So much happens behind the scenes to create our favorite television shows. Cath-Anne Ambrose, Script Coordinator and Production Associate from Season Two to Seven of Stargate SG-1, joins Dial the Gate to share some of those details and update us on her world as an instructor!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:25 – Welcome
0:32 – Guest Introduction
1:38 – Cath-Anne the Instructor
6:04 – A Love of Teaching
8:50 – Stargate SG-1 Bowling!
10:32 – The Road to Stargate
18:11 – Starting with Peter DeLuise
21:38 – Product Placement
25:37 – Working with the Air Force
26:38 – General Ryan (and Wife)
27:28 – “Prodigy”
29:30 – Writers Guild Script Drafts
33:10 – Executive Wing Gate Keeper
37:28 – Kate Ritter’s Stargate Lexicon
39:00 – Odd Requests (Mayan Translations)
40:32 – Jumping Onto a Moving Train
43:33 – 100th Episode Party
45:50 – Friends From Production
51:05 – Cath-Anne’s Daughter
52:40 – Don S. Davis
56:24 – Joining a Family
58:40 – “Bejeweled Throne”
59:38 – Churning Out Episodes
1:03:14 – Leaving Stargate Productions
1:08:00 – Thank You, Cath-Anne!
1:11:11 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:12:25 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. Cath-Anne Ambrose, script coordinator and production associate for Stargate SG-1, is joining me for this episode to share stories of her time on production. She joined in Season Two and went through about Season Seven of Stargate SG-1 and also was on for the pilot episode “Rising” of Stargate Atlantis. We’re going to spend a little time catching up with her and getting to know a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of a lot of what went on behind the scenes for SG-1. Let’s bring her in. Cath-Anne Ambrose, production associate and script coordinator for Stargate SG-1. Cath-Anne, I am privileged to have you. Now, I have been a fan of yours since all the way back when in your GateWorld interview. Darren says “Hello,” by the way. This is really cool to finally have you on and get to share some stories and get to know each other a little bit ourselves. I appreciate having you.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Thank you so much, David, for bringing me on your show.

David Read:
This is terrific. How did you get involved in — You know what? Let me back up. How’s it going now? What are you up to these days? What’s currently happening with you?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Well, I left the film industry. Uh, you know, I kind of went back and forth. I went back and I did a master’s degree in 2010 in Communications. And when I got out of there, I was really interested in teaching. So, right away, I got a job pretty quickly with my resume doing a part-time media and public relations course. And then I applied for a job at BCIT, which is the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Much like a polytechnic institute that you would have in the US and all over the world, actually. They were looking for a communications instructor to teach various communications courses. And it said, “preferential candidates will have a background in media, film, television, or public relations.” And I literally saw this ad on a Friday at 4 o’clock, and the job closed at 4:30. And, I was like “Oh” and I was looking for teaching jobs and I thought “Oh, I’ll send my resume into the heap.” All right, Monday morning, they called me. They were like, “We got your resume. We’d like to bring you in for an interview.” And then by Thursday I was in for an interview. I had to do a teaching demo, and I think that they had me do a little mini-lecture on how to write a press release. And then by Monday they were like, “Can we call your references?” — and by the way, Bill Biggers, who was our publicist, gave me a glowing reference — and then they made a job offer and I was hired. The reason why they hired me was because I was teaching into broadcast … So I teach Communications and everybody pretty much that goes through any program has to take various Communications courses as mandatory, like mathematics.

David Read:
I’ve done it. My degree is in Communications, so I get it.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Exactly. You know exactly what I’m talking about. All right, but the particular — one of the courses that they had me teaching, right out of the gate was Communications for Broadcast Journalism students. But we made a 10-minute … actually, I think it was 8-minute … we called them the fun features. So, we made short films, all right? And, so, myself and a colleague who taught… it was sort of a joint course with a production course and then my course. So, I did all the script development with them. I would make them come in and pitch their fun features as a team. And the point was so that journalists could learn how to use the cameras and how to craft a story and all of the elements – lighting — that are involved and get to work as a team in their first semester. So, they learned team building and all the stuff that goes along with filmmaking. And then we had our award ceremony. We called it the Jell-O Award. So, some journalist, a very famous Canadian journalist created this, Stephen Quinn when he went to BCIT. Ot’s one of the top schools for journalism. Anyway, we had an awards ceremony. So, that was great. We did that. But now I teach– somebody axed that course. There was some politics that went on about the amount of time it took the curriculum to do the fun feature and now the course has changed. I teach — Every semester it’s something different — I teach marketing students, I teach communications for robotics and mechatronics students. And by the way, they love Stargate, just saying.

