Stargate’s prolific director returns to Dial the Gate to share the technical challenges from directing various episodes of Stargate, update us on recent projects and take fan questions LIVE!

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:47 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:28 – Welcoming Martin, and Directing Virgin River
08:00 – Movie Projects; Double Life and Must Love Christmas
16:42 – Martin’s Passion for Directing
23:09 – Directing Briefing Room Scenes and More
29:13 – Cameras and Monitors, and the SGC Base
31:03 – “A Matter of Time,” and Technology Used with Other Productions
41:51 – Building Scenes, Unreal Engine, and Sanctuary
46:40 – Favorite Cast Memories, Including Jason Momoa
51:26 – The Next Stargate, and Brad Wright
56:43 – Using Stargate Without Permission
1:00:43 – Thanking Martin
1:01:37 – Post-interview housekeeping
1:05:47 – 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 everyone, my name is David Read and welcome to episode 153 of Dial the Gate. Thank you for tuning in and being with us. I hope for the Americans watching, hope your Thanksgiving was good. We have Martin Wood, Producer, Director of Stargate, and pretty much all of its iterations, with us here for another episode. We’re gonna focus on more of the, some of the more technically, technical episodes in particular. Some of the more amazing things that they pulled off visually, in both in camera and with visual effects. Before we get started, if you enjoy Stargate, and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click that Like button, it helps with the show’s audience and will help it continue to grow. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes click that Subscribe icon. And giving the Bell icon to click will notify you the moment new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. And clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. Since this is a live episode of Dial the Gate, and not pre-recorded, Martin is with me now. So if you are joining us in YouTube chat, and you have a question that you’d like to ask Martin, go ahead and submit it to the moderators there. And they will get it to me on the back end. And in the second half of the show I will be turning the show over to those questions. So without further ado, Producer, Director Martin Wood. Sir, it is always a pleasure to have you. You are so insightful and are so key to everything that happened to make this franchise possible. So I am grateful to have you back.

Martin Wood
At some point I will figure out who’s been paying you to say those things.

David Read
That’s my heart, it’s straight from my heart. So always a treat, sir. How are you?

Martin Wood
I’m very good. I’m very good. Thank you so much.

David Read
So how are, how is, your continuing with Virgin River? And…

Martin Wood
Finished the fifth season of it and did a couple of massive shows in it this time, the midpoint shows number five and six are always a bit bigger than the rest. And this year was absolutely no exception.

David Read
Okay, I’ve never seen it Martin. Pitch me Virgin River, pitch me this this show because we discussed. It’s like, “I need to sit down and I need to watch this.” Because I know that the caliber of the talent is great in it. For the Stargate fans who love your work, give us a real good reason to sink our teeth into this, besides the fact that one of our favorite directors is involved.

Martin Wood
Oh, well. I mean, Teryl is involved, Teryl Rothery. Colin is involved. Who else have we got that’s Stargate based. Or where it’s based, one of the standing sets is the MacGyver cabin is Richards cabin. That’s one of the standard, that sort of the hero sets for us. And yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It’s got Tim Matheson, Annette O’Toole and Alexandra Breckenridge and Martin, it’s a wonderful cast. It’s a great cast. The weird thing about it is the way that I pitch people are just to say, this is one of those shows that when I was doing Stargate, there was a lot of recognition of the name Stargate when I was dealing with sci fi fans and exists. I go out into, wandering around in the States and different places, and I’d hear it. And when I went to Germany, people went crazy about it.

David Read
It’s crazy in Europe. It’s crazy.

Martin Wood
So I had lots of recognition for that, because I’ve never done a show where I’ve had this much recognition of a title and it’s the weirdest thing because it’s one of those shows that, and truthfully it’s one of those things that sort of came out of nowhere. We were all doing the show, we’re all going, “Oh, this is okay. This is fun.” You know, it’s not a hard show to do. It’s easy on the crew, it doesn’t have a lot of stunts, there’s not a lot of that kind of stuff. So we put it together and it went out for the first year. And then when Netflix released it, it suddenly it took off and everyone, “It did what?” and it took off. And I remember the one day I came into, we’re doing season two, and the Showrunner, Sue Tenney, came down and said, “Howard Stern wants to know what we’re doing in season two.” Howard Stern?

David Read
You captured the cultural zeitgeist.

Martin Wood
This is not that kind of show. This is not something he would… But he and wife loved to show, I guess, and wanted to know more about this upcoming season things. So it’s one of those things that a lot of people talk to me about, a lot of people talk to me about, “There’s a Virgin River fan at the door right now.” But they come up to me and recognize Virgin River, when you say, “What do you do?” ” I’m working on Virgin River.” “Oh my gosh,” and every says the same thing that was, “My wife loves that show.” And then there’s a beat and they go, “Can you tell me about Jack’s bar? I’m not sure about that, you know, whether is it really that big?” And you’re going,”Wait a minute, you watch the show, too. What are you talking about your wife likes the show?” So it’s one of those shows that a lot of people like. So in pitching I would say it’s one of those crazy shows that has these insane numbers. It kicked the Crown outta first place on Netflix when we launched the season that last year.

David Read
You know, I throw my parents in front of a lot of television that I’m like, “You know, I don’t have a lot of time for this right now. But you guys go and try it.” What you’re describing or I hear a lot of of that around This is Us.

David Read
Yeah. Okay, I’m gonna have to watch it. And then I’m going to start watching it.

Martin Wood
It is it was originally pitched to me like a This is Us and it is very much along those lines. It isn’t as heavily dramatic Sundays but there are, I mean there’s more conflict than a Hallmark movie. Way more conflict than a Hallmark series or Hallmark movie or anything like that. That’s not what it is. But it is that kind of thing where you can turn it on and you won’t wince. You don’t have to turn the volume down around the kids. You don’t have to, it’s very much a family show.

