costume color, you’re thinking of the hair color. I’ve had makeup people come to me and say “what I am going to do with the makeup on this one?” It was a little futuristic movie I did way back in the past. She was great and she came up and said “what do you want me to do with it?” This was pretty goth and all of that and I said “put the black makeup here and do this.” She said “are you sure?” “Yeah, yeah. Come on. Step off the edge, you’ll be fine.”

David Read
In this context

Richard Hudolin
It’s that old joke. They Geronimo pushed out of the top of a building him and somebody asked him “how’s it going?” and as he past the 13th floor he said “so far, so good.”

David Read
That’s great. Do you recall any of the Stargate sets that you are the most proud of over the years?

Richard Hudolin
The first one, yeah. After that push that and that major effort to design all of that, there were a lot of great sets afterwards but that’s the one that I really remember

David Read
SGC?

Richard Hudolin
Yeah. How those walls slipped in and moved together, moved apart and nobody knew. It was great, it really was. And how things got loaded into the second floor, nobody knew. It was, “well we’re not carrying that stuff up on a ladder.” “No, you don’t have to. We’re gonna put it on a pallet or a forklift you moron and lift it up.”

David Read
Through the windows, upstairs?

Richard Hudolin
No, there was a little area in the back. The windows were all gimbaled because they have to be because of the reflection.

David Read
Yeah, if you look really closely there’s a in the middle so they can do this. [tilt]

Richard Hudolin
Well, sometimes you want to do that and sometimes you want to do both.

David Read
It’s trickery, it’s whatever it takes to pull off the effect.

Richard Hudolin
It’s an illusion. If you look back at the early days of movies it’s all an illusion. There were brilliant things done in camera back in those days. I see the trend turning again because doing things in camera is becoming very popular again. Actors are getting really tired of being put on a wire and hanging in front of a green screen for six hours a day and being in makeup for the next four.

David Read
Are you blown away by the technology that’s coming out, with these volumes and these monitors that are as tall as a whole story of a building?

Richard Hudolin
No. I did a trip over 20 years ago. I went from Vancouver to Tokyo and then to Singapore and then to the Maldives islands and then back the same way. What I saw in Tokyo 20 years ago, what you’re describing was already there 20 years ago. That kind of thing was starting to happen in London 40 years ago. After my Superman 3 trip, after that movie, I went to England. The guy who I was working with in Calgary, Peter Murton who was the designer who hired me, he was over three or four different continents. They sent Terry Ackland-Snow, who was a British art director, over to Canada to supervise all of this going on in Canada and they had an art director elsewhere also. When we finished the Canadian segment, which took three or four months of shooting, I went to England. They showed me everything. They showed me Pinewood [Studios] where the Bond movies were done. They showed me where the Great Gatsby was shot, we had lunch in that dining room. They showed me Shepparton, they showed me L Street, they showed me literally everything. It was to see how they did their movies. There was a plaster shop, there was a woodshop, there was a paint shop, there was a costume shop, there was a fabric shop. It was different back then, over there, it still is I think. Somebody gets into the business and they learn, they train them., it’s like an apprenticeship. You’ll notice the credits, I saw a credit on some movie the other day and a designer that I know in England, I see his son’s name is a set designer in some movie. You know the name, right? It’s an Ackland-Snow name which is very cool, they’re very big in England, the Ackland-Snow’s. Terry was the guy and I saw this Ackland-Snow in their department, “ah, that’s probably Terry’s kid” and they bring him along. Peter Murton’s son comes along and he does this and props people and set-dec people and they train them very, very, very well. One of our AD’s on Arrow, great AD, really first rate, Ken Shane, he trained as a tea boy in England. His father was a DP, or a lighting guy or a gaffer. When the lighting guys would try and bullshit him “he’d just say no, no, no” because he knew his lighting.

David Read
I see right through that.

Richard Hudolin
He see’s right through it. “It’s going to take you two hours, not four.” That’s it. He trained, he started out as a tea boy.

David Read
What is a tea boy?

Richard Hudolin
A guy who runs around getting the director and whoever a coffee and tea.

David Read
So like an aide, okay.

Richard Hudolin
It’s a PA.

David Read
Okay, got it.

Richard Hudolin
They used to call them tea boys. I guess they call them tea girls as well now.

David Read
You have to start somewhere and if you’re talented and if you’re willing to apply yourself and be receptive to people…

Richard Hudolin
I know it’s going through its problems right now but it’s such a great business. I liken it to being a carnival person, either you’re a carnie or you’re not. There are times over my career that I’d been on the road for years, to the point I didn’t own the car. My phone would ring, people would say “I’m doing this”. I’d say “when are you doing it? I can be there in a week or two weeks.” I’d get on a plane, I’d be gone six, eight months. My phone would ring again and I’d go from there to there. I was gone. It was great. I lived in hotels, I was single, I didn’t a family, I didn’t have any girlfriends or anything. It was like “great, love it.” Dial 9, room service, its perfect. It’s such a great business but you have to work hard at it. If you shut up and listen you’ll learn a lot. My dad used to say that to me.

David Read
My dad did something similar as well. The work that you did over all of these great shows, so many of them are so important to me. Not just Stargate but Battlestar, man, what a show. It was such a good show.

Richard Hudolin
Yeah. That’s Ron Moore.