David Read:
Those replicators, man.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They love them. Mechatronics students all over the map. It’s great. It’s a great sort of post-film life.

David Read:
Normally, you know, when someone hears “Yeah, I’m in the film and television industry,” a lot of people who are probably watching are like, “How could she have left?” And not every career arc is the same specific industry. A lot of people find themselves in teaching at some point in their lives. I’ve done it for one of my industries and there is something so rewarding. I had this conversation, actually, with Bill Merchant just a few weeks ago. There’s something so satisfying about giving something back.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Everybody thinks young kids are this and that, and I see so many hardworking kids working two jobs, trying to do all of this stuff, pay for their education and I don’t see that from my vantage point. Obviously, any sort of post-secondary classroom, you’re gonna have things that happen. But for the most part, if you’re not serious, at least where I teach, you get weeded out by the end of first term. In our broadcasting and television programs, you can’t be late. So, if you’re late — ’cause we run it like a production hub – and so, if you get late you’re automatically minus 10% of your overall mark.

David Read:
There’s a certain amount of stress that is just a part of the deal. You have deadlines. And you have to get this stuff out for a show at a certain time. So, we’re going to run you through your paces now because if you can’t …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Absolutely.

David Read:
… if you can’t figure it out here, we’re not serving you anything by… We’re not giving you any… helping you out along the way by changing it up …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Coddling.

David Read:
… so that you have to go back and do the real thing later.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No. And it’s true, if you want a career in film and television you have to look at that. Do you have the stamina to work those hours? Can you live a feast-or-famine lifestyle? There’s a lot of factors that are not just about working in film. There’s a lot of things you have to look at ’cause it’s definitely a certain lifestyle. And it’s great when you’re young. It’s so much fun when you’re young.

David Read:
Yeah, you figure out what you’re made of.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But the older you get you want security. A little more stability in life is good.

David Read:
What are you wearing?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But that’s what I’m doing.

David Read:
I saw a Stargate insignia on your jacket there. What do you have on?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
OK, so, I have very little memorabilia left.

David Read:
Looks like a poker shirt or something.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Every time I…

David Read:
Oh, it’s bowling!

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yes, it’s a bowling shirt. Brad Wright’s father-in-law had a bowling team in Toronto or in Scarborough that we were sponsoring. I believe this is the story. Often, I had to get swag made for some event or as part of my job. I was always trying to get stuff out of MGM, “Send me more swag.” So, we were always doing giveaways when a visitor would come. Somehow in the back of my closet I found this shirt. I’ve never worn it and it says “Reg.” I’m thinking, “Well, maybe Reg dropped off the bowling team?” I don’t know, but somehow I ended up with Reg’s shirt. And it has a nice Stargate embroidery. And then, where’s the patch? Here’s the patch.

David Read:
Looky there. Wow.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, so these are … You could not find these anywhere.

David Read:
No, you can’t.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No. They were made …

David Read:
There’s a little flame underneath the “Reg” there.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They were made specifically for Brad Wright’s father-in-law’s bowling team.

David Read:
That’s really cool.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Now, of course, I don’t know if he’s with us, but …

David Read:
I wonder what the little flame is there underneath “Reg.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I don’t know. I think maybe to make it a bowling shirt or … I wonder if that’s what they …

David Read:
The modern kids would say “that’s really fire.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, who knows?

David Read:
It’s really fire. That whole thing …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Maybe they put it on or something.

David Read:
… there is fire.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I don’t know.