Martin Wood
Oh, absolutely. It’s something you can recommend to anybody and not have them come back and go, “What a terrible show” because nobody has ever done that.

David Read
Okay, that’s that’s great to be a part of, tell me a little bit about Double Life.

Martin Wood
So Double Life, I got given a thriller to do this year. And it was really interesting, because it came down with, I got five scripts, and I was asked, “Which one of these do you want to do as a thriller? Because we’d like you to do a thriller.” This is Paramount. And I went, “Wow.”

David Read
That’s great.

Martin Wood
Yeah, it was it was a cornucopia. So I sifted through the scripts. I found the one Double Life that I really, really liked. And could see the movie when I read it. It’s a) very well written but also b) very visual one. Okay. And then we cast it and we cast Niall Matter, Javicia Leslie, who you may know from Batwoman, and then we cast Tricia Helfer.

David Read
I think Aaron Douglas as well.

Martin Wood
Well, yes, we did. I mean, Aaron’s in a lot of the stuff I do. I just I always bring Aaron in. And he came to Guam with me to do Operation Christmas Drop. So yeah, we cast the weekend before we started shooting. Trisha and I had been talking back and forth, back and forth. She called and I thought this was going to be her “I’m getting on a plane call.” And it was her, “I’ve just blown my ACL and my knee out, coming in my front door.” And I went, “Are you kidding Trisha?” She goes, “No,” and she was in tears. And she’s like, “I really want to do this movie. I really want to do this movie.” And I’m going, “This is a run and jump. This is a crazy run and jump, this movie.” And we both agreed that she probably couldn’t do it and that was such a disappointment. So I had three days, or shut down, to find somebody else. And I called Pascal Hutton. Pascal and I have done any number of series together — three series together. And the last time we did action together, big action, we did some Sanctuary, but on Arctic Air, we did some big drama stuff with her big, big action stuff with her. And I called said, “Hey, what are you doing Monday? How would you like to be the second lead in this movie.” And she did. And she learned the script and came in and she and Javicia killed this movie. It’s so good. And the movie is about a, it starts with Niall meeting the bartender at a bar and asking her what she’s doing afterwards. And then you realize they go to her house. And they realize they’re lovers. And then Niall gets in his car, says goodnight to her and calls his wife. And on the way home gets killed. Yeah. And it’s about Pascal, the wife, and Javicia accidentally bumping into each other. Javicia goes to his funeral, and hides and sees, she didn’t know he had a wife. And then the two of them come together quite innocuously. And from that point on, it’s a secret for a long time that Javicia was with him. But they are looking for the person that murdered her husband. They get embroiled in a whole series of things that happen to them, because people realize there’s somebody’s looking in these wrong places. And so these two women are shot at and chased, and captured and all this kind of stuff in this thriller that goes back and forth. And it was such a pleasure to work, Javicia Leslie is unbelievably talented, unbelievably talented. She did this incredible, just this incredible job in this movie. An amazing character and amazing believably as an action figure, she would make a great action figure. The same thing they were both they both did the action wonderfully. And it comes out next year sometime. It’s finished. I did another movie called Must Love Christmas, which is coming up very quickly. With a, and Must Love Christmas was so much fun to do. And it’s one of those movies where you finish it and you go, “Oh, that was a pretty good movie.” and then you get into NetSuite and you go, “This is a really good movie.” And it’s not a treacly Christmas movie it’s a incredibly funny movie. And…

David Read
Romance novelists. Okay, becomes involved in a love triangle between her childhood crush and a reporter determined to interview her to save his dying magazine.

Martin Wood
Do you recognize any of the names in there?

David Read
Oh, Neal Bledsoe I think. Ah, Simone. Yeah, absolutely. I love Simone. BJ Harrison is in this project as well.

Martin Wood
BJ is all my movies now. I just finished with her in a new limited series just like two days ago.

David Read
You know, when you have people that can deliver. You know, why…

Martin Wood
You know what? I? I am a huge…

David Read
Sarah Strange too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sir. Sarah Strange. Yeah. You’re huge, you’re a huge fan?

Martin Wood
I love to work with people that I like to work with. And in this case, I had never met Liza Lapera. And she is unbelievably funny. She is hysterical. And brought something to this movie, she and Neal together brought something this movie that just, it was so hilarious, and it shows up on the screen.

David Read
Wow. You know, I had just now got off with Mike Dopud. And he was recycled a lot for Stargate and we had that conversation of where he wanted, you get certain actors that they’re going to deliver for you. You’re going to get exactly x, y and z out of them so you might as well bring them in. And then you get other situation like with Tom McBeath where he wanted to come in for Atlantis, but was told, he told me he said, “You’re too recognizable.” And so, but then like Garwin Sanford he can pull it off as both Narim and then as Simon. But sometimes you get additional projects, sometimes you don’t, and this is how it goes.

Martin Wood
Yeah. And it’s true. With long running series especially it’s tough because you start going through the Vancouver cast very quickly and there’s been discussions about, “Well, they haven’t been here since season three. Okay, maybe we can bring them in as somebody new.”

David Read
Yeah, absolutely. Stargate started off when Vancouver’s cast list was relatively small. I mean, the Stargate and Sanctuary and all these these shows, like a lot of these CW shows and Battlestar are hugely responsible for helping to expand that industry up there. I went up in September, I didn’t recognize the place. It’s ridiculous the number of people who are there now. Just crazy. Well, Must Love Christmas. So that’s where are we gonna be able to see this?

Martin Wood
That’s CBS and very shortly, like in the next week or two I think.

