Art Director Ivana Vasak went from designing real-life architecture to alien worlds in the realm of sci-fi, including Battlestar Galactica and Arrow. But before either of those shows she spent the first five seasons with Richard Hudolin’s team on Stargate SG-1. We are excited to have her join us to share stories from production!

Share This Video ► https://youtu.be/vUkpjZ4pKPk

Visit DialtheGate ► http://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate
Visit Wormhole X-Tremists ► https://www.youtube.com/WormholeXTremists

MERCHANDISE!
http://www.dialthegate.com/merch

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
00:25 – Welcome and Episode Outline
01:54 – Ivana and Her Working Background
12:29 – Creativity
14:15 – Getting into Stargate & Photo Show-and-Tell
20:17 – More Images from Ivana
24:18 – Cor-Ai and Memories of Ken Rabehl
25:58 – Pictures and Winning Awards
29:51 – Working with Bridget McGuire and Richard Hudolin
32:31 – Set Memories and Production Time
40:20 – Design Language, Communication, and Set Piece Re-Use
42:10 – 100th Episode and Party
46:45 – Battlestar Galactica and Stargate
49:35 – Design to Production
54:01 – Bridge Studios
1:00:01 – Wrapping up with Ivana
1:08:45 – Post Interview Housekeeping
1:11:21 – End Credits

***

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

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

 

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 218 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read, thanks so much for joining us for this episode of The Stargate Oral History Project. Ivana Vasak, art director from Stargate SG-1 seasons one through five is joining us this episode. I’m so thankful to Bridget McGuire for connecting us and we had a lovely interview. Before we start that recording, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, please click that like button. It makes a difference with YouTube and will help the show continue to grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes click the Subscribe icon. If you click the bell icon it will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes. Clips from this episode will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. This is a pre-recorded episode just like our episode with Dean Goodine. The moderators will not be taking questions for Ivana, they’ll just be enjoying the episode with you in the chat so feel free to talk amongst yourselves and enjoy this episode. Ivana was trip, she had a lot of interesting stories to share and I am so privileged to be able to share some of those stories with you. Let’s go ahead and bring her in. Ivana Vasak, art director for Stargate SG-1. Is it seasons one to five Ivana?

Ivana Vasak
Yes.

David Read
I thought that that was right. It is such a privilege to have you on the show. I’ve been privileged and blessed to have Richard Hudolin now and Bridget McGuire who says she’s a dear friend of yours. I must thank as well, Bridget, for connecting me to you as well. It’s such a treat to have you. I’m really thankful for you joining me because I’m such a fan of all your guys’ work. You guys made such an important piece of science fiction that continues to withstand decade after decade. People are still continuing to find this thing. Can you believe that it still holds up after all these years?

Ivana Vasak
Oh, I totally believe it. I was actually looking through prior to this, looking through the pictures I have starting with 97 when we started. Actually, this is…

David Read
Oh, there it is.

Ivana Vasak
This is prior to the picture you showed to Richard because only after that we realized this is actually going to go some places so we called all the other rest of the crew. We were just walking through the studio and thought “oh, this is good thing to take a picture” and then they came, the rest of the crew, and started fooling around with it. I was called by Richard and I said my second granddaughter just got born in Toronto. I restarted November…

David Read
96?

Ivana Vasak
So in December I’m taking off, 96. December I’m taking off for my grand baby and came after New Years and never looked back.

David Read
Where were you before geographically?

Ivana Vasak
I am an architect, I’m trained as an architect.

David Read
Geographically where were you living before Vancouver?

Ivana Vasak
In Vancouver, I lived in Ontario. When I came to Vancouver, after six years I lived all over Ontario, including North Bay. Milton after.

David Read
So you’re an architect by training?

Ivana Vasak
Killaloe, you know Killaloe town? Killaloe, population 700 and it’s been 700 for about 50 years now. I came to Vancouver and I thought I wasted six years of my life because I’m originally from Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic. I came at the instigation of our Russian brothers and they occupied us. I came as a refugee and basically moved around Ontario and didn’t like it much. Then I came to Vancouver and I said, “I wasted six years of my life, I should have come here first.” I was here, but more for single, architect, woman architect, but they were not as popular in those days. It is not as abundant and you really have to fight for your fees and all that. Somebody invited me for, actually MacGyver was first, two episodes filmed in Canada. I was on those, funnily enough with Richard Dean Anderson as well. Then I didn’t work in film for several years, some other stunt, then third feature that I worked on they said, “Oh, you already qualified to get into union” so I got into union and from then I never looked back. From 96 when I met Richard on the lot and he said “why don’t you come to work on my show?” I never looked back at all. It was unbelievably creative, fantastic. I would never get to do that as an architect. You boring plumbing, washroom versus bathroom and things like that. This was like from day one, it was the most interesting stuff that I worked on and I never looked back.

David Read
Yeah, you’re not doing washrooms, you’re doing throne rooms.

Ivana Vasak
Sometimes, sometimes just spoon, which somebody gets poisoned or killed or whatever. Sometimes it’s interplanetary machine, sometimes it’s a mushroom that grows into house, sometimes it’s the camps of some wild people. It’s old villages, the whole village, not just one house but the whole village and it’s built overnight and then it disappears. It’s just fantastic.