David Read:
How did you find your way into Stargate? Where are you from originally and how did that snowball into Bridge Studios?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
OK. I grew up in Scarborough, which is a suburb of Toronto. And as it turns out, so did Brad Wright, which is a complete coincidence which we realized after working together for quite a while that we grew up about 10 minutes away. It’s so funny. It’s so bizarre. So, I grew up in Scarborough and I had an uncle who was a Canadian gospel singer. I was adopted into a very musical family. And my uncle Tommy Ambrose — you can all Google “Tommy Ambrose.” — he’s still alive. He was a famous jingle writer, and he wrote a lot of beer commercials, but he also had these shows. I think he had three or four shows on the CBC which is the Canadian Broadcasting Network. As a little girl I would go and sit in the audience of his tapings with all the relatives and things like that. So, I was always like, “This is fun. Great. This is cool.” And then, again, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something with media. I always had this broad spectrum. And then I went to university. I studied Communications and Political Science. I joined a lot of clubs and they’d be like, “Oh, you’re the Director of Publicity and Promotion for the Political Science Forum.” And I’d sit on the school newspaper board. Always behind the scenes. All of my jobs, I was always very behind the scenes. And after university, I just started applying for jobs. I almost took a job at a record company, and so I could have gone down a whole different path. I was looking at different industries and then I saw this ad in the Toronto Star newspaper, and it said, “Film production and distribution company looking for a publicity or marketing assistant.” So, I’m like, “Oh, this is perfect.” So, I sent my resume and went for an interview and then they called me back and they said, “You didn’t get the job.” And then about a week later they called me back and they said, “Somebody quit. Would you be willing to come in?” It was a different job. It was a receptionist / office manager-type job. “Would you be willing to come in for that position?” I said, “Absolutely.” And then, as life works out, within six months I got the original job that I had applied for, the publicity job. So, I did that. But it was… I had nothing to do with production. I still didn’t really understand production. And I remember walking into — we had an editing room in our office and it was all very mysterious with the editor’s room — and I walked in and I saw him splicing film and playing. It was on the Steenbeck, and he was playing it back and forth. The company made nature documentaries. It was a very famous Canadian company. And I was like, “What’s going on in here?” And then he started explaining it and then I got more interested in the production side. And then I started volunteering. I volunteered on… we have the Canadian Film Center, which is like your version of the AFI. So, I volunteered on some projects with young directors that are in the program. Did that. Met a lot of friends. I was living in an area of Toronto which is called Queen Street West, and there was a lot of musicians and artists and– So, one weekend we’d be like, “Oh, such and such is making a music video.” And then we would all go and volunteer and work on it and help each other. If somebody needed to do this for their demo reel or whatever. We were helping each other out. And then, randomly, I got a job on a movie of the week. And that was my first American… I thought I had made it so big, I’m working on this NBC Movie of the Week in the production office. I just thought, “Wow.” I’d hear the producers yelling “I paid her to play her. What do you mean she doesn’t wanna be in the show?” It was a very Hollywood vibe. And I’d be like, “Whoa, this is amazing.” And then I did some Movies of the Week and then I decided I wanted to move to Vancouver. I wanted to check it out because I knew they had a production industry and I was attracted to the lifestyle. I wanted to live in California, obviously. I wanted to live near the ocean and the mountains. So, I moved out to Vancouver. And all of the jobs I had done in Toronto, I had been a director’s assistant. I worked in the production office. But they were all non-union jobs, and Vancouver was much more unionized when I first moved out there. All the production office jobs were unionized. So, I randomly met a woman who was a neighbor’s friend. She said, “You need to meet my…” — I think it was her cousin — “You need to meet my cousin. She works in film. You might have a connection with her or something.” I met her. I had already been doing… On TV and movies I had been doing script revisions and working with the writers and producers and editing. And people didn’t know how to use the script software. It was very expensive, like Final Draft and I think I worked on ScriptThing and all these different–

David Read:
Relatively new tools.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They were! So, the fact that I had any ability gave me that leg up. So, this random neighbor introduced me to this woman, Shauna Bryan, she’s a visual effects producer now. And she’s like “I got a call for… Do you know how to use script software?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And she goes, “I got a call from this TV series that they’re looking for someone to come in and work in the story department and do scripts.” So, I went for an interview, and I had just had a baby, my daughter was two months old. That’s gonna come full circle. Because my daughter has now started working in film. Full circle.