David Read
Okay. And then…

Martin Wood
But yeah, look for it on CBS.

David Read
All right. And then the other project is going to have a short theatrical run, you said with Double Life,

Martin Wood
Double Life will have a short theatrical and limited the theaters it’ll be released in and then, yeah, it’d be on Paramount+, and possibly CBS as well.

David Read
Perfect. That’s great. It’s great to see you continuing to do what you love. It’s just so refreshing to see because we hear all these stories about, especially right now, with people being out of work left and right. If you know what you’re doing, and you can make a good product and bring it in an on time and under budget. You’re golden.

Martin Wood
So I think one of the things is relationship as well. And that’s what we’re talking about with actors and also with production companies and so that where you have a relationship with people there that know that you deliver and know that you deliver something that they know and love. And I mean, knock on wood, that I’m able to keep doing it with back to back projects like this, because it’s just, it’s passion I have that I’ve never lost I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a conversation with somebody the other day about have you ever done a show you hated. And I’ve done shows where there was an element that I didn’t particularly like about them. And I’ve left shows because of that sometimes. But for the most part, I love directing. I love directing. And would direct traffic, if that was…

David Read
There’s something euphoric about it about, and I had that conversation with you once about having a game plan for something. And it’s not because you’re in control, it’s that you’re watching this thing come together from disparate departments to create one piece of art.

Martin Wood
I’ll tell you, this project I just finished, this limited series that I just finished. We’re out in a street with a slight incline to it. And I had a woman walking toward us, a beautiful sunny day, walking toward us on the street, in conversation on her phone. And it’s fairly boring, but it is walking on a street. So there’s a million different ways to shoot it. And she was far enough away that she could do the entire conversation between where she started and where we were. So it’s a block and a half that she’s walking and there’s two sides because we cut back and forth between her and the cop that she’s talking to on the other end. And so it doesn’t have to be exciting t doesn’t have to be an exciting shot. And normally what you would do is you put a camera on her and just pull it back and start walking with her. And occasionally what you do is you put a long lens at one end of the thing and you zoom in all the way to 600 millimeters and then you pull back as she walks back there’s another way to do it or you can do it from the side and follow her along from the side or you can do it, there’s a million different ways to do it. As we’re setting up this shot. I have done one pass where the dolly goes down with a camera on it. The dolly is mounted on a thing called a black arm and I think we may have talked about the black arm before which I’ve been using a lot which is dolly with a rig underneath it that the camera operator is actually sitting beside me operating the camera and the dolly operator is the dolly person is the one that’s making the move with the camera. And the camera had gum. We’ve done one where she walked up and it was good and it worked. I want to do another one. And so I sent the actor back to her number one position. And I was talking to the dolly pusher for a second. And then I said, “Okay, head back.” And he turned the wheels and he jumped on, just like a scooter. And he pushed it forward and jumped on and he’s riding away from me. Now I’ve seen dolly pushers do this before. But I looked at the monitor. And I saw this beautiful shot. “Bring it back, bring it back. We’re gonna do it like this.” So what happens, it’s called a drive by, and it’s just literally she’s standing here and the cameras up here on this thing. And he just gets on and it goes [whiring noise] past her. And that’s how the scene starts. And it’s all because I just looked at the monitor while he was resetting the camera and I thought, “Oh, this is great.” That’s the kind of thing I love doing. I love doing and in this thing that I was doing it had John C. McGinley, Dennis Haysbert, Virginia Madsen. I mean, there’s some unbelievable talent in this. John C. McGinley comes up to me at this one thing, “So this is what I’m gonna do with his scene.” You know, because it’s really just realizes he doesn’t have power, he has to go all the way out into the driveway to find out why he has no power, and then realizes that his son sabotaged the cord a little bit. And I said, “Oh, wait, do you see this.” And I had a crane, I had all this stuff. I had all this stuff set up. And he’s going, “What do you need everything like this for.” And then we did the shot and he went, “Oh my god, it’s so, it’s hysterical.” It starts it starts on the on the roof, looking at a solar panel coming down on him. When he realizes this, it’s out of power. And then it’s in a close up of his face when that happens. And then the camera pulls all the way back through the driveway, out past three cars, and then ends in a very tight close up of him looking inside this car window. And shots like that are what I direct for, I’d love to do those kinds of things that are that, when you’re watching it, all you’re doing is following a piece of action, you wouldn’t notice it as being a giant shot or anything like that. But it is so much fun to do those kinds of things.

David Read
There’s so many different ways to tell a story and I think one of the things that would keep, if I were in your position, keep it fresh is to keep your eyes open for a different way to tell the sequence of the gal walking a block and a half talking to the cop on the phone. We have that you have to get that story across. But can you also get it across in a way that’s interesting, but doesn’t distract the audience from the plot? That would be the other thing to not go too far with this.

Martin Wood
Let me bring it back to Stargate for a second. There was out of out of 70 odd episodes I directed. There was one thing that I did all the time, which used to make people crazy. And that is boardroom scenes. And the thing for me about boardroom scenes was consistently trying to find another way to do a boardroom scene. Because I’ve done hundreds of them. And there’s only so many places that you can shoot in that one room. There’s only so many places, only so many ways you can look at it, you know? And it culminated for me in that one scene I did and I wish I could remember what episode it was. I literally can’t. I remember what happened. But I don’t remember what episode it was. And I remember thinking this the very first time when I did Politics in the first season.

David Read
With Ronnie Cox. Yeah. [What a heavy hitter.]

Martin Wood
Literally the whole thing was around a table.

David Read
Yeah, right. And a clip show at that.

