We are delighted to welcome back Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and Universe Costume Designer Valerie Halverson to Dial the Gate! She joins us LIVE from the Gatecon stage to take us through a slideshow of her Stargate career!

As this is an in-person event, the DTG moderators will not be taking questions for Val.

Thanks to GATECON for making this episode possible!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
01:53 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:30 – Welcoming Valerie
04:21 – SG-1 Season Ten Work Slideshow
10:42 – Sketching the Designs
13:27 – Budgets and Planning
15:45 – Atlantis Slideshow
22:24 – Jason Momoa’s Costumes
23:55 – Rachel Luttrell’s Costumes During Pregnancy
26:16 – Costumes For Vegas
27:20 – Special Ronon Dex Costume
29:10 – Costumes for Propworx Stargate Auctions
31:09 – Speciality Costume Designs
36:41 – Stargate Universe Work Slidehow
43:34 – Wrapping up with Valerie
44:20 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello, Gatecon. How are we doing? Thank you for being here. I know it’s like really late, and also like part two. What the heck? Yes, this is a part of an ongoing series of conversations with the cast and crew of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, Universe, and the movie. Thank you so much for being here. I would like to welcome someone who has become a friend of mine throughout this process. Someone who I was in the trenches with way back when Atlantis and SG-1 were wrapped and was getting all the costumes together for auction. Valerie Halverson, will you please join me on stage, please? Costume Designer, Val Halverson, SG-1, Atlantis and Universe. How are you?

Valerie Halverson
I’m great. Good evening, everybody. Hi.

David Read
Thank you for joining me.

Valerie Halverson
And you’re right, we have become friends. We went through so much when those shows wrapped.

David Read
There was a week long process of selection and itemization and bagging and shipping. And we moved 2,000 pieces?

Valerie Halverson
Probably yeah.

David Read
2,500?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And it was a trip down memory lane for a lot of us.

David Read
Extraordinary. Yeah, it was amazing. So you have gotten a little gift together for us tonight. You did SG-1 seasons nine and 10.

Valerie Halverson
10 mainly.

David Read
Season 10, mainly, Atlantis seasons four and five, and all of Universe.

Valerie Halverson
Correct.

David Read
And here we are celebrating this thing that you were a part of years later. Was it obvious at the time that it would last as long as it has and continue to be as special as it is? Or is part of you pinching yourself that we’re still talking about this thing?

Valerie Halverson
Well, I think we all knew it was very special. There was no doubt about what Brad and Robert had put together and what Paul and Joe and and Carl continued on showrunning, it was amazing. And every script we got, and I’ve heard this on many panels actually because we all felt the same way. Every script we got was like what’s next? What can we do? How can we excel? How can we you know, create more interesting things. They just always elevated our craft.

David Read
So let’s take a look at some of that crafts assembled here. If you don’t mind, Francis, we’re gonna go ahead and bring up a little slideshow, and make sure to put it on pause there, that Valerie, mianly Valerie has put together. So this is SG-1.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, there’s the gang. Man, they were great. Yeah, I was lucky enough to join them in season nine as the assistant to Christine Mooney, who was an amazing designer. And when she had to step away from the show, I was given the opportunity to design and that was in season 10.

David Read
Let’s have a look. Oh, well. and design we did. You’re gonna see all sorts of things here. So.

Valerie Halverson
Especially SG-1, well, we know Ben Browder wore that one.

David Read
So this is battle dress uniforms. So this is obtained from from stock or did you guys make these yourself?

Valerie Halverson
We didn’t make any of those military uniforms on SG-1 that came later. These were very authentic. That’s a Vala costume when she went to Earth. And it was always fun because she was such an incredible character. I used to love doing crazy things. I mean, this is 15 years ago, right? I’m still loving it.

David Read
This was Family Ties, I think. Manicures and Victoria’s Secret, right? So there was an accompanying one for Carter.

Valerie Halverson
The other was, I don’t think we have a picture of that. But yeah, super fun. That’s actually Adria. That was her, we actually have a sketch that goes with this a little further along. When she was when Ba’al imprisoned her, because she took off

David Read
Dominion

Valerie Halverson
amazing coat. And this was underneath. And I will tell you something interesting about that one that I was looking for a new kind of leather, something really feminine, and I couldn’t find it. So my cutter and I made this costume. And we actually made the leather and then we added ribbon and we added lace and we stitched it all together. Because there’s nothing more interesting to a director of photography or some cinematographer than texture and things that catch light and things. So this was one of my favorite outfits. [That’s Victoria’s Secret?]