David Read:
Chip off the old block.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
So, I started. I remember I went in, I interviewed. I remember Jonathan asked me, “How come there’s a gap on your resume?” And I said, “Well, I had a baby.” And he was like, “That makes sense.” People are always afraid of that, “You have a gap on your resume.”

David Read:
“What have you been doing with yourself?” “Raising a child.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I remember I was walking out to the car and they were like, “So, do you like science fiction?” And I was like, “Well, I do now.”

David Read:
If there’s a steady paycheck with it, yes.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And I started the same day Peter DeLuise started. I remember it was the same season. Our first meeting, Peter had just arrived. He’d been living in the US. And John Smith helped him get his whole… his Canuck card. And then we started on the same day. And it was a … Looking back in hindsight, they had had a woman, her name was Victoria James, and she’d been their production associate, script coordinator, clearance person on The Outer Limits. And she left and I took over. So, I had big boots to fill. And, you know, it was… At that time, I think what they did is kind of merge. I think she also had a script coordinator. I think they merged both the jobs together. But I got this production associate title ’cause that was her title originally. But then I felt like, later, it didn’t really define what I did. But for the most part, all of the job descriptions morphed between the script coordinator and production associate.

David Read:
What is that translating to on a day-to-day, or should I say episode-to-episode, responsibility for you? Can you take me through that please?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
The story department would have scripts in multiple phases going, obviously. Someone’s working on an outline, someone’s working on a writer’s draft, we’re going into production on one, we’re already in production and need to make production revisions. So, a lot of keeping all the balls up in the air. Everything was fed through me. So, I supported… Brad would write a script and he’d be like, “Writer’s draft, give it to me.” Print it out, then they’d go through it. It wasn’t like we could just put them up in a Dropbox or something today. So, again, we were using floppy disks. There’d be, whatever it would be, episode, it’d be “Outline,” “Writer’s draft,” “Second writer’s draft” and it was a lot of that. And then I would have to send them to MGM. Various departments. Lawyers. The clearance company. And then once it got into production it would go out and be released to the world … to the production office and everybody working on the show. But it didn’t go out–

David Read:
On 3.5-inch floppies?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, that’s how it started. And then we’d even have problems with… I had a PC and then some of the writers had Macs so you had some format issues. So, there was a lot of bad–

David Read:
Back in the day, man.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It was crazy when you look back at it. So that was one component to it. I also had to do any kind of product placement clearances they needed. And that in itself was quite the interesting task.

David Read:
So, for product placement, occasionally there were brands that you could recognize in the show even though most of it took place off world. What was that like? Tell me about that.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Depending on who the brand was.

David Read:
I’m trying to remember some of that. North Face was all the rage in the show later on. But not yet.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No, at the beginning, depending on what the company was. I always tell the story… I believe it was the Heather Ash episode and the girl’s writing on the wall with her… she gets a set of Crayola crayons.

David Read:
Yes, that’s right. “Learning Curve” for Crayola.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I had to go back and forth with Crayola because they … Crayola didn’t want to be associated with anything that has guns. And so, I had to go back and forth … and the other thing the company didn’t like the fact she was writing on the wall. They didn’t want their products to be…

David Read:
Wall art?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Wall art.

David Read:
They didn’t want kids to turn around and start doing that in households probably.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Stuff you do. Exactly. That was one I remember. And you’d get these requests: “Oh, the next episode, Rick wants to read Mad Magazine.” Did you hear about that one?

David Read:
No.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Mad Magazine’s like, “No, nope.” Again, it was hard for me ’cause I had to go back to the producers and say, “Not interested. They don’t want…” Michael Greenburg’s like, “Are you kidding?” ‘Cause I guess there was some history with RDA and the show of Mad Magazine. So, he picked up the phone and then we got Mad Magazine.