Martin Wood
And had to go back to it in 200. You know, when we were sitting around that table reading the script, but every episode had some boardroom scene in it for the most part and you had to think of a way to do it. And I remember walking in when the stage was dark once and I thought, “Oh man, what am I going to do with this?” And I started looking at the scene. And I thought, “Wait a second. I can start this scene in the gate room. I can bring it from the gate room into the control room, up the stairs into the briefing room.” And then that’s when I did the trick in the briefing room. I may have told you the story before but cutting the briefing room table in half?

David Read
Yeah.

Martin Wood
Yeah. So this was the one where I had that the carpentry crew cut the table in half, and put latches on it. Evil Kenny was there that day because I made him push the table back together. So what happens is, if this is the table right here, starting at my fingers and ending at my elbow, we come up the stairs, at the wind about right around the stairs, come up like this. And then the table is pulled apart, because I’m looking back [in this direction]. This table is pulled apart. And I go through the part that’s open. And we’re like this. And then the camera turns around, and goes the other way. And now I’m turning around. And while that’s happening, set dec and props are pushing this back together and clipping it. And you go back like this, and you see six people on this end of the table. Right? And you go like this, and it’s like, you come back and he lands, and it’s like, that’s an impossible shot to make. Because it started in the gate room, was all one shot all the way up until he sat down.

David Read
Is this the scene where you went backwards up the stairs?

Martin Wood
Yeah, it wasn’t me. It was Nathaniel Massey, who’s the B camera. Yes, he went backwards up the stairs.

David Read
My gosh, those are narrow stairs. I’m gonna have to send that one to the forum. If anyone can tell us what that episode was, so directed by Martin Wood, because there are a couple of shots that I can think of that did that. But I can’t name the episodes either. And I remember you’re scene from Continuum where you went through downstairs. But yeah, was the briefing room, the briefing room table, I sold that I assumed it was always divided in two. Was it…

Martin Wood
Never. No, it was all [one piece.]

David Read
For that for that episode?

Martin Wood
For that shot is why I separated it.

David Read
I did not know. I thought it was in two for storage. Wow.

Martin Wood
It stayed in that stage and I found it. I found that the briefing room table, it’s the boardroom table for When Calls the Heart. For the it’s, the boardroom table for in production, it’s only in the production offices. But the table is in there.

David Read
I’ll be darned. It’s so iconic. I mean, it’s almost as iconic as the gate itself. Yeah, well, that’s crazy. I did not know that. Why, and now we’re gonna be on the hunt for that scene.

Martin Wood
The number of times when we had to do things, I mean, again, trying to always think of something fun to do in there. That was different. You know, like in Upgrades, pushing Dan Shay off the stairs, that was another one that was like, “Oh, this is much more difficult than it seems.” But it’s hilarious when you do it. I remember and I’m trying to think of what episode it was. I went through the back wall once. And I know I made Brad Wright crazy when I did it because he was like, we don’t go through walls. And I went, [inaudible]. It was coming out of the elevator outside Hammond’s office. And I had the wall taken out, that was the one that if you’re sitting in Hammonds desk, you’re looking at the wall over there. I had to pull that back. And so what happens is as you come out of the elevator, and down that hall, you pass Hammonds office. So I’m looking into Hammonds office as we go past. And then I went through one of the pillars, the DEFCON pillar, one of the DEFCON sign [above it]. And it lands on the landing of the stairs. It’s an impossible shot. Like I didn’t even go through a doorway with it. I just went all the way down that way. Because if you actually had the wall in the camera would be right against the people that are walking. There’s no way to physically do it.

David Read
The things that you guys did with that space and to evolve the spaces that went on. And one of the things that I’ve always meant to ask you folks and it never occurs to me until you know it’s too late. When we started the show, the base screen in the briefing room set, there’s a static display that’s supposed to be cameras looking throughout the base. Further into the show, you put monitors in there, then you took them out. Why was that done? Because you actually upgraded it so that we had actual monitors in there and later reversed it.

Martin Wood
Yeah, I think we did it so that we could see what was happening in certain scenes. There was a reason to have monitors in there. The reason to reverse it is because so much of the time, you would have had different activity on those monitors that wasn’t going to be on the monitors, and you would have to have updated the monitors and the security system in there to be able to do something because half the time it was just one or two people walking through and you know, a bunch of stuff like that. In fact, one day, I actually had some of the NORAD footage I had in there as well. So you could see the front gate. But yeah, it was always it was, whenever there was a state of emergency or something like that, nobody be running in those scenes.

David Read
That’s true too.Yeah, it’d be its own continuity thing. But I mean, in particular, with Stargate you have to kind of buy it. I mean, in Colorado Springs and Stargate it never snows, it’s never winter. That was always one of my issues with it, we need like some winters, but you couldn’t pigeonhole the show to a specific time and place, a specific time, obviously a specific place. That’s fascinating. Some of the stuff that you managed to pull off for the show still blows my mind like, particular A Matter of Time with the black hole and the gravity. That was an episode where you got to pull out so much of what we normally expect There’s a cone in the Stargate effect for the feature film, and it pulls the the wormhole kind of, the puddle back. And my understanding was that effect was not added to the show, because the set wasn’t was too shallow behind the Stargate. But in this episode, you actually managed to pull it off with an above, a camera above, and also that whole sequence with Richard Dean Anderson and the actor who played Cromwell. And tell us about that whole sequence.