David Read
I think Vala in Unending if I’m not mistaken. Oh my gosh.

Valerie Halverson
I actually can’t remember what…

David Read
I think it’s Vala in Unending. Am I wrong? I think that’s it.

Valerie Halverson
Well, those are great, that’s Christina McQuarrie’s great work.

David Read
Now this is symbolic of everything that the show was, SG-1. I think this may be a Continuum costume because it’s awfully dang sharp. I got these things. I got 50 Jaffa costumes from production. And all it was was giant cardboard boxes, heavy as hell. And you think “Oh, I’ve got 50 costumes.” No, I’ve got 50 pieces of costumes. I may have like 30 costumes.

Valerie Halverson
I think there were 22 pieces.

David Read
Right. And every one and so by the end of it, because the most of them are of a relatively standard size? At least you think that and then I got through this thing and I can only have so many. The pieces are complete but there’s only so many sizes that go together because they were on so many guys. But it was a trip trying to reassemble that let me tell ya, I figured it out on my own. It took a while but it’s like…

Valerie Halverson
They’re pretty amazing. That’s SG-1.

David Read
Oh, Cliff Simon.

Valerie Halverson
Cliff Simon, one of my favorite actors to dress as well and a great person.

David Read
I love this. This is The Quest. I think I like it probably even more than the one from, as beautiful as the one was from Continuum, there’s something about this one with the ribbing on it. It just lit up.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. I was really, really happy.

David Read
And his belt.

Valerie Halverson
It was one of first ones I made from well, yeah, sorry, our model Department made the belt.

David Read
Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
Incredible work.

David Read
The metal work that these people would produce on just a dime.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And then I just put it on my costume and take all the credit.

David Read
It’s great. Insiders.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, I love the richness of those fabrics. Okay, bear with me. I’m not an artist. I’m a costume designer. This is a picture that helps my cutters know what I’m trying to say. You know, there’s many people that are more talented.

David Read
No it’s good. It’s good. I think this is Stronghold if I’m not mistaken. This is one where he’s on the Goa’uld mothership and a bunch of him is walking around, and he’s walking around in this just regal robe. And it was just he…

Valerie Halverson
The lining was quite amazing, I think it was gold.

David Read
Jacek.

Valerie Halverson
Jacek. Yeah.

David Read
Virginia dialogues.

Valerie Halverson
Oh my God, he was great.

David Read
So that’s the upper part with the coat

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, with the red lining to come through the gate with Vala. Yeah. So this is one of the first things I designed for Morena Baccarin and when she was the head of the Ori, I guess, And I was telling David this story how I was trying to think, “What would she want? She’s running the show and she’s a little bit of a princess. So she wanted to look just like the those guys but we had to sort of make it a girl size. And so I kind of shrunk it all down and made it a little more feminine. But a lot of that was taken from the Ori warriors. So she could do anything. This one I love because it was just a happy circumstance that once we had that made and it’s rich and beautiful and move beautifully. And when she moved her arm, it looked like a galaxy. Yes, that lace was just and I thought, oh, that worked out really great.

David Read
Just very, oh, she looks like a Messiah.

Valerie Halverson
And there’s a sketch of it.

David Read
I love your sketch work. How much time on average would you spend on a sketch, and how long, at what point is it, “Okay, I need to get the idea down.” And how long is this going to take to really get, because the people who you’re working with who are going to interpret the information. And of course, you can tell them, this is kind of this, this is that.

David Read
How precise were Brad and Rob, I remember you sharing the story in episode one about this is to design for the Lucian Alliance, but in terms of something like this, was it more or less a sign off? Like, “Val, we trust you do your thing.” Most of the time it’s a sign off, or were they like, “Okay, I would like to see this.” Were they Steve Jobs-ing you?

Valerie Halverson
Right, they get used to that, and what you like and stuff. Well you’ll see a little further along that there’s many pages where I just have lots of little tiny little sketches. And that’s how it goes through my head as I’m just, “What am I going to do?” I’ll start with an idea. And then it actually evolves into this. And then this would be one that I would show the boys. It would be a little bit you know better a little bit colored. And some of the textures and everything in it. So this would take me probably a good hour to two hours to do.