David Read
Can you believe that you did 110, 115 episodes in five years?

Ivana Vasak
Yes. In five years, yeah. We actually left and started to work on Battlestar Galactica which was another five years of very intense. I would say way more involved because it was more about today’s psychology and Stargate was more escapist. This was more dark, dark, where we are and where we are going from where we are. It was really interesting. Then another five years I did with Richard on Arrow and then I had to stop because I got too old.

David Read
No you did not, you look fantastic.

Ivana Vasak
I had to stop because I couldn’t sleep and you cannot work 12 hour days on like three hours of sleep uninterrupted. That was my main reason and I still am fighting. My doctor said “ha, you should see how I cannot sleep.” But he doesn’t have to work 12 hours and then two hours to work and two hours from work. I was always afraid I would run over somebody coming home at dark night, raining usually in Vancouver and all that.

David Read
Are you saying that you have trouble sleeping now because of the hours that you worked?

Ivana Vasak
No it’s not, it’s just insomnia came with age. That’s why I had to stop, otherwise physically I could do quite a bit.

David Read
Yeah. I imagine that the physical toll that’s taken on the body because you have to be producing this enormous amount of content and on budget. I can’t imagine what that’s like to keep up with that day in and day out.

Ivana Vasak
After 25 years of experience, because this whole stunt from Stargate to the end took about 25 years. It taught me one thing; you never reach your limit. The more you do it, the more you use it, the more you have it. I was at the beginning actually concerned that I will run out of ideas. Towards the end they were just starting to say about this operating center for this team and I already started to build it in my head and it got built. If I didn’t live through it, I would not believe it. If I read about it I would say all the people are making big jumps of conclusion of how it could be or should be. But it really is and the same is physical. Everybody that I saw that started from other industry to work in film, how can you stand it 12 hour days to be cooped up here and wake up at 5:30 in the morning and come home at 8:30? You get used to it. You get used to it and actually first few years I missed it. Not anymore, but I missed it but I still get up at seven and don’t go to sleep until it’s dark. It’s something that the more you do it, the better you do it and because you see how it’s better you do it even better. It’s like a motivation, self motivating. Every increment of success motivates you to do better next time. So it’s amazing. Amazing. I recommend it everybody who considers working for the film because it’s the most non-frustrating character and bodybuilding industry that I know.

David Read
You know Game of Thrones, the TV show?

Ivana Vasak
No

David Read
The TV series Game of Thrones?

Ivana Vasak
I heard about it but I have to tell you the secret, I don’t watch TV.

David Read
Not many in the television and film industry do I found, unless they’re like writers. George RR Martin who wrote Game of Thrones, the Song of Ice and Fire series, he once said to Melinda Snodgrass who wrote for [Star Trek] Next Generation, “don’t hoard your silver bullet.” So if you have a creative idea, go ahead and expel it because more will come in. I can understand that desire of “am I not going to run out of ideas?” But when you’re in the trenches with such creative people the ideas will enable themselves as you continue to work together.

Ivana Vasak
It’s another thing being with other people. I was always alone, I had my own office, I designed houses, churches, whatever, hospitals, but I was always doing it myself. When you are with other people and they are also creative and you come up with an idea and they start building on it. You kind of build on each other’s staff. It’s amazing, so really amazing. I’m really happy that I worked with the people, I worked with all of them, even those that are not on the picture. Everybody added something valuable to my life experience.

David Read
Tell me about when you got Stargate. So you went away, you spend time with your grandbaby. Before Stargate’s on the air you guys are recreating sets from the feature film. Tell me about that process from your perspective, that first year.

Ivana Vasak
You read the script, you think it’s a little bit lame but we will do whatever we can do. At the beginning we had lots of Egyptian influence so we started to get into the Egyptian whatever. I design Egyptian temple and then we start making the model and then we start putting it the what it’s going to be and then we present it. From then on I start drawing for construction so they can actually build it so you have to put the dimensions on it and everything and discuss it with guy’s. “Okay, how big the lumber? How high can we get into this building, into this one space that we had available?” and so on and you go from that? It’s so incremental that you didn’t even know what you are doing. I was just looking, I show you something. I have book, I have actually two books.

David Read
Show and tell, I love show and tell. It was my favorite day of school. Whoa!

Ivana Vasak
Can you see it? [holds up thick binder]

David Read
I can. I see tabs, I see many many tabs

Ivana Vasak
Yes, this is just the first four years.

David Read
Oh my gosh. Can you pick that up? I just see the top of it, can you lift that? Wow, Ivana. That’s all your reference material and photos.

Ivana Vasak
This is how it’s built. Drawing, drawings, temple.

David Read
That’s Chulak, the city of Chulak.

Ivana Vasak
Oh my god. This is the hat that Richard put on and couldn’t take off.

David Read
Yes, the serpent helmet. Oh look at that. That is SGC in the beginning. That is so cool. Wow.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah and then we get into…

David Read
Enemy Within with the lab.