Martin Wood
So that was one of those things were I sit down with and Brad was always so much fun to do these with because he’d come in, and I remember with a couple of shows, he’d walk in and put the script on my desk and go, “Read it.” “Okay.” He goes, “Now, until you’re done.” And I knew it was something that he wanted to get some feedback on that was just so much fun. And it always was, it was like everything was these giant transitions, those those kinds of transitions that you do in shows where you actually get to move through time and space, like a Stargate allows you to do. And the first time I actually did the split screen from the side of the thing where you walk through one, and you come through on the other side, what’s fun is doing that split screen and having them walk through and they’re not there, obviously, but then I’ve done it on the other hand, where where without the wormhole. So it’s literally what you would see without the wormhole. If you were looking on that the obliquely at the gate like this, you would see somebody go into this one. And then you went and looked obliquely at the other gate, you’d see somebody come out and this one,

David Read
Jack goes to Edora from the SGC. I think that that’s Shades of Grey. What a cool effectl.

Martin Wood
And I mean, Shades of Grey had a lot of interesting effects for me in it. But it’s those kinds of things where you start thinking about how to do something you do every week, differently, with that. You’ll remember how we did it with the marionettes as well.

David Read
Yeah, the marionettes they don’t last very long,

Martin Wood
Where you don’t get to look up like that very often. It’s really interesting. I mean, that the fact that you can look up at in that episode,

David Read
The rafters.

Martin Wood
How they came into the gate room, that was something that we didn’t get very often. But when when you asked me about A Matter of Time, the hard part was getting them to climb across the gate room, obviously, with the harness. And the way we did it is a very simple effect. It’s take the camera and go like this with it and have them climb down a rope. Right?

David Read
On a green screen.

Martin Wood
Right. Now the tough part of course is they have to be face down or they have to be going up the rope like this with jumars, right? So that was the harder part of that and honestly then you just take the scene with them climbing this way and turn it like that and now they’re climbing towards the wormhole.

David Read
Control room, oh yeah, in that case, right. Did you fake any of those shots were like the shot of the bomb? Like did you manage to get anything actually on its side? Or was everything green screen for that? Were there any tight shots that you were able to pull off?

Martin Wood
No, I think everything had to be, once gravity started to affect the gate room and turn everything, I had to have everything happen on the… I think part of it would have been, there really was no place to attach cables that would be structural enough to be able to support any weight going sideways like them.

David Read
I imagined with the technology that we have now like with the volume, it would be easier to, if you have the luxury of that technology, to shoot a plate of the gate room and then rotate it 90 degrees and film them in front of it.

Martin Wood
I’ve been using the volume here in town a lot on these past couple of movies. I used it…

David Read
So there’s one in Vancouver?

Martin Wood
There’s a small one, and there’s a huge one. The huge one was used almost exclusively this past year for The Last Airbender, right? But for the most part, and it is massive, it’s a crazy size. The one I’ve been using a lot has been for driving scenes, for fires, for things like that. I did a movie last year, where I needed to use the volume for two driving scenes, two substantial driving scenes. And what we do is we take a Porsche Boxster, and you put an array on top of it. And the reason you use the Porsche is because it’s the right size to not see with the cameras that are all looking 360 degrees, like it’s eight cameras, and then we’re looking straight up. And the Porsche is the right size to not be able to see the car. And so then you just drive around with it, drive around wherever you want to. And then you project that on all the screens all around you. And it becomes this crazy, in fact, I can show you a quick video. It won’t be it won’t be beautiful because it’ll be just off of my phone.

David Read
Now. It’s all good. I love show and tell with Martin Wood.

Martin Wood
But this, what are we doing here? This is actually from Double Life, find the piece. So I’m going to show you what the volume sort of looks like to begin with. With nothing in it.

Martin Wood
Okay, where are you? I apologize. This is..

David Read
Okay.

David Read
No, you’re okay. I want to see this. This is worth it.

Martin Wood
Okay. So this is what the volume looks like. With just a vehicle in it. Okay? The registration screens coming on. Okay, then this is, you’ll see that we’re just driving, that guy with the board is moving the vehicle so it goes up and down like you’re driving. But when you come back to it here, there’s Javicia and Pascal in the car. And it’s got all the reflections everywhere.

David Read
And everything. And that’s the beautiful thing about the volume, the reflections on the glass on people’s faces you get the correct tones and it’s remarkable technology.

Martin Wood
Yeah, it really is. And there’s no other light in that either. That’s just they’re all lit by that. The first time I had to use the volume was we were, a very quick story, there’s another movie for CBS last year. We were on our last shot of the night. We had set up a camera on our hero as she was, it was Jessica Camacho, was who we were using. And Jessica, it was her close up, and she was acting with Geoff Gustafson. Geoff Gustafson was on the other side of it. And if you’re a Sanctuary fan, you know Geoff very well. But Geoff was an agent in this thing and he was talking to this woman and we shot all the other covers. And all I had to do was shoot Jessica in her close up for the reactions to him. And it was about 2:30 in the morning, we were all tired. We were on the 33rd floor of a condo downtown. I’m trying to be quiet because it’s 2:30 in the morning. And we set up this last shot. I call for final touches, they come in, Jessica comes in, she stands in the mark, they start doing final touches and the fire alarm goes off. Immediate evacuation, we all have to go down 30, walk down 33 floors, get onto the ground floor in the muster point. And we’re all standing there going. “Oh, no. They’re not gonna let us back up there.” Not until they figure out what this fire thing is. And quite honestly, tomorrow we’re not here anymore and we have to have night to shoot this scene because he’s looking at beautiful windows in this 33rd floor.

David Read
Yeah. And can’t make your day, you’re downstairs.

Martin Wood
And the camera operator looks at me and he goes, “Well, we are in a light wall tomorrow.” And I went, “Wait a second. send everybody home except for the DP and the gaffer.” And I walked up to the DP, Peter Stathis, and I said “Peter, when we get to go back up there…

David Read
Get the shot.

Martin Wood
Record on the background. Record two minutes worth of time and then we’ll just take it into the light wall. That’s so in this movie, and there’s no way you can tell, we just put Jeff and Jessica back in this thing on the light wall. And it looks like we’re there.