Valerie Halverson
Absolutely not, the most trusting head of the family you could ever have. And that was the great thing is you worked so closely with the actors as well as to how they felt and then you worked so closely with like Dan Shay stunts to see what they were going to be doing. And all of those things factored into it. But really, they wanted a beautiful rich look. And they gave you carte blanche.

David Read
There you go. And you had the budget to buy bolts of all kinds [of things.]

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, I might still have a few pieces of fabric around shiny black things. I don’t know. I think sci fi.Yeah. That was her flame dress. Oh, that was her. Yeah.

David Read
Yeah, that looked like Dominion back there and that okay. Yeah, man.

Valerie Halverson
That would never made it to camera, I think you might know why. But some fancy Palazzo pants or something. We never made it. That’s Vala just working out you know what she needed to give her a look that was similar to Adria. But not the same. So those are sort of…

David Read
Oops, backup a little bit Francis.

Valerie Halverson
Just went that’s a good one. Because that’s all my notes to my sewers and to my cutter that is like how long I want it. You know how the sleeve looks and it gives a lot more detail information. That’s more what they get. Yeah. So there’s sort of like three processes. There’s a little working through the idea, then there’s this that breaks it down for my cutters, and then there’s the one that’s actually covered.

David Read
Do you have a budget for every episode?

Valerie Halverson
Yes.

David Read
How does it work?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, you get a, we had a standard budget per episode. But in the end, it needed to add up to this much. Right? So and people like Carl, and Joe and Paul would say, “Just so you know, three episodes away we’re giving you a whole civilization or an army or something. And I want you to start thinking about it and start planning it and stuff.”

David Read
Get the juices going.

Valerie Halverson
So that’d be a little of a bump up on that.

David Read
Oh, I would hope so.

Valerie Halverson
Sheer numbers, but we did so many big shows. We did so many civilizations.

David Read
So why, Francis, can you switch back to us for a second? Is that possible? I have in my living room. The one of three outfits that were designed for the Pegasus Asgard in First Contact and Lost Tribe, what a suit that was, because it had under, according to Joseph Mallozzi, each suit was $100,000 in development in r&d.

Valerie Halverson
So that would have been Christina McQuarrie.

David Read
For season five of Atlantis. First Contact and Lost Tribe.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, I’m sorry.

David Read
Yeah. And then these are the costumes that went on to Universe, so you modified the helmets. So for something like that, I mean, how did you, because put most of it is plastic and what do you call it? Whatever that was, rip things off and put it back on. Velcro and all that. How much of that did you design for those suits.

Valerie Halverson
That would have been, those are actually a lot of boards in our metal shop. Yeah, yeah. And he was amazing. But that took even more because those products that he uses are so expensive. So R&D, yes.

David Read
Yeah. Just extraordinary that the manpower and everything else. James Robbins would produce an item and then those guys, it’s like bringing it into, they would will it into reality sometimes. Exactly, like it was.

Valerie Halverson
They were geniuses. I mean, you’d give them an idea and they would produce it and you couldn’t, wasn’t like I was testing them, I just couldn’t believe how talented they were.

David Read
Right, absolutely. Thank you, Francis. Let’s go ahead and go back. Moving on.

Valerie Halverson
To Stargate Atlantis

David Read
Under the sea.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. So I love this because this shows when I was first asked to come on to Stargate Atlantis, Christina McQuarrie was going onto the movies. And Joe and and Paul and Carl and Brad and Robert were like, “You know, we’re pretty happy with it, do you see anything that you might want to change?” And the only thing I’ve really thought of as I wanted to streamline the uniforms, Christina had done a beautiful job, and the identifying colors and everything. But I just sort of have a bit of a reputation for doing things a little fitted, a little sexy, and I kind of wanted to bring that. So you’ll see, how beautiful that costume is on on Robert. And so I did that. And I said, “I just want to change them a little bit and sleek them up a little bit.” And they said, “Okay,” and I said, “Well, I had a little idea. I was thinking that everybody our lead cast should really have a look for offworld. And we would contain like, keep their characters within that.” And that was one of my most fun projects. I mean, can you imagine putting Rodney McKay in a leather jacket? He’s such a brilliant scientist nerd that it was, I had to kind of figure out how to do that for him. And so it was a sort of a sturdier jacket. But if you look closely on the left sleeve, there’s a pocket protector, of course, down there. You know, and I mean…

David Read
Let’s go. Let’s have a look. All right. That may be, um.