David Read:
I’m trying to remember Mad Magazine in a Stargate episode. I remember him reading a tabloid in the Martin Lloyd episode “Point of No Return” which says, “Headless Alien Found in Topless Bar.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Maybe we did that one.

David Read:
It was like an Enquirer tabloid, but I don’t remember Mad Magazine. I could be wrong.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Who knows? Maybe he got– I don’t know.

David Read:
That’s wild. I remember him playing a Game Boy once for the Urgo episode. Is that something like a Game Boy would you have to clear?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I don’t remember that.

David Read:
Or is it because it’s just a physical copy and …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I don’t remember clearing the Game Boy for that episode. And, again, the art department could fudge everything if you didn’t get clearance. Most companies were pretty good with it. I remember one of the hardest things I had to get cleared was the dictionary, I swear to God. It was like–

David Read:
Like Merriam-Webster?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah. Daniel wanted to– in his office, looking up something in the dictionary. And I was going through all the different Random House, Merriam-Webster, all the biggies, Oxford, and they were all such snobs. “Oh, that’s gonna cost you,” or, “No, we don’t…” It was the weirdest thing, because I was like, “It’s a dictionary!”

David Read:
Some people are just particular about their ad placement. ‘Cause I guess they look at it as free advertising, so they’re gonna be really selective about it.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But at that point, I sort of wrote it off to publishing being like, “We don’t want… we don’t need our product. People are gonna buy the dictionary. So, we don’t need any other free advertising.” But I think–

David Read:
And it’s not one of those things where you go out and say, “You know what? I really need to get a dictionary today. Yeah, I need to know those adverbs.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Not anymore, but at that time, yes.

David Read:
Never once in my life have I been like, “I need to know the synonym for banns, B-A-N-N-S.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I’m the opposite. I had thesauruses and synonym finders.

David Read:
That’s so funny. What about the Air Force? Was there communication with the Air Force for …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah.

David Read:
… various things?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Lots of communications with the Air Force. I’d have to send them the scripts. John Tonioli and Tom Giannozzo, who I think worked at the Pentagon, would give notes. They also gave notes on things like costumes, “That person wouldn’t have those epaulets” or “What you’d have to have…” Stuff like that. I found that a really interesting part of the whole show because growing up in Canada… I was thinking about this. I was like, “I don’t know if I knew one person that went into the military, my entire life.” And then, suddenly, it’s very different here. And suddenly, we’re having planes in the show and the General of the Air Force. I thought about this the other day and I’ll tell you why. When they came up, General Ryan, I think it was–
David Read:
General Ryan.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
General Ryan and his wife came up.

David Read:
His wife came, too?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, his wife came too. I have a nice picture. I’ll have to find it and put it …

David Read:
Yes, please.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… have to go to the archives and find some photos for you, but–

David Read:
Please.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Before they came up, they swept the studio, Bridge Studios, inside and out. I was thinking, not to diverge–

David Read:
You’re talking security, we’re not talking brooms.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Security. We’re talking security. Their security came up three days before and swept our whole building and the other buildings on the lot. I felt like “I’ve had some exposure to the Secret Service” or whatever they were.

David Read:
Exactly. The Chief of Staff is coming through. That had to have been a big deal. I remember the photo of the General with RDA. That’s quite the nod for the show. And in that same episode, which is, I believe, “Prodigy,” we get a look at the inside of the Air Force Academy. Not necessarily the real Air Force Academy but they simulate it. That was a big deal. The Air Force has said at one point that Stargate was their biggest recruitment for the whole thing.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
When they first did Stargate, they would come to the conventions. They’d set up a booth at the conventions in Canada.

David Read:
For Gatecon? Really? I didn’t know they did that.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, I remember at least one or two of the conventions going on in Richmond. We were like, “That’s so bizarre.” But then, people come from all over the world, so.

David Read:
They have questions. They have questions about how the organization integrated with the show. It’s not commonly done.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No.