David Read
Yeah. Ron Moore, David Icke. You guys started SG-1 in 97. I go up to Vancouver now, I talk to people who are up there, it’s exploded. So much of it was because of the money that was put into those productions and all of the Arrow series and everything else that continued to fuel that economy. They rival Hollywood now.

Richard Hudolin
We’re huge, Vancouver is huge. It’s like the Pacific Northwest in America, there’s a certain glow here. In the winter it rains and everything’s nice and wet and it films beautifully. I arrived here for Stakeout many years ago, 36 years ago. My place was in Alberta and I just said “I’m never gone back” and I stayed and that was at the beginning of Stakeout. McCabe & Mrs. Miller had just been shot here, that Altman movie, and Grey Fox was shot here at that time. It was shot just up the road from where I live actually, in Cypress Mountain. It just started growing. Stephen J Cannell realized there was a difference in the dollar. Joe Sorely, I worked with Joe as well here in Vancouver, who was Stephen’s right hand guy. Joe went to Steven and said, “I can save you 25 cents in every dollar you want to spend.” Stephen said, “what?” That is how all those Cannell shows got to Vancouver, which built the North Shore Studios, which was the first major studio built here in Vancouver. Once that happened it started [explosion] and now it’s huge, it’s like billions of dollars.

David Read
It is very effects heavy. You can get so much more done.

Richard Hudolin
We have a lot of visual effects people here. It’s built great crews because they’ve worked with great shows, great people. The X-Files, Mission Impossible was shot here, I, Robot, big big movies and it’s a film friendly town. The weather is overall pretty good. It rains a little more in the wintertime because it’s Pacific Northwest. We’re very green, we don’t have that many deciduous trees where “oh, it’s fall. All the leaves fall off the trees.”

David Read
Christmas films that are being shot up there right now for Hallmark. You can pull it off, let’s put some lights up, let’s put some snow on the ground over there, we’re good. It’s August.

Richard Hudolin
We did that with Little Women. All the stuff people see in front of the houses, that was manmade snow. Try and get into the business, it’s worth it.

David Read
This has been a treat for me to sit down and get to know you better. What a career, what a body of work and work that will be watched for a very long time. These shows aren’t going anywhere, people are discovering them, believe me, all the time. Every time I turn around there’s a new Stargate fan saying, “hey, I just found this. I can’t wait to watch the rest.” It’s good quality work and you and your teams have done yourselves proud.

Richard Hudolin
Oh that’s great, it was fun doing them, it was great. We had an opportunity to be creative and to make magic as they used to say. That sounds like a total cliche but it’s true. When it’s right and you film it and see it and you know it’s right, you get that little tingle. It’s fantastic, it’s something special; you’ve created something. I’m sure it happens in any any person’s life in any job that they do. Building something, being a mason, building a building, you say “that’s going to be here 100 years from now.” There’s a certain pride in your work and what you’ve done. A chef will prepare some incredible meal. I don’t care what it is you’re doing if you’re doing it right and you’re enjoying it. Mary’s into above ground gardening because we’re built on a side of a mountain, the house is. To build this thing you got to dig into the hill so it’s level. It’s basically a big trough above ground, tou got to put this trough in and then you fill it full with all different kinds of dirt and then you grow things. We had this fella come over and he came over with a shovel and he was the best bigger I’ve ever seen. His boss said, “I’m gonna send you my best digger.” I said “what are you talking about?” This guy was amazing. He had a flat blade, he dug this thing and that trench fit in there. He didn’t need a level, it was bang on. He was the nicest guy and he was happy.

David Read
He was good at his craft.

Richard Hudolin
And he loved it, he loved doing things like that and he was happy. I’m thinking “good for you. I hope you spread some of that around so people can see it. They should understand that it does exist and let’s stop with the whining and the whinging and how bad everything is.” What’s that old song, Baloo the bear, accentuate the positive.

David Read
Absolutely. Be thankful for what you have, work your way from there, count your blessings. Find something that you are good at and we should be so fortunate.

Richard Hudolin
Yes. Well you and I are I think.

David Read
Yes sir. Thank you, Richard.

Richard Hudolin
My pleasure my man. Call anytime, we’ll figure this video thing out later.

David Read
My thanks once more to Richard Hudolin for joining me on this episode of Dial the Gate. I’ve been hoping for a long time to add his voice to the collection and big thanks to Bridget McGuire for making that possible, extending an email that I sent to her along to him. This was a real treat for me to have him and hopefully we’ll have him back in some capacity. We’ve got got a few more episodes left before we wrap up season three. Keep it on dialthegate.com for the new episode releases. I’m now keeping the list of some of the episodes that are in the can but have not been published yet, they were pre-recorded. I had this whole list here and I was like “you know what? I really should publish these, it’s not like I’m not going to publish them.” You can see them now available on dialthegate.com. We’re about to wind down our season of Wormhole X-Tremists the following weekend with Crystal Skull and Nemesis. Wormhole X-Tremists will be taking a bit of a break. Dial the Gate will play out a little bit further and we will see how things go. My thanks to my moderating team, Sommer, Tracy, Jeremy, Antony, Rhys, you guys make the show possible week after week and I really appreciate having you. My thanks to Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb for keeping Dial the Gate up and running and Linda “GateGabber” Furey, my producer, thank you to you Linda. Thank to everyone for tuning in and spreading the word about the show on social media, I appreciate all of you. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I’ll see you on the other side.