Valerie Halverson
Amanda?

David Read
Yeah, or Jewel? Yeah.

Valerie Halverson
Or Jewel? Yeah. It was yellow.

David Read
There’s Picardo’s right there. And that was introduced in The Last Man when he came on for the first time. He’s so…

Valerie Halverson
We all love him. Yeah.

David Read
There’s Jewel.

Valerie Halverson
That’s Jewel. Yeah. That’s killer.

David Read
What’s that? That, is that McKay?

Valerie Halverson
Is that got a Canadian flag on it?

David Read
That’s how you tell. That’s cute.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Yeah.

David Read
Is that, was that Jacek?

Valerie Halverson
I think that was Jacek.

David Read
Okay. I was trying to figure out how that Okay, so that’s SG-1, y’all. I was gonna miss some in there somewhere. Sorry. Now this cloak.

Valerie Halverson
That’s Tyre.

David Read
That’s Tyre. Okay. Ah, Teyla.

Valerie Halverson
Teyla. So she was actually really fun to do her offworld black leather costume because she was such a warrior. And, she fought so much and did so many stunts that, but if you look closely at hers, it’s very fitted and very feminine. But there’s like little bits of black fur coming out of it. There’s an elegance to everything I wanted to do for Teyla.

David Read
Her costumes always featured, almost always featured Athos in some way. Like it never left her.

Valerie Halverson
No. Yeah. No, it was just so much fun. Oh, that’s Jewel when she was, what’s the name of that.

David Read
Brainstorm.

Valerie Halverson
Brainstorm. Oh, yeah. When they were frozen.

David Read
From television.

Valerie Halverson
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy. And you know, that was just such a fun episode.

David Read
Speaking of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Valerie Halverson
There’s his tuxedo. There they are. There’s the boys. And Neil brought his own tie. He wasn’t sure I would have one with enough planets and stars on it. He happened to have a small inventory of them. But I found Bill’s for him. Harmony,

David Read
Harmony. Mardola. Or I get one of the sisters. I can’t think of the other one. So there’s okay. Yeah, Harmony.

Valerie Halverson
As a grown up apparently.

David Read
Yeah. And that’s wasn’t a Jeannie.

Valerie Halverson
That was the other sister.

David Read
No, that was the other sister, excuse me. Yes, Jeannie Miller. So this costume, I have one of these as well. And they are amazing. Just the number of pieces that takes half an hour to assemble with no living person inside to help you out, easily and some of them had a a prop built into their chests so that it could self destruct because that’s the idea, if they get captured, they can press this down, and then they blow. So you know what?

Valerie Halverson
Those are amazing,

David Read
Amazing costumes.

Valerie Halverson
The model shot. Imagine the r&d on that as well.

David Read
Ridiculous, because it’s so organic. And now we’re moving on to the Wraith commanders here. James Lafazanos I can’t imagine how many of these things he wore. That was a man who could wear clothes.

Valerie Halverson
I mean, they were, Chris Heyerdahl and all those [guys].

David Read
Yes, Chris.

Valerie Halverson
Were tall and lanky. And you had to just sweep through a spaceship with your leathers on. It was amazing. We tried to do some little different things on there but they really kept that sleeve that Christina McQuarrie had designed.

David Read
Is that, oh, go back. Yeah. Is that Teyla?

Valerie Halverson
Teyla and the queen.

David Read
That is Teyla.

Valerie Halverson
And this was a really fun one to do. I mean, I don’t know if you can see it close up. But even the shoulders I did like a crocodile back so it had the spurs kind of on it. So that it would look really great. She was in a dark, dark cave a lot of times and I wanted it to shimmer and move and have texture and take up space and everything. But she had to do backflips and everything in this so we had I was like, “How do we do that in a Wraith queen costume?” So we ended up putting her in like riding culottes that we made. It was a bit of a stretch. But we had to do it.

David Read
Pardon the pun. There’s a movie magic element that you really have to take into. And I love this outfit as well with Andee talking about someone who could really wear the clothing. And you come in and see her and she’s got this whole thing on top of her plugged in to the hive, providing some sort of nourishment or something.

Valerie Halverson
It’s amazing. She was great.

David Read
It was amazing to watch. Yeah, she could put up with makeup.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Zen out.

David Read
Speaking of.