David Read:
How exciting.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But those guys had the best job. They were the entertainment liaison officers for the American Air Force and the Pentagon. So, they got to… John Tonioli and Tom Giannozzo got to go to different sets and… they took Brad. He got to go on a fighter jet. The American Air Force. Did he tell you? That’s right, the American Air Force, with all these huge movie moguls. He got sent down there, and they did a whole…

David Read:
Brad would have been in his element, for sure.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They did G’s and …

David Read:
In the air.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… flew around and whatnot. It’s awesome. Isn’t it? Other stuff, there was so much administrative stuff with the Writers Guild of Canada. So, once your outline would get approved we had to sort of follow the collective agreement of the Writers Guild, and the Directors Guild, and the various unions. So, your script… Your pitch would go to outline. We had to let the Writers Guild know. Then it would go to a writer’s draft, or a first draft. We had to let the Writers Guild know. Every draft, we had to let the Writers Guild know, because that would affect credits.

David Read:
So, they’re just keeping track of everything as you move forward.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yes.

David Read:
They’re not waiting for the final script to be done and then to have that information. That’s interesting.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No, you need to tell them at each step of the process because for Brad, there would be episodes with “outlined by” or “story by.” Then they’d been cut off because they couldn’t write an outline or they didn’t like the outline. And they’re like, “OK, we’re gonna take this over.”

David Read:
So, they wanna have the trail.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Basically a paper trail. I dealt with the lawyers a lot as far as things like E&O insurance. So, they would do a review. They would get the clearance report. So, every episode had to go through a clearance company. We used Act One Script Clearance.

David Read:
Is that for names and for legal things?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah. Say we wanna do an episode and there’s a “David Read,” but he goes around and he wipes out a whole planet. Now, they’ll come back and say, “Well, there is one David Read in …” — wherever supposedly… If it was off-world that was fine, but it could be wherever it was — “We suggest …” Your name would be fine actually because it’s a fairly common …

David Read:
Common.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… name. But sometimes these guys would want to name a character after somebody they knew. They’d come back, “There’s one real living person with that exact same name living in this area.” And the lawyers would say, “No, you change the name.” And then the writers would be like, “No, that was my buddy from high school. We’re gonna …”

David Read:
Just to keep things clear in the event of a possible lawsuit?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Sorry, I’m very ADD. I don’t know.

David Read:
No, you’re OK. You should see me after some caffeine. This is to avoid legal issues like lawsuits and things like that for someone to come after you and say, “Hey, you’ve defamed me.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah. So, in order to get what’s called errors and omissions insurance, you have to have a lawyer sign off on it. We had our entertainment lawyers and then that would go down to MGM to their legal department and it’s, again, a trail. A chain of documents. Things like that. They could say, “Well, this whole show is insured except this name.” This person could come after you, and she’d say, “I’m signing off on this except for this.”

David Read:
So, they could literally put, “Except for this issue, this is clear.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah. But they didn’t usually do that.

David Read:
I know a number of cases there were writers who put a certain name in there. I didn’t realize that they would be like, “OK, well, we have everything good except for this.” “Well, this was… This person that you’re flagging is my friend.” Interesting.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Then they’re like, “Forget it, keep it in.”

David Read:
Interesting. The nuts and bolts of a TV show.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But then I would say the other thing is I was the gatekeeper. My office was sort of at the beginning of the little executive wing there and people are coming in all day long, “Brad, I need to show you these special effects. Jonathan, you have to see this.” Nonstop.

David Read:
So, you were a physical barrier sometimes?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Maybe. “Is he available?” Because you guys are writing. They have enough distractions going on all day long.

David Read:
They have to have time to write.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
You can’t have rogue people that come in. It happened a couple times where somebody would come in and they’d be like, “Brad, I’ve got this idea for an episode.” And then Brad would be like, “Why did you let such and such through the gate?” I was like, “I’m the gatekeeper of the gate.”