Ivana Vasak
And then we get into all these camps right? That’s wild people in the camps and we have to design different, these are based on yurtas. This is the interior that Richard said I am crazy and then we built it. Guys, we had good guys and bad guys.

David Read
Yeah. The people of the steppe, Emancipation.

Ivana Vasak
Each of those sets was specifically designed. Bridget designed everything for the horses.

David Read
Of course.

Ivana Vasak
There we go into the Egyptian, old Minoan…

David Read
That’s the bulls, so yeah. First Commandment…

Ivana Vasak
We have these piles of sulfur on the other side of inlet. We use them for some kind of diamond that we…

David Read
Okay, so you have officially become my best friend and Vancouver. The next time I’m up you and I have got to sit down and go through these books a little bit if you’re willing.

Ivana Vasak
Absolutely. Absolutely. If you want to make it enjoyable, you’re welcome.

David Read
Absolutely. This is the…

Ivana Vasak
Interesting temple. Can you see it?

David Read
I can. I know exactly what that was. That’s Brief Candle.

Ivana Vasak
I had lots of fun with that one.

David Read
The Pelops statue.

Ivana Vasak
Very graphic.

David Read
Oh, it’s beautiful. I’m getting goosebumps sitting here and looking at this Ivana. This is just…

Ivana Vasak
I was getting goosebumps myself.

David Read
I’m sure you were.

Ivana Vasak
Because you know, you forget how much we were involved.

David Read
Yes, Thor’s hammer. That’s Samaria. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my favorite episode right there, The Torment of Tantalus. I have that original piece of artwork. Back backup one, one page backup a page.

Ivana Vasak
This one?

David Read
That one. I have that, Heliopolis, I have that downstairs. That is a huge episode of Stargate. That was the episode that established the lore of the show. We could go on and on. What an amazing collection there. I look forward to exploring that with you, if you’re willing, the next time I’m in Vancouver.

Ivana Vasak
I totally forgot about it. I couldn’t even find it but luckily just this morning I found it.

David Read
Oh absolutely. That is every SG-1 fan’s wet dream.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah, with drawings, explaining. Some of them I have actually models and standing beside it pictures of the actual scenes. They’re very similar. I can go on and on because I have just about every episode hear.

David Read
Absolutely. Well let me go grab something and I’ll be right back with you.

Ivana Vasak
Okay.

David Read
Give me 30 seconds.

Ivana Vasak
Sure.

David Read
Books and books and books.

Ivana Vasak
I said that you get to design spoon or whatever, this was a handle for the door.

David Read
Can you lift that up a little bit? We’re just seeing the bottom of it, I know it’s heavy. Ah, okay. Yes, the serpent handles. That’s right.

Ivana Vasak
These are handlers for the door, for the heavy heavy door in the lair in this in this one.

David Read
I can’t see the bottom.

Ivana Vasak
It just goes on. It’s just so much. It’s just so much. I’ll show you another tent city.

David Read
The Warrior.

Ivana Vasak
A lot of tent city. Unfortunately this thing is so big when I try to open it the page is out. And some more drawings.

David Read
Wow. Yeah. You and I will spend some time together and go through those. I want to show you something.

Ivana Vasak
Okay. That’s just one book. This has season one and up to four. A little but more buildings, the last one…

David Read
There we go. What is this?

Ivana Vasak
This was the most things that we did…

David Read
It looks like it maybe K’tau.

Ivana Vasak
European village and this is extra terrestrial part that got dropped somewhere. We did it outside and inside of it. It was actually set in actual location somewhere.

David Read
Okay, this is season five. Okay. Got it.

Ivana Vasak
You know, we did even like ruins like these. Then the houses and anything from temples, signs…

David Read
Yeah, that’s K’tau, that’s the Norse village.

Ivana Vasak
I got to even design a alphabet. One set of people and then I wrote something kind of funny. Somebody actually took the trouble to translate so they say “no, don’t do that.”

David Read
They’re watching. The Tomb. That’s the episode that got the awards.

Ivana Vasak
This was at SFU, if you know Vancouver, SFU University.

David Read
That’s Tollana. That was the backdrop. This is really super modern apartment of some…

David Read
Narim’s apartment? This is really this cook.

Ivana Vasak
And this and this and this and this was my last set, which was kind of [inaudible] because we didn’t know we were going…

David Read
Syfy channel, yeah.

Ivana Vasak
It was kind of very, very sombre.

David Read
It’s Kelowna. Yeah, that’s Meridian, that’s the episode where Daniel dies. Absolutely amazing. Well, I have something to show you. I’ll wait for you to come back. Thank you for sharing those. This, you passed this on the page. This is an original vellum sketch by Ken Rabehl of Cartago from Corai which is one of my favorite episodes from season one. This hangs next to my fireplace downstairs. He was an incredible artist, the things that he could do with a pencil absolutely blow my mind. Do you have any memories of working with Ken?

Ivana Vasak
I have lots of memories. I knew him when he started to work for the film industry. He was a diamond in the rough, very in the rough, I’d say personally. He was already an amazing, amazingly talented guy. It is so pitty what happened to him because he got ALS and he chose to, well you have to because eventually you would die anyway.