Valerie Halverson
Do that there’s this…

David Read
What a great design,

Valerie Halverson
You know, from beginning to end.

David Read
Connor Trinneer. Yeah. So there’s some design work for that. Is this another one that you would have sent to your people to say this is how I want i?.

Valerie Halverson
That was me working through like how I wanted him to slightly change. Yeah.

David Read
This is some Wraith piece, but I’m not sure what it is.

Valerie Halverson
We can’t, [anybody know that one?]

David Read
Can anybody identify that one?

Valerie Halverson
Oh, let’s talk about…

David Read
Oh, yes. Jason Moma?

Valerie Halverson
Momo, is that what you call? Does he answer? Never. So when we were doing the offworld costumes, of course, I wanted to do something amazing for Ronon Dex.

Valerie Halverson
This is what we called, we nicknamed the cow because Jason is six foot five. And if you put a regular coat on him, it looks like a little pixie thing. So Sam McKinnon was my my Ronon Dex lead builder and I wanted him to look like a warrior who had gathered things from his conquests and from different planets he’d been to and everything. So there’s like, metal pieces on it, there was fur on it, there was skins from trapping, there was different kinds of leather on it. And it weighed about 20 pounds. Like you could barely lift it. I don’t know how he wore it all day. But man, he loved it.

David Read
This is the cow right?

David Read
Stitched like on the run, as he was.

Valerie Halverson
It was all hand stitched. And we got in all that it was quite authentic. And of course we had more than one because he was always stunted. So yeah, it was big project, turned out better than the sketch. Yeah.

David Read
Teyla again.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And there’s, they’re real.

David Read
Now this is this is Ronan in Runner.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Yeah. I like that one.

Valerie Halverson
Is that Jewel again?

Valerie Halverson
That’s Jewel again.

David Read
Okay, it’s a duplicate, interesting. All right. And OK. Teyla from season four.

Valerie Halverson
Teyla might have been pregnant.

David Read
I think so.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Yeah. So that was an interesting challenge. Rachel is so wonderful and so fun to design for and loved her character so much that we had our running costume department working just for her because she was truly pregnant.

David Read
Wow. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. And then Kanaan.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, I was gonna say, Patrick Sabongui.

David Read
These episodes were really hard to watch, there was something just a little too, “That should have been my baby,” kind of mindset. Michael always was like, because there was a romance tension under the surface, and Michael as Teyla was trying to seduce him into being a human. And he kind of seduced right back in his own twisted ways. So a beautiful costume, did that, you don’t often see that kind of clothing in a in a sci fi show, pregnancy-wise. Did it really give you a chance to depart into some more pedestrian directions?

Valerie Halverson
It was a fantastic challenge, because everything even had to grow while we were filming.

David Read
Right, because she’s growing.

Valerie Halverson
She was changing so quickly and you would have a fitting three days before you shot the, we do it as close as we could and then it would be seven or eight days of shooting and she would literally change in the… I love this one because we were always trying to distract and still make it as rich and beautiful as she should have. But making her comfortable as well.

David Read
Absolutely. Did she share appreciation about it?

Valerie Halverson
Oh yeah, Rachel is amazing.

David Read
Val, you’ve done a terrible job.

Valerie Halverson
Luckily, I didn’t hear that I must.

David Read
Michael Kenmore right there after his full transformation. This is, I’m thinking the Prodigal and he and his men were built very similarly. So speaking of.

Valerie Halverson
There you go. Yeah.

David Read
Can we go back and have a look at it Francis. There we go. Thank you. And Teyla, this is Missing.

Valerie Halverson
Missing. Yeah.

David Read
Another Teyla

Valerie Halverson
Another Teyla. Lots of Teyla.

David Read
All right. One of my favorite human beings and hopefully one of yours too, Joel Goldsmith. This is his outfit, it was great to have him on Vegas. Yeah with Charlie Cohen is in that scene. And someone from The Sopranos I think.

Valerie Halverson
Yes, yes. I’m trying to remember his name.

David Read
The name doesn’t, wrong genre for me.

Valerie Halverson
Not coming to me.

David Read
Right. And punk Wraith, Neil Jackson.

Valerie Halverson
That was really fun to make him sort of fit in in Vegas.

David Read
Right, wouldn’t take a whole lot just a couple of contact lenses and some makeup and he’s got it. So that’s another Teyla. Okay, so yes, the search and rescue Shepherd.