David Read:
So, you learned pretty quickly what he was after and the certain times that he was trying to get stuff done.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
You had to. You had to protect their time because everybody wants to chit-chat with the writers and the showrunners or, like I said, people would come in and be like, “I have an idea for an episode.” And then they’re put in a position where it’s like, “OK.” But for the most part I had agents calling me all day long … sending scripts. I would read scripts and then I would write little synopses of the scripts and give them to Brad and Jonathan and say, “I don’t know. This was OK. This was…” But by the end of it, it was so hard to get in the room to pitch, and it became so successful. I was sort of there and I felt like … I remember when things just started getting kind of a bit … like when it changed. We used to be able to … you could bring your mother around the set and give her a tour. Nobody cared. Then you had to have them sign off on a release form. You had to get permission. It just started becoming much more structured and corporate.

David Read:
Show’s getting bigger.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Then you started having busloads of fans that were coming up to the gate and stuff like that. Fan mail. Crazy amounts of fan mail. And everything would just get dumped on my desk. “Here you go, Cath-Anne. Here you go.” Anytime they wouldn’t know where to put something, the production office would get a call. I’d pick up the phone and they’d be like, “My name’s such and such and I gave the idea of Stargate to Richard Dean Anderson.”

David Read:
Oh, no!

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Eight years ago.

David Read:
Sure you did. Sure.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Crazy. Ugh.

David Read:
‘Cause the Bridge Studios, Stargate Productions, that number was probably… I’m sure publicly registered.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I’d get calls. I remember once I got a call from a kid who wants to write an episode.

David Read:
Get an agent, buddy.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Exactly. I was like, “OK, here’s how this works.”

David Read:
He didn’t know!

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I think he actually did get a lawyer or somebody. He did send his ideas. Didn’t go anywhere. But I’m quite nice so it was oftentimes hard to be the gatekeeper.

David Read:
You don’t wanna have to say no to people.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
People would send their scripts or their agents, and you’re getting constant follow-up, “Did they read them yet?” “No, they haven’t read them yet.” Then I’d have to say, “No, it’s not gonna go anywhere. Bye.”

David Read:
“We’re not moving forward.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It’s awful being the dream crusher.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It was hard to get in.

David Read:
For a little while there, you were reading spec scripts?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, I was reading spec scripts from agents, and I would write a one-page synopsis and give it to Jonathan.

David Read:
Condense it.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
But it was so much time. When I first started, that was a big part of the job, doing all the script revisions, all the clearances. It was a big job.

David Read:
What was it like–

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
We had — this is what I wanted to tell you — we had the Bible. A database that somebody had developed before I got there. And it was what planet they were going to, what the code was, all the different… Who were the aliens? What was the technology? What was… It was a really interesting database. But then GateWorld came out and it was like, “We don’t need to do this.” ‘Cause it was sort of the beginning of these kinds of websites. And it was like, “I don’t need to be spending my time keeping this database when there are people who are out there doing it. And I can focus my efforts on other things.” I felt like the Bible, at one point, was so time-consuming that it wasn’t worth upkeeping. What else?

David Read:
I remember the lexicon. It was… The gal who runs Rick’s website, rdanderson.com She was the one who created the lexicon that was actually the Bible that was on the table there and her name is escaping me right now. Shame on me. But that was one of the things that me and Darren over at GateWorld competed with because ours was indexable and searchable. It was a big deal keeping track of all those things.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Huge. It was huge. What else? I’m just trying to think what else. It was this catchall kind of position where sometimes they’d be like… I remember one time they were like, “We want to translate this scene into ancient Mayan, and it’s up after lunch.” Stuff like that. Then I’d be like, “OK,” and I had this linguist at Harvard that I–

David Read:
You could call a professor.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And they also had this other guy from UC Santa Barbara who was an Egyptologist.

David Read:
Yes. That’s probably Stuart Tyson Smith.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I think he was getting… He might have been on some sort of retainer. I don’t know. The guy from Harvard would do favors for me ’cause he was an academic and he put some grad student onto it. And so, I’d call… The ancient Mayan thing was, “Well, somebody knows somebody who lives in this village but you’re not gonna get it back for two weeks, and they can speak in this dialect.” And I was like, “No, it’s after lunch, I need it.” Stuff like that. “Oh, he’s decided that it’s gonna be in Latin …” You have to be … That’s what I’m saying …

David Read:
You have to be ready.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They always say it’s hurry up and wait and it is. Film is… they come to you, “OK, bam!” You gotta make things happen really fast.