David Read
And it’s totally faked. Isn’t that extraordinary? Man, oh man, that that technology continues to blow my mind. I have been waiting for over a year to see 1899. It’s now out. I can’t wait to see this thing set on set on the Atlantic Ocean. That’s a big one. I mean, that is like [enormous]. Have you seen the show? Have you seen the trailers?

Martin Wood
I actually watched a couple of episodes.

David Read
Is it good?

Martin Wood
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it’s certainly is not what you think it is right off the bat. You get into it and you go, “Oh my god, wait a second.”

David Read
Yeah. It’s I love a good mystery box. I’m a sucker for ’em. So, that’s great. The technology that’s coming man, it’s just making your jobs easier, and in some ways more complicated.

Martin Wood
I mean, think about Mandalorian for a minute and if you watch the behind the scenes, the making of, John Favreau does such a great job of saying, “The thing it frees you up about,” and he said this to any number of the directors that were there. I think it was Bryce Dallas Howard that he’s talking to about it.

David Read
Was it Taika Waititi?

Martin Wood
No, it was one of the other directors that I remember saying he came in after he’d done the previs because you do the previs so that they can build these things for you, the backgrounds can be built. And then he came in to shoot the show and John stopped him and he said, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Well this is what I do in the previs.” “You don’t have to do that anymore shoot whatever you want.” Most of that was so that you could get it in your head but truthfully you have the backgrounds built, that’s what it was for was to build what backgrounds you need.

David Read
Yeah, now go to town.

Martin Wood
Now you can go. If you had a locked into a shot like this and you have to shoot this, no you don’t you can come over here, you can come over here, you can go to, you can do this kind of stuff because they built these now. And you sit there going, “Oh yeah.” Previs is one thing and previs with Stargate was do it so that VizFX could make the movie that you wanted to make but you were locked into those shots. If I want to do this shot I have to do this shot if I want to do this shot I do this shot. Because what they’re going to build is, what they budgeted for.

David Read
Correct. It’s money it’s time

Martin Wood
Yeah. But now with those environments being made it’s so much better and like he says you can do eight hours on a sunset if you want to. Which you’ve never been able to do before. Eight hours on the sunset it has to be a matte painting

David Read
But now it’s dynamic and it’s actually happening it’s just…

Martin Wood
And truthfully, Mandalorian does such a great job of it because of his suit. See everything reflected everywhere. It’s like he’s wearing a space helmet all the time. And that’s when you really like that stuff and you’re not even using the Unreal Engine for it because everything else can be low-res for the resolution or for the reflection. it’s just that one spot that needs to be, that you’re looking at, the camera’s looking at, but the Unreal Engine needs to take over with.

David Read
And you were tinkering with that back in Continuum with the jets?

Martin Wood
We were doing that. We were also, it was one of the things we first started talking about with both Sanctuary and Olympus, we had sets built that would track the camera. The unfortunate thing was, it was more than that, it was you had to previs everything and have it built. On a series like ours, there was just no time. The Sanctuary would have been an entirely different show.

David Read
Oh, completely. But you guys were breaking ground there, you know.

Martin Wood
Yeah. And I think that one of the things we fought with all the time was this green spill. Because any reflective surface, you’d still have that green spill. So cars, all those kinds of things. Everything was, had to take the green out of.

David Read
Right or lights, I remember watching the web version of Sanctuary, a guy goes into a sewer and he points a light at the camera, and the light hits the edges of his shape, and there’s no like it doesn’t spill out, like into the broader. There’s only so much that you can repair. You know? But what a ride. So any new updates on the Sanctuary movie potentially?

Martin Wood
I don’t actually. It’s not me being cagey. I literally don’t have any update on it yet. I know that Damian was working on a manifesto. That was the last I heard about that. And I just gotten so busy with everything else I haven’t, haven’t checked in.

David Read
I need to check in with him. We need to get him on the show soon to talk with him because he’s been so busy. So a lot, a lot of good stuff coming his way. I want to switch out. I have a lot of these to table. So hopefully, like next year, we can get you back. I have some fan questions here if I can get them up. General Maximus, “A favorite episode or Stargate memory working with these various casts, that stands out to you years later, like so many of these people you’ve gone on to work with on so many other projects.”

Martin Wood
So ask the question again?

David Read
Is there any particular, for instance, Amanda Tapping? Is there any particular memory that you have working with Amanda on Stargate that stands out with you over all these years?

Martin Wood
Eighteen years of being with Amanda Tapping, she was ridiculously good. Everything she did and which is why I did another series afterwards with her and brought her into everything that I did with Primeval, and everything from that point on, that I did that I had any control over, I tried to get Amanda into. So yeah, I mean, there’s that. There was, I mean, it’s so funny to talk about cast because I’ve done lots with Michael. I’ve done lots with Lexa. Lexa and I have done three or four series together including Virgin River, and Michael too in Virgin River in the first season. But I mean, all of those guys would do it. I haven’t seen much of Chris, and Rick and I would occasionally talk to each other. For years, we sort of had occasional contact. I haven’t talked to him for a long time. And Momoa is out there now that you can’t get close to him if you wanted to but still, the one person I remember will always be embedded in my memory because I did the very first episode that he showed up.

David Read
Runner.

Martin Wood
But then he was the only person I’ve ever met in my life whose head was too big to go in a space helmet. [Giant] space helmet, you know how they fit around? They go, “His head’s too big to go in there.” And he comes over he goes, “Marty this isn’t gonna work.” “What do you mean?” He goes, “Won’t fit.” I said, “Is it the dreads?” He goes, “It’s my skull.”

David Read
That’s great.