Valerie Halverson
Shepherd. Yeah, yeah.

David Read
So I apologize, I didn’t move this one up.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, it’s okay.

David Read
I think that’s also Kanaan, isn’t it?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Okay, this is one of my favorite designs for Ronan is we show the gauntlets, in maybe in the next one, but I wanted to make something really amazing for him. Because we tried so many things. We’ve done so many different ways of leather that I actually built this leather. We bought like elephant skins and boar skins. And then I would add like foam underneath and then I would cover it with like ostrich ridges and stuff. And then my breakdown team turned it into looking almost like metal, they were so so talented. And this is one of my favorite pieces that he ever wore. And I think he just wore it once, unfortunately.

David Read
Are those the gauntlets that go with that.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, so we built all those ridges and everything by piecing together different leathers and then painting it. And I just love the way it turned out.

David Read
The fabrication process. I mean, for something like that how long would it take for you guys to work through that? A day? A few days?

Valerie Halverson
A week for sure for those because it’s like they had neoprene and felt, making them comfortable for your actor all the time.

David Read
So that’s 40 man hours there.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, yeah. And then the, when I told my leather girl, Pat, what I wanted to do, she looked at me and said, “You are crazy.” She just said, “Why do you think of these things?”

David Read
To torture you.

Valerie Halverson
I want to keep the fans interested and happy. And I want my characters to be constantly evolving and built and true to their character. And I want my actors to be happy and I want my producers to be happy.

David Read
Absolutely. Did the actors get to keep their uniforms?

Valerie Halverson
Not really, there might have been the odd piece that “fell off the back of the truck,” as we like to say. But what we did is in the last, in season five of Atlantis specifically, all the actors had had kids like David had Baz and stuff. And we made miniatures of their costumes for their kids. So they all have a mini one. Yeah, so we had nothing going on, we weren’t busy. So we thought we’d try and figure out something else to do.

David Read
The number of costumes that we got for Flanigan, just the black BDUs again and again and they would sell well. But at a certain point there was auction fatigue, there was saturation of the market because I would post this, I would try to switch it up. But if you posted the same thing week after week, you could watch that the same type of item was dramatically reduced in value the next week, and it would be, it was crazy to post, he had a Nike wristband that was inverted. And that was always his thing. And to this day he won’t explain anything about because people like, “Why the wristband?” Well, “He liked it.” The first one went for 1,500 bucks.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, it’s amazing.

David Read
And I wasn’t allowed to say that there were multiples, and I felt terrible for the person who got that one. And then wristband 50, went for like, well still like 40-50 bucks. But still, you know, it’s just crazy the the fan base for each of these characters was extreme.

Valerie Halverson
And we had to have so many multiples for everything because of the action and the degradation of it. The breakdown on it, as you can see in that one.

David Read
Yep. And we knew in the story that Atlantis was getting all the bucks anyway from the Oversight Committee, so it made sense that they would keep on having them. So great. Oh, now who is that?

Valerie Halverson
Oh, that’s one. No, that was, I can’t remember his name. But the reason I wanted to show it is because another time that I was trying to do something new and I ended up using guitar strings to make…

David Read
Oh, I see.

Valerie Halverson
Kind of on the shoulder and on the yoke. And I had to be really careful because he was a heavily stunted guy. And he was falling off roofs and stuff. And I just had to make sure they were really bolted down that they didn’t ping off, but I just thought it was a different look. So you’d be surprised where you can get stuff to make costumes. I can’t wait to see the costumes after this because how creative you’ve all been and what your ideas are, are just gonna blow me away. I’m sure.

David Read
Let’s keep on going. Bola Kai. Bola Kai. Yes, Danny Trejo

Valerie Halverson
This was so fun.

David Read
What a cool I wish we saw more of them. I really do.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

David Read
I love this.

Valerie Halverson
That’s one of my favorite that’s with the Bola Kai and me.

David Read
That that looks like

Valerie Halverson
That’s not a bad thing.

David Read
The Genii, that was the the season one and you got to evolve them as they went along to. Now who’s this? I can’t make it out. I’ve been trying to figure it out or is it the Travelers?

Valerie Halverson
It has a little bit of a feel the Travelers I think next one is the Travelers sketch. So Travelers was Jill Wagner and the thing that was so important that James Robins and I had a chat as what he was going to do with the rusted old ship that had been trapped for like 300 years and we decided that it was going to be kind of watery. So I entrusted our model shop to make me some rubber pieces that were textured and then we had leather and fabric and we sewed it all together.