David Read:
I can only imagine what that was like, getting onboard, jumping onto a moving train in Season Two, where this thing has already taken off, sitting down at that desk, where stuff has probably been left there from — I’m sure they didn’t clean everything —

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No.

David Read:
You have to pick up the Rolodex and everything else that’s already been established and feel your way into this thing until you can make it your own. I can only imagine the sleepless nights for the first few days there.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
There were a few. It’s not like anyone’s gonna be training you.

David Read:
No.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It’s that kind of … You have to sink or swim.

David Read:
You have to feel your way through it.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And I liked to work a lot with the publicity department. I was sort of veering, like, “Maybe I’ll end up in publicity.” If there was media or somebody who needed someone to tour them around set, I was often the person. Somebody had won a contest or if somebody from MGM’s wife is a huge fan so she’s coming up, some big shot’s wife, who I’m actually still friends with, that wife. She was great.

David Read:
Kate Ritter ran the lexicon over at rdanderson.com. Sorry, Kate.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No, her name is Janine. She’s got a million followers on Twitter. They would be like, “Go do this, go do that.” I would go to … We would have nominations. I did all — what’s the other thing? — all the awards. We had to take all the awards to the Emmys to the Leo Awards to any other things we were gonna apply for. That also is political because you’re only gonna submit so many episodes and so many actors. So, “Who are you gonna pick?”

David Read:
Who are you gonna pick?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
So, they would make those decisions and then there might be some political fallout, but they would try to get everybody…

David Read:
I remember …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… involved.

David Read:
… the production designers getting to share credit for the episode “Jolinar’s Memories” because everyone was involved in that one. Richard Hudolin was very specific to make sure that all of the production designers, at that point, were credited on that particular award. And you have to be careful about people’s feelings. And all of the man-hours that have been put into things like this. It’s so easy to overlook someone. I can only imagine.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Oh, yeah. Stuff like that. And then they would announce them and I would go downtown and there’d be this press conference. Stuff like that. What else? I don’t know.

David Read:
Were you responsible for helping to make the end-of-year parties work?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No.

David Read:
That was not you?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I wasn’t. That would be the production office. I would sometimes help to get swag or bring someone. But, no, that would be the production office. But I’ll tell you the best party that I ever went to — probably my entire life — was the 100th episode party. It was unbelievable. MGM organized that. That was done in LA.

David Read:
It was in LA?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No, it was here. But they… the LA…. MGM …

David Read:
Branch.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… they took that over because it was such a high-profile event. And it was at the Four Seasons Hotel, and you walked in and then there was a Stargate. And it had all that smoke, and you walked through and into this ballroom that was phenomenal. It had an oyster station and all these beautiful food stations. And then Michael Bublé played.

David Read:
Michael Bublé played for the 100th episode party?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah.

David Read:
I didn’t know that. I’ve seen photos from this event. I didn’t know he played. Was he a fan?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I have no idea. Possibly.

David Read:
I did not know that. That’s so cool.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No, it was great. It was such an interesting era of my life. I learned so many things. I had Joe speak to my students.

David Read:
Mallozzi.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yeah, Joe Mallozzi. I Skyped him in before Zoom. I think I did that a couple of times, where he talked about writing when we were doing our short films and talking to cameras and stuff like that. It’s so funny. I think I was telling you this. I have students that’ll sit up front in my class and then in the middle of something they’ll be like … this one guy said, “So what was Teal’c like?” I’m in the middle of teaching, “So was Teal’c a nice guy?” It’s just super fans that are in my class. It’s just so fun.

David Read:
I would hope they would do well on all the exams and everything else.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Yes. Of course they do.

David Read:
So, what was Teal’c like, Cath-Anne? No, seriously…

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Teal’c is–

David Read:
Who did you, yourself, really enjoy when you worked with them, when you came across them?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Honestly, I’m not gonna say we hung out a lot. All of us. We were going to people’s birthdays and it became very tight.

David Read:
Christopher Judge described it as Shangri-La.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Joe would have, like… Joe is such a