Martin Wood
But there’s been lots of cast members that I have tried in some way, shape or form to try and get into something I’m doing. And a lot of that was from Sanctuary too with Chris Heyerdahl, Chris Heyerdahl. Again, he’s one of those people that, he’s godfather to my kids.

David Read
He’s remarkable guy.

Martin Wood
Yeah, and so I see him, you know, personally, sometimes, but I can’t get close to him if I tried to get him on something, because he’s just he’s doing everything right now.

David Read
I’ve tried to get him on the show a couple of times now. And every time the agent is just like, “We’re not doing any publicity right now.” I don’t blame them. So it’s just extraordinary.

Martin Wood
And it’s everywhere. I had hoped when he was here doing Peacemaker, to be able to connect with him and we had dinner one night at a friend’s place. And that was the last time we sort of got to sit down with each other. But people like Chris, I’ve always tried to, you know. Robin Dunne’s another one from Sanctuary where I pulled him into a lot of stuff. Emilie Ullerup I’ve done a number of series with now and look to her sometimes. But again, from Stargate itself, because we used everybody on it. I did something else with Roger Cross, when I did Dark Matter. And Roger’s another one I’ve tried to get out here a couple of times, and he’s just, it’s tough to get a hold of [some of these]. I just finished working with Patrick Sabongui, who I did some work with on Primeval and a movie with Luke Perry. He and I did it, but again, you look for these people that you love to work with and it’s tough. And Teryl and I have done a three series, four series together. She did Travelers, she’s one of those other ones, it’s ubiquitous, she can show up in so many of these different places.

David Read
Teresa Mc wants to know, “Martin, what do you think, personally, a new Stargate series has to bring to the table if another one does come off the ground at Amazon?” I know Brad’s written treatment for a fourth but what do you think it has to do?

Martin Wood
I gotta say, I wouldn’t speculate to what it would be. The formula that worked so well with Stargate was the cast. The team, the cast, it was the team. And I mean, you build the world away from that team. Everything builds away from SG-1. And what was successful about it was a small team doing that. Now, Atlantis was a slightly bigger team and Universe was an even bigger team, when you get into that. But I think what worked for it was the chemistry of those four people, the core group, that were the team worked so well. And I think it came at a time when everyone was hungry for that kind of sci fi. Right now, there’s not a lot that is out there that is that kind of sci fi. If you look at Stranger Things. Stranger Things is essentially the same thing. It’s this little team, [it has the] elements and that’s what works with Stranger Things is this little team working on this. And for me that is what is effective about Stargate, just getting this team dynamic to work. And I would love to see something like that come back where the program is ubiquitous. It can be anywhere, it can do anything. You saw it in space, you saw it on a different planet, you saw it, so it’s not like it has to be at the bottom of Cheyenne Mountain anymore.

David Read
Yeah, there’s always government funding.

Martin Wood
Yeah, and truthfully, there’s also a million different places you could go like, when we did get to deal on different plains, and you do get to meet your doppelganger somewhere, and they’re slightly different. Like McKay and Mrs. Miller when you get to meet the leather jacket McKay.

David Read
Rod.

Martin Wood
Yeah, wait a second. All of that still exists. All of it exists everywhere. And I mean, what’s funny to me is, I would love to see it run along the lines of a Rick and Morty, you know?

David Read
Universe hopping.

Martin Wood
Yeah, No rules, when you get to that kind of stuff, but I know Brad’s brain. I did know Brad’s brain well enough to sort of say, “Brad loves to root things in that kind of thing.” I mean, I don’t think that that part of Brad has changed. The part of Brad that we connected with all the time was we connected very much on that level of this has to be, whether or not the Stargate works, it has to be rooted in a physics that works. And Brad’s brain is brilliant at that kind of stuff. He can he can apply the physics to things to make them believable in, what is the word for it? I remember reading a true fact was that the Mayans were capable of FM radio except for one thing. It never said that one thing was. But the fact is that…

David Read
It came that close. Yeah.

Martin Wood
That can’t really exist, and nobody but Brad, that I know, could do those kinds of things, could put that kind of thing together. So, and I’m sure I’ve missed the mark on what he’s thinking or pitching by 100 yards.

David Read
That’s Brad, he’s always coming up with some of those like, well, I didn’t see that one coming. You can’t do 17 seasons of a show of a franchise and have it be just, ABCD, it has to go to unexpected places,

Martin Wood
We went out and pitched a show together, went to England, we went to the States, we went everywhere with it, called Light Years and it was a beautiful concept. It was beautiful. And unfortunately, I think that it kind of got scooped in a not very professional way. And I don’t know for sure it got scooped from us and the idea that he had, which would have made a way better show than what was made, would have been unbelievable. And that for me was another of those Brad Wight creations where you sit there going, “I have no idea where he gets it. But when he locks into something he really knows how to make it happen.” Yeah.

David Read
It’s interesting you bring that up. Dan Ben wanted to know, “Have you ever seen something used from Stargate or one of your shows without permission?”

Martin Wood
Oh, I just watched something the other day that had a Stargate in it.

David Read
Or they do pop up all rather alarmingly.

Martin Wood
Yeah. And they called it a Stargate too, and I’m trying to think of what it was. But it was virtually the same thing. It was the Stargate and I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder…” You know, I’m trying to think of what it was. And it wasn’t, it was like a week or two ago. Anyway, it is… Oh, Warrior Nun.

David Read
Warrior Nun. They had somebody that really?

Martin Wood
And I mean that Simon wouldn’t have taken something like that. It just that it actually makes sense for it to be what it is. The physics of it made sense for what they were doing. And he did a very good job of making it not look like a Stargate with it, but I thought, “Oh, it’s a Stargate.” You see that kind of stuff pop up. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that was not the…

David Read
There was like a set, okay,

Martin Wood
It would have been intentionally used, like I’ve seen Ronan’s gun pop up a couple of times in different things, where it’s like, well, we didn’t have priority or proprietory hold on the shape of a gun.