David Read
Check this out guys. And oh, Teyla is next after that. It’ll come up okay.

Valerie Halverson
It’ll come up. And then my breakdown team made it look like it was oxidized metal. It was phenomenal what a great job they did. Yeah, so it looks really good in the ship. Yeah. One of my faves of Teyla and there’s a…

David Read
Great episode.

Valerie Halverson
The fight of the two gods, right. There’s her offworld outfit. Yeah. She’s a killer essentially. She’s just the best

David Read
Dynamite I loved the Teyla-Woolsey dynamic, especially when when the baby comes along.

Valerie Halverson
And she got good new uniform. Yeah. Amanda when she got to wear something leather and not military tucked into some military boots. She just about cried in that fitting. She was like, “And it fits me.” Yeah. So and she she looked great.

David Read
Kiryk, and this is Kiryk, he was not Varro yet. He was between Odai Ventrall and Varro.

Valerie Halverson
He was always fun, Jules great,

David Read
Shep,

Valerie Halverson
Ruggedly handsome. There’s your pocket protector.

David Read
Right there.

Valerie Halverson
Right there, and he looks happy about it as usual. So fun.

David Read
Kanaan.

Valerie Halverson
Tyre.

David Read
Oh, yes. Tyre. [Both] There’s the guitar strings.

Valerie Halverson
A little close up. Yeah.

David Read
Another Teyla.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Same we haven’t even reached.

David Read
They’re all sold. Sorry. This is Weir in Be all my Sins Remembered. Probably my favorite surprise appearance in the entire franchise. It was, I saw it was so dimly lit you see the costume with this like burnt orange it’s like almost pumpkin orange. And it was cool.

Valerie Halverson
I love that she’s so great yeah, lots of variations. Yeah. She was always so wonderful.

David Read
I love that sketch.

Valerie Halverson
Well that’s the one where it ripped off and underneath he had the knives.

David Read
Right, that’s right.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, that was an interesting logistical costume which so many of them were. We do have a lot of photos, we have SGU.

David Read
Some work. Yeah. There’s the Travelers right there. See the ribbing, the piping on there.

Valerie Halverson
And then we painted them all and yeah, it was quite a challenge. Fabric, leather, and rubber all painted to match. Yeah. A few duplicates there. Maybe we can scoot ahead to SGU.

David Read
Yeah, let’s move on to SGU. All right? You can pause them on Dial the Gate and take a look at each of them. No this can’t be the end of it.

Valerie Halverson
No.

David Read
Did Atlantis have more color?

Valerie Halverson
Creative in each of them was so different creatively. But yeah. Yeah.

David Read
All right.

Valerie Halverson
There’s our gang. My red inspiration,

David Read
Go back Francis.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, I wish. I might have been blonde then. No, I think I was a redhead then.

David Read
Right there. All right. So Dr. Nicholas Rush. Robert Carlyle. So this is the full outfit that went through the Gate.

Valerie Halverson
He actually was at the University then which was changed. And then the next photo is him with the jacket off, I think. And the thing that was so interesting is that about SGU, is we knew it was coming, we knew they were gonna get stranded. So it was really important for me to layer everybody, make them so that there’ll be some interest as the seasons went on and on. And when Bobby Carlyle and I were chatting, before he actually arrived in Vancouver, and we sort of came to this idea of him looking a bit professorial, but a little bit more casual. And I had found this, we made his vest, we made his jacket, we bought the jeans and the T-shirts. But I wanted to do something interesting. So that when he moved, you know if the vest opened or something, and I found this silk fabric, and the more I looked at it, there was something about it that looked a bit like a moon surface, but it had peacocks on it. But what I convinced my cutter to do was to cut it into little pieces and create a new fabric, and it looked like a planet surface. And when I told Bobby about it in the fitting, he was like, “Oh, you know, okay,” and and he went away that night, and he came back for a fitting the next day and he said, “I’ve decided I want to put a pocket in their Val. And I want to have my little pad and my little yellow pencil in that pocket. So I’m always opening my vest, because I really liked that idea. Like a little ode to the galaxy, right?” So I felt really honored that our number one guy, Bobby Carlyle, thought that was a good idea. And we made about 30 of them. So he wore it well. And Universe was interesting because we got to create the military, so we got to create the military look, it wasn’t authentic, it wasn’t an actual one. When so we decided to go with black, not only because it’s my favorite color, but it shows wear and tear and it shows dust in it, you can sand it, and you can make it look old and torn. And it was really magical for us.