David Read
Yeah, Richard told us that after his diagnosis he chose what he chose.

Ivana Vasak
If you come I show you something that you will really like. Here is our fooling around with Ken and Doug and Ginny and myself. This is the helmet that eventually ended up on Richards head, unremovable.

David Read
Oh my gosh.

Ivana Vasak
And what else I have? Okay, then we got into serious stuff on the end of season three there were talk about that we should get some award. Eventually we got nominated and we went to, first we got the Leo out here in Vancouver and then we went to Toronto, totally not expecting anything. They were paying for our trip and for our loved one so we had absolutely fantastic time there and then we won. I am forever grateful to have had this experience where we are just sitting in your seat, they are reading the nominees and whatever, and the winner is…and then they start telling your show, your name, your everything. This was us.

David Read
Aaaah.

Ivana Vasak
After getting the award and it’s…

David Read
Absolutely

Ivana Vasak
This one. Richard being Richard he could have easily just took it on himself. Best design and he is the head of the department so he gets the award. No, he insisted that all people including the set dec are nominated on that same list. Then he said, “Oh, I cannot go with you. I have better things to do in Maldives” or something. He went on holidays so he wasn’t even there so he missed it But he still got there, he still got that.

David Read
Of course, he’s gonna get a statue, of course.

Ivana Vasak
It was like whole world have changed that moment and all of a sudden you walk on cloud and you are like totally in different world. You know you have just experienced something that nobody will ever take from you.

David Read
Recognition from your peers that you’ve achieved something that is very, very excellent.

Ivana Vasak
So emotionally for me the Stargate is important for that one particular reason. But also because I learned that the creativity, if you don’t use it, you lose it and if you use it, the more you use it the more you have it. That’s how it works and I hope my son will eventually find out. He’s an architect too.

David Read
Wow, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree now does it?

Ivana Vasak
No, not at all.

David Read
What was it like working with Bridget McGuire?

Ivana Vasak
Bridget is the nicest person that anybody could ever meet, ever. I cannot say. We never, absolutely not once in more than five years, because we weren’t together for long. She stayed on Stargate when we went on Battlestar Galactica and then some other shows. My memory is not that great at 80.

David Read
You are not 80 years old.

Ivana Vasak
We are still friends. She has horses so I get manure from her for my garden every year.

David Read
That’s great.

Ivana Vasak
She taught my second youngest grandson to ride horses. So it’s like, you know, all these things are still going on and hopefully forever. Everything that came from Stargate was good. Richard, absolutely. Boss, Richard’s a dream boss. He tries to be tough, ye pretends to be tough but he’s not very good actor.

David Read
Oh, we’re talking about Richard Hudolin, not Richard Dean Anderson.

Ivana Vasak
Yes. He can be tough where it goes against our common interests like when we want something, some particular item in the show and they don’t want it and it’s too expensive and whatnot. No, we get it eventually, always. So he’s tough. As far as a boss, he’s I don’t know, he’s just darling, he’s just darling.

David Read
He sounds to me like the kind of person where you would want to do everything within your power to make sure that he has exactly what he needs that he’s asked for and more.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah.

David Read
Do you have any memories of any of the sets that you built over that five year period?

Ivana Vasak
Most of those that you saw are mine because I took pictures of my sets, not Doug’s sets. But sometimes we work together on some sets so it’s been collaboration throughout. Sometimes I did interior, he did exterior or vice versa. Various things, various things. But like I said before, towards the end, it almost always kind of fell that he did one and I did the other. But I don’t remember which ones I did.

David Read
How would the two of you divide the work? How was that done?

Ivana Vasak
Richard would come to me or Richard would come to Doug.

David Read
Okay, so there was no responsibility?

Ivana Vasak
Yeah. No, we didn’t fight for anything like that. That’s the thing, I never wanted to do production design because you have to fight. Here I was in my little hole with the window and I drew to my heart’s content. When I presented it they would bring it to the meeting and they would say, “oh, you have to change this, this this” but mostly there was never any like, “oh no, we don’t want this” or something. Obviously I did what they wanted.

David Read
How often would you feel like you needed more time? That you weren’t getting through things quickly enough or did you always feel like you had a sufficient amount of time to handle the jobs.

Ivana Vasak
Okay, I had once been drawing set and there was this guy that kept coming from the construction because they were just next door. He was looking over my shoulder and I was looking at it and I though, “maybe I should change this” and all of a sudden I hear this voice “no, you can’t do this. We already built it.” How is that? Yes, that exactly, this thing exactly happened. I was laughing and I said, “okay, I just thought it might be better for this or that” and then they did some addition, some changes, whatever. But this exactly happened. We had one week to design and go so you don’t have much time to come back and go forth and back and whatever. No, I drew it one one day, it went to the conference and they said, “okay, build it” and the next day they build it. Sometimes they built it even before it was…because they already knew that it’s going to be approved. Once I was looking out of the window and they were taking this huge big wall of Egyptian temple and I ran out and I said, “hey, where are you taking it? and they said “to the dump?” “No, you can’t. I am it in the next episode.” So these things happened.