David Read
Right. Exactly.

Martin Wood
And it made sense to have somebody that could rifle a pistol, that would rifle a little bit longer barrel. But it did look kind of the same. And even looking at what’s funny is the BFG behind you. the BFB behind you.

David Read
Oh, the naquadah generator? Yeah, this is the top of the BFG, the smaller naquadah generator for sure.

Martin Wood
Right. And that I’ve seen pop up any number of times in different things.

David Read
Oh, it’s brother is getting made right now by a fan. A friend of mine who’s actually worked out the larger one, he’s extra… the craftsmanship in these fans are just extraordinary.

Martin Wood
And you know, if you knew how Amanda handled it the first day. I remember where we were, I remember exactly where we were when we did it because there was a sun scorching the earth that we were at. And you were watching it roll in and Amanda was frustrated by the opening on this thing. And she was frustrated by it. And she stood up and something that she was wearing got caught underneath it and it tumbled off, and it just rolled and she’s going, “Let it go let it go.”

David Read
Oh, gosh.

Martin Wood
Anyway, yeah, there’s some things like that, that are out there that sort of show up. It’s interesting. Like when you watch something like if you watch 2001 A Space Odyssey, which is one of those those movies that I sort of have in my head, and then you start seeing things from it like when you see the Death Star, and the exact same portal into the Death Star that the Pan Am ship is coming into, on the base. Oh, that’s interesting how that affected you know, George Lucas and how it effects. So it’s those kinds of things and their homage is more than they are you know…

David Read
Rip offs. Well, if a design element works, use it, but make it your own, you know?

Martin Wood
Yeah. I have not seen any Zat’nik’tels around. I don’t know why, probably some porn movies that are using them.

David Read
I can only imagine, for sure. Martin Wood, Producer, Director, Stargate. Sir, thank you so much for joining us once again. Hopefully we can get you back at some point in the new year here. And continued best wishes for all of the work that’s coming your way, man. This is great.

Martin Wood
I appreciate it. And good luck with everything that you’re doing with this. David and Sommer and the fact that you guys are taking this the way that you are, I think it’s great and I will always be here for you to talk to.

David Read
I appreciate you. It’s just a matter of time before before Amazon does something with it. And so we’re just gonna we’re gonna ride that wave as long as we can.

Martin Wood
Yeah. Good for you guys.

David Read
Thank you, sir. You have a great holiday. And we in touch with you the new year. Thank you very much.

Martin Wood
Okay.

David Read
You have a good one, sir. Bye bye.

Martin Wood
Bye, bye.

David Read
Martin Wood, Producer and Director from Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis. I think he has a production credit on Universe as well as a Consultant. Always excited to have him and have him join us. So this coming week on Dial the Gate, actually, if I can get my right screen here, so Wormhole X-Tremists. That was Martin today. Andee Frizzell is joining us next Saturday, December the third at 12 noon Pacific Time, she was the Wraith queens on Stargate Atlantis. And followed by Jenny Stiven and Darren Sumner we’re going to discuss the State of the Gate so bringing all the the current Stargate news and what’s going on with the new series, and with Amazon owning MGM. That’s going to be one hour later at 1pm Pacific Time on Saturday, December the third. Tomorrow if you want to do a live rewatch with us we’re doing The Broca Divide and The First Commandment. And that’s, OK that’s an Apple ad, very good. That’s going to be over at the Wormhole X-Tremists channel. And so if you want to look in the details pane of this particular video, you can actually see the link to Wormhole X-Tremists below. I’ve gone ahead and added that ther. So tomorrow at 10am pacific time we’re going to start The Broca Divide and The First Commandment, a little bit of banter before and after. Just make sure you have your own copy of the episodes and you can join me and Nicole and Yvie, the Wormhole X-Tremists, for our live rewatch. Holidays are here and Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate your watching and if you want to support the show further buy yourself some of our themes swag. Certainly someone on your lists, your Christmas list, your Hanukkah lists, your Kwanzaa list, your holiday list is a Stargate fan, — surely, please, possibly. We are now offering T-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts and hoodies for all ages as well as cups and other accessories and a variety of sizes and colors at dialthegate.com/merch. Thanks so much for your support. I think that that’s all we got here. Teresa MC, wanted me to ask Martin, “How would you cast David Read in this series, though?” Let’s ask him. I don’t, I can’t imagine where I will get this, background performer for sure. Dan Ben, “Are there any references to Stargate and other shows or media that you have liked to put any references to something in Stargate or one of your shows?” Um, there is, I think, Stargate has been used successfully in a number of… I guess that’s a question for Martin, nevermind then, that’s not a question for me. I love the South Park episode, Insheeption, because I think they brought Kurt Russell back for that episode. They’re definitely using the Stargate as well. Thanks so much to Sommer and to Tracy for making this episode possible as the moderating team and continued thanks to Antony, Rhys, Jeremy and Keith, my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey and Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb, he is responsible for keeping dialthegate.com up to snuff. We’re gonna be rolling out a new version of that apparently, soon here. He’s got something in the works. That mastermind has always got something going on. A big, tremendous thanks to Martin Wood for joining us once again. He’s always got fascinating stories to tell and stuff to share. And that’s what we’ve got for you today. So join us next week for Andee Frizzell and State of the Gate and tomorrow for the Wormhole X-Tremists. All of those dates and schedules are available at dialthegate.com Thanks again for tuning in everyone. My name is David Read, and I’ll see you on the other side.