Valerie Halverson
I think we saw her today.

David Read
Yeah, I think so.

David Read
Louis. Ah, there’s Alaina.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, it’s her a little dusty,

David Read
Brian.

Valerie Halverson
Wonderful.

David Read
What was it like working with, I’ll reinterate, what was it like working with Alaina Huffman on the show while she was growing through her pregnancy? With the clothing.

Valerie Halverson
Well, we ended up finding a way around that right. But we had a inventory of marine outfits from Greer. And then we had established another background guy in a button front shirt, and we were able to, we wanted it to be believable that she borrowed it from somebody. So we established him a couple episodes before kind of front and center. And then she was able to borrow that. Yeah. She was happy to get into a new outfit too.

David Read
Ming-Na Wen

Valerie Halverson
Ming-Na, yeah. There it is.

David Read
On the planet.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Julie Benson.

David Read
Greer. Yeah, You were sure to make sure that he was, that the Marines were represented.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And they were very authentic. Like, we were very meticulous about him. And of course, David,

David Read
Is the font Impact for “You Are Here.” I’m thinking it’s Impact.

Valerie Halverson
I don’t know what it is. Robert Cooper chose that T-shirt.

David Read
He did? Okay.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And we thought long and hard about should it be an image, a graphic, one of our designs or whatever. And then Robert Cooper found that, of course it was a genius idea because he’s the creator. And then it just worked great. Yeah.

David Read
Elyse Levesque.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And she was the most fish out of water.

David Read
Oh, absolutely. She was going on kind of a kind of a trip for a couple of days. Then head back home to California, but just a little further.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. Thank goodness. She bought a little carry, brought a little carry-on bag with a yoga outfit in it.

David Read
Right. And that’s when you go too far from home. And that’s when you go into your into the mind. That was a what a beautiful wedding dress.

Valerie Halverson
Thank you.

David Read
Did you design that?

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, we made it. Oh, we made everything. We had so much fun.

David Read
Is that Kiva? Julie McNiven. I loved this update to the Lucian outfit? Yeah. There’s Varro.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah. And I will tell you, this is the one time that Brad Wright, I’m going to confess to something. Brad Wright said to me, “You’ve gone too far.” And we had pumped them up a bit more. I wanted them to look like SWAT team, but in the future, so I put all the padding underneath the leather. And we had them, I had actually built these perfect chests with abs and everything. And we were going to make every soldier look identical. And he said to me, “You’ve gone too far. Take it down.”

David Read
You sent everyone home.

Valerie Halverson
Yeah, I sent, yeah, I sent everybody my whole shop of 20 people, I sent them home and said, “I don’t know what you’re coming to tomorrow, but you need to go because I got nothing for you.” And we were assembly line making maybe 50 of them. And they didn’t know what to do. And I stayed there till like 11 at night just trying to figure it out. And I came up with an idea.

David Read
I hope there weren’t too many tears.

Valerie Halverson
Oh, there was a few. But no way.

David Read
You want to make your creator happy.

Valerie Halverson
Of course it was very important to me, so he seemed happy after. Yeah. Oh look.

David Read
And there we ended with on Ben.

Valerie Halverson
That’s my favorite photo.

David Read
This is what two three in the morning?

Valerie Halverson
Probably the very last day on shooting SG-1. Yeah. The last minute, called a wrap.

David Read
Everyone stayed. Yeah. That’s from Unending. Yeah, that’s it.

Valerie Halverson
That’s it.

Valerie Halverson
Thank you so much. This was such a treat. So I wish I had time for questions. Does anyone have a short one? Okay, good. Well, I Okay.

Valerie Halverson
Hopefully we answered it.

David Read
Yes, absolutely. This was so exciting for me to get you up here to go through some of these memories together. And I really appreciate the time that you’ve spent with me over the years and with the larger community.

Valerie Halverson
Thank you all for staying fans.

David Read
Absolutely.

Valerie Halverson
We’re so proud of our work and we’re so happy that you enjoy it too.

David Read
Francis, you good to go? Valerie, thank you again.

Valerie Halverson
My pleasure.

David Read
My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. See you on the other side.