David Read
The goa’uld stuff especially, I would hesitate to throw any of that away because you were always churning out goa’uld stuff. There was some kind of Egyptian element all the way through all ten seasons of SG-1.

Ivana Vasak
I think those four by four columns that have these triangles on them, I think they were used about three times but then it became too obvious. Same columns, it’s just different design.

David Read
Absolutely.

Ivana Vasak
But yeah, that was the Egyptian era in first year. We could do that because all Egyptian buildings look kinda same. I was in Egypt later and I was proven right.

David Read
Isn’t it a marvelous place to visit? I loved visiting there.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah, yeah. I even went to Crete to see the Minoan and stuff. Again, it was very much like I visualized, just from the pictures. Mind you, we started, it was only 2004 when the internet started to be available so this was in pre-internet era. So when we had to do the research I virtually had to go to the library or to the bookstore. I have lots of books that I am giving away now because they are no good anymore, nobody even reads them anymore. But that was the only way how you got information on these little bit remote places or whatever.

David Read
So you would be going every week to the library basically? They’d probably be like “oh, here comes Ivana again. What’s she going to ask for this time? American Samoa?”

Ivana Vasak
No, I didn’t ask. I looked. I didn’t trust that they would know what I want.

David Read
Which library did you rely on?

Ivana Vasak
All of them, all of them. It’s one library and they have places in Burnaby and in Hastings, that’s a very nice little library. Vancouver Public Library.

David Read
So they have different offices, okay. Different locations throughout the city.

Ivana Vasak
Now with internet you just look on the catalog and if they don’t have it in that you can have it shipped to the other one. But before you just had to physically find it on the shelf. I am not going through the catalogs by names because it doesn’t say what you want to hear. It doesn’t say, “oh, it has these underground churches, Vardzia. I was only two years ago, I was in Georgia and I went to these churches and we were designing them from black and white, the picture book from the 60s somewhere.

David Read
Well, you did the best you could with what you had. The nice thing about Stargate was you were designing civilizations that were thousands of years removed from what we have.

Ivana Vasak
And we could do whatever we want with it.

David Read
You could modify it and make it believable.

Ivana Vasak
That’s the thing because they were supposedly evolving.

David Read
That’s correct. That’s exactly right.

Ivana Vasak
But it still had to look like they came from that era. That was great thing. That was so liberating because you had already something to start with and you just can build on it. Oh, and what if they decided that they were going to go this way or so. Nobody could blame you that you were playing with something that doesn’t exist because that was the point.

David Read
Those are their own cultures now, they’re going to behave independently.

Ivana Vasak
That was absolutely genius idea that whole concept. At least for us graphically.

David Read
I’m curious Ivana. As you move deeper into the show, did you internally, your team, begin to develop kind of a design language for certain things. “Okay, this is goa’uld so we’re going to need more of this angle. This is Asgard so we’re going to need more of that kind of thing. We’ve kind of seen that before but let’s take this further in this direction.” Or was it starting from scratch every single week?

Ivana Vasak
Well, like I said about this set that was being called for dump. “Oh, we have these columns and whatever so we could do this and this with it.” It became the older the show got the more use the money got because we already had so many elaborate pieces that even the guys that didn’t think much about the construction or whatever, they were afraid to throw it away because they look too good.

David Read
Absolutely.

Ivana Vasak
We were a lot into reusing stuff. I tell you, it’s like any organism. When you are together for five years, and I was just noticing from these pictures, not just pictures of the sets, but my private pictures, how we became like one organism. We were really thinking almost the same way all of us and it was a way of living. That organism had way of living which was really amazing. One example was the 100th episode where they did absolutely unbelievable show, unbelievable show for hundreth episode. My husband has lots of friends that worked in, how do you say. service industry in Sheraton and all these biggest, biggest hotels in Vancouver. They said they have never seen anything like that, ever. Because you come through the Stargate, it’s still daylight outside, I was over made up and it was just perfect for the camera. It looked funny. You go through the Stargate and you enter different world and there were these fountains that were running liquor and wine and tables with unbelievably arranged food that was trying to look other worldly and all this. It was amazing. It was totally amazing. Too bad it was before camera was available easily in that dark environment. It would have been very nice video from there.

David Read
Was that the party at the Sheraton?

Ivana Vasak
That was the party, yeah.

David Read
There’s not a lot of footage of that. I suspect that’s why.

Ivana Vasak
Because it was dark. It was dark. But oh my god, the ambiance was something else.

David Read
Wow. Well, it’s a big deal for a show to hit 100 episodes. I loved that the show was never pretentious. It never tried to be something that it wasn’t and the 100th episode really exemplified that because the comedy was just dialed up to 11. It’s like, “okay, there are some parts of our story that are just outrageous so let’s make it even more outrageous and make fun of it.”

Ivana Vasak
I have to show you something. They had one episode that was spoofing Stargate? I don’t know if you remember it.

David Read
You’re not talking about 100? Because 100 was called Wormhole X-treme!

Ivana Vasak
Yes, yes.

David Read
That’s Wormhole X-treme! That’s the one hundredth episode.

Ivana Vasak
We got to design the Stargate right, yeah, this one. And the outfits for this one.

David Read
Oh man. How fun.

Ivana Vasak
They are fun.

David Read
That’s the logo.

Ivana Vasak
That’s from pre-shoot because we were amazed at how people could look like this and not laugh their heads off.

David Read
Well, that’s the point. You’re taking what works and doesn’t work out about the show and letting everyone know, “hey, you know, we make people go invisible. Why is it they don’t fall through the floor?” That’s funny.

Ivana Vasak
Exactly, it was very, very well done this one.

David Read
I think I misspoke when I said that something didn’t work about the show. What I mean to say is like the conceits of the show of like people going invisible and things like that. It was all just to poke fun of the extraordinary circumstances that were surrounding what you guys were creating week after week. It just had to have been relentless for five years.

Ivana Vasak
That’s why these things happen. You draw it and they build it at the same time because otherwise you couldn’t do it.

David Read
If there was anything, what was different about Stargate compared to the work on Battlestar and the work on Arrow? What sets Stargate apart besides it being more fantastical? I imagine you wouldn’t have as big a budget for Battlestar, but maybe you did.

Ivana Vasak
I wasn’t fan of it. Maybe I wasn’t into the fun part. Like being foreigner, you don’t get all the jokes anyways. But I like Battlestar Galactica, this was full, full heart. Absolutely I’m really greatful. Among all these other things I work on Battlestar Galactica because to me that’s a pinnacle of wisdom and farsightedness and everything that should be considered with even the AI which is now a big deal, right? All these things were considered in that show and it was not appreciated. Apparently people thought it was too dark because it was too true so it got canceled after five years.

Ivana Vasak
Well at least it got resolved.

Ivana Vasak
Before I worked on film, which is like three months affair and you are off. Before you get to know people that you work with, you are gone and they are gone and whatever. It was more episodic and chopped up. With Stargate what I have appreciated was the camaraderie that created around it and tha lasts even to today. It’s just makes you feel good, everything. There was no conflict. Even if there might have been, but we didn’t know about it.

David Read
Are you talking about behind the scenes or in front of the camera?

Ivana Vasak
Sometimes you have shouts from the production office.

David Read
Of course, yeah. You spend 12 to 14 hours a day with creative people. There are going to occasionally be creative different things.

Ivana Vasak
And seeing your creation being put in reality. Which architect can say that? Nobody.

David Read
Did you ever stop being mesmerized or blown away by how quickly you could put something on a piece of drafting paper and within just a few days, in a stage, it was standing upright and living and breathing its own space. It was feeling like it was just another place?

Ivana Vasak
Oh, it’s always the sense of you live basically in a permanent sense of awe. “I am part of this.” Sometimes I’m sitting, drawing something, I know it’s going to start getting built tomorrow, painted day after tomorrow, dressed and filmed maybe the same day that it’s dressed. I keep thinking, “I am so happy I am doing this.” I don’t think many employed people have these moments where they can actually reflect on what they are doing and if they are really happy. I have lots of those and I am happy for that.

David Read
Was there a separation of church and state between what you were creating on paper and then once it was coming to life, physically, or were you able to make a suggestion here or there based on your drawings to enhance as you went along?

Ivana Vasak
Yeah, I’d be on the set all the time. Even after they left I went on the set and in the morning I would say, “oh, maybe you should do a little bit that.” I was best friend with construction guys. As an architect I knew what it takes to build something so I was trying to make their life easier. You know, like seven foot studs instead of “oh, why don’t we make it a 18 and a half or something?” Things like that. I was always on very good relationship with construction guys.

David Read
Were there any tricks or was there any kind of shorthand that you got into the routine of where it was like, “okay, if we do it this way this is going to make it easier on them?” Could you predict a lot of the needs that they were going to have after a while or was it always a unique situation for every episode?

Ivana Vasak
Like I said, we have reused a lot of things, even in different ways than for what they were originally intended. For one set we basically used the wall of the studio because it has all these cables and whatever. If they go through the back of the ship, who knows that it’s actually actual wall of studio and actual stuff that has to be there. It saved a lot of money because we only built one side of the ship or whatever ship, whatever set. They were expanding their range of where they could go, where they could come from, how they could look from the top. Actually we have bridges on the top of the ceiling so that you can look down so sometimes we use those. But the shortcuts are such, it’s just so different all the time. It’s hard to say this is one way of doing things.

David Read
There were several instances throughout the show where they would go to an aircraft hangar or some other large space and it’s like, “this is just the set.” It makes sense to go ahead and do this. I can see the red and orange struts outside from building to building, that’s The Bridge, that’s The Bridge Studios. There’s no reason to go somewhere else or construct a facade that’s similar when you can just use the walls of the set.

Ivana Vasak
And how many people know Bridge right? How many people know Bridge? Only the locals or visitors. Honorary visitors. I have few pictures I thought were interesting.

David Read
Aaaah.

Ivana Vasak
This is Bridge Studio going back after the first year, I think. You can see that they kept most of the structural bridges because it looked good in various movies, right? So they didn’t take it down even though it didn’t serve any purpose. It was for the cranes to run up and down because there were halls before which they took the walls off. It was actually quite graphic.

Ivana Vasak
Look at the rainbow. That’s not from the fire was it?

Ivana Vasak
This is from the fire.

David Read
Oh my gosh. Can you bring it over to your left a little bit? Can you bring it to your left a little bit? There we go. Wow. Oh my gosh.

Ivana Vasak
And this was funny because they build us new studios and we were in the baby stage right? We moved to the studio upstairs where office is. There was Thanksgiving and we were sitting at the dinner and they were announcing there were fire in The Bridge Studios in the building, I don’t remember, B or A actually. It was our studio.

David Read
It was stage six, stage six, stage five was SGC, yeah.

Ivana Vasak
So we came and the entrance into the studio was closed but we could go upstairs into our office where we worked. They had to continue shooting in the old studio for about a year or half a year or something. Even though they invited the most effective fire cleaning crews they could have muster up around Vancouver, it was smelling. Even when they started the show it was still smelling, it’s how long it is. That was because they built the separating wall from wood. Everything else is concrete, it was tilted concrete. The wall between them which was 40 feet high and I don’t know how many feet across, 8 feet, something, was built from wood struts. Apparently some wiring overheated in there and started the fire. Just absolutely stupid, I don’t know who came up with that idea in all concrete building to build this huge wall from wood. They figured if the sets will be from wood it doesn’t really make any difference but yeah, it made big difference.

David Read
From separating one set to another, if that material is flammable it makes the complete difference. Wow, that is just extraordinary.

Ivana Vasak
That was one thing that happened. There was another…I don’t have a picture of it. Fire truck, no. The special effects truck blew out while we were on holiday, away. My god, you should see it. I don’t have the picture, it was even worse.

David Read
It blew out. It exploded?

Ivana Vasak
It just ignited because they have all these explosives in there right? Yeah. It was parked there on the lot. It was lucky that it damaged few cars around it but nothing else. Unbelievable.

David Read
Insane. Yeah, cuz it’s got all the pyrotechnics, you have to store it somewhere I would guess. Yeah, Man oh man. It’s not always a safe business you know. There are some things that occasionally will go boom Wow, what a wild ride.

Ivana Vasak
When I was studying to be an architect we had to go on construction to learn how to do masonry and whatever. That was still in Czechoslovakia. I had a wall fell on me and only after the wall fell on me, it was just one single wide of bricks and the crane fell on it. We were standing and I was talking to group of people standing right under the wall and I saw it and it went like this and then I saw first brick fell out on top of it. I turned and covered my head and when it all quiet down I was up to here in bricks. They fall over and only after then they made us wear hard hats. That’s how people learn because before that they didn’t require, as students, as mere students, we didn’t require to have hard hats when we were on the construction.

David Read
You could have been really hurt. Wow.

Ivana Vasak
Well here I am. Maybe it helped me in some ways that I don’t even know. But I didn’t really get any hits direct on head. I had scratches on my hands, but not…

David Read
Yeah, nothing that clonked you. Wow, man oh man. But what a career you’ve had, if not for frickin insomnia.

Ivana Vasak
I would be still drawing if it wasn’t for that.

David Read
Do you draw at all?

Ivana Vasak
Yeah.

David Read
Good. What do you like to draw?

Ivana Vasak
Well, I am not drawing anymore.

David Read
So you don’t drawn now?

Ivana Vasak
I have to have reasons to draw. So if they tell me draw a temple, or whatever, wormhole.

David Read
Let’s see what that looks like.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah. The house that sits on its head, whatever, I can do it.

David Read
You don’t draw for pleasure?

Ivana Vasak
No. No, it’s my business. I have to have purpose to draw. My drawing has to have purpose.

David Read
Yeah it’s your craft? Well good for you. Thank you for this.

Ivana Vasak
The more I get into it, it’s like when you have to exercise. You kind of don’t really feel like it and then the more you do it, the more you get into it and the more curriculars you add this and it’s “I did this.”

David Read
And there it is and it’s like, “how could I have not done this for as long as I have? I can do this.”

Ivana Vasak
Ken was drawing because he told me once that he has these visions in his head and he was basically getting rid of those visions,

David Read
By drawing them out.

Ivana Vasak
He had to draw because it was like kind of therapeutic for him. I don’t have any vision until you tell me to build you apartment and then I know.

David Read
Ivana, this has been a real treat to pick your brain and see things from your perspective. Your work with that team established the look of a huge franchise. I can’t wait to visit you in Vancouver and go through some of your episodes. I would love to do that, I would love to do that.

Ivana Vasak
Oh, great. Definitely, you are welcome. You can even stay with us, I have a room that you can stay there. I didn’t even know that these books will be of any use anymore.

David Read
Oh, they are.

Ivana Vasak
I have one big book for Battlestar Galactica, I didn’t do anything for Arrow. This was, I totally forgot, I found it this morning actually. I thought I had a book, or maybe more books for Stargate, but maybe I was mistaken. This is what the memory play tricks on you. I found it and I’m very happy.

David Read
I am so thrilled that you found it. I have seen costume continuity books with Polaroids of actors. I have seen a couple of other continuity books but I’ve never come across art production continuity. So yeah, I’m really glad that you still have that because it’s a beautiful peek behind the scenes at the bones of what it was that you were building. Once it gets to the camera and we see it as audience members, we see it exactly as it was intended. Whereas it’s kind of cool sometimes to look behind some of the panels in a different way. But the thing is, the magic is forever altered as an audience member because it’s like, now you can see the zipper up the monsters back.

Ivana Vasak
Yes, yes, yes. That’s why I don’t watch the TV. It’s not only for that, some shows are really very pretentious or whatever. You know right away what they are aiming at.

David Read
Predictable, yeah, exactly.

Ivana Vasak
Every show has a pace, a certain pace. I like watching TV in Czech Republic because they don’t cut up the episodes into small segments to sell stuff. It’s much more pleasurable because you get this wave, you start and then it goes down and then you build up the tension and then it’s the resolved. We need it inside to have this kind of movement and with American television it’s all chopped up and you go and have your sandwich or whatever because it’s advertising.

David Read
There’s a break. Yeah, there’s a commercial break.

Ivana Vasak
Yeah and you don’t get the feeling of the piece of music that you were watching because this is actually a piece of music except done with images.

David Read
Wow. So are commercials in the Czech Republic run between shows? Is that how they do it?

Ivana Vasak
They have blocks of commercials that you can totally give up and go skiing.

David Read
Go skiing .”You know, I’m done with this episode of Stargate. I think I’m gonna go skiing.”

Ivana Vasak
Oh you would see me. I was on the parking lot. I had this permanent, because they were selling for, I think $80, a seasonal pass after hours. So I would be at 7:15 in the parking lot changing into my ski pants and drove to Grouse and skied until 11. I was usually the last one on the chair.

David Read
Ivana, I’ve never been on skis. But Grouse, as a nugget of trivia for Stargate fans, season five, there was an episode called Threshold with Teal’c and Master Bra’tac on top of Grouse and this is a flashback to Teal’c on Chulak training and that’s also a big ski mountain there. So very cool. Ivana, this has been a real pleasure. Thank you for giving me so much of your time. Thank you.for sharing.

Ivana Vasak
We are over? I was afraid I would not know what to tell you.

David Read
No, you were terrific. I look forward to meeting you in person and just sharing memories from production as we go through your catalogue. I don’t know when but I’ll let you know when I’m up there.

Ivana Vasak
Well, we never know. Just do it fast because as I was preparing I was talking to my son about one of my classmates from university, from architecture. He was also extremely talented. We were texting so as I was writing his name I got a message that I got another message. I opened the message and it was from his daughter that he just died. So you never know, we are in that age. It’s my classmate, it’s from my same age group. So there.

David Read
You can never count on tomorrow. That’s one of the reasons why I do this show. Two of the people that I have interviewed in Stargate have since passed on. There are people outside of that sphere who I’ve wanted to interview who I didn’t get their interviews for one reason or another. It’s like, that story is gone. So again, thank you for taking the time and adding to our oral history project.

Ivana Vasak
You’re very welcome because it churned up some long forgotten mud, memories. A long time ago and it feels good ao thank you for that feeling.

David Read
Thank you. That was Ivana Vasak, art director for Stargate SG-1 seasons one through five. I did not expect her to pull out the art books from all of her production. I can’t wait to get up there and sit down with her because I, as a fan, have series context for a lot of the stuff that’s created and the whys behind it and she has the behind the scenes context. I would really love to get together with her in person and put some of those pieces together because we would all love to see some of those behind the scenes drawings and pictures and everything else. I think we’re gonna have to just do just that for next season, for season four of Dial the Gate. Thanks once again to Bridget McGuire, thank you Bridget for making this episode possible. This was extremely cool. So everything is kind of in flux right now because of the writers strike and actors strike. We’re doing still a lot of production episodes in this back half of this super extended season three. Schedules are changing around so visit dialthegate.com for the updated list of upcoming interviews. Some of those were already in the can, others are just tentative. I’ve got yeses from people so I’ve gone ahead and put that there so you can see what’s going on. I usually kept that offline but now I’m just keeping that on. Once I get a yes from someone or I have something already shot, I’m gonna go ahead and keep it on dialthegate.com in the upcoming episodes section so that you can see what’s coming down the pipe. That is it for this episode. I really appreciate my moderating team for making my job so much easier in getting this content out. Tracy and Antony, you guys, wow, you guys are really putting in the time. Thanks to Sommer as well and Jeremy and Rhys, my Producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey for helping me with today’s episode, with Dean Goodine as well and Frederick Marcoux, ConceptsWeb, he’s our web developer, keeps Dial the Gate up and running. My appreciation to all of you as we continue to crank out a few more of these episodes before I go into a long overdue holiday. A couple of days ago, we started actually one year ago for season one of Dial the Gate. Gatecon was going on, Gatecon 2022 was going on now and that’s where season, excuse me, season three, kicked off. We’re still going so as long as I have fish willing to jump in the boat we’re gonna share them with you on the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, I’ll see you on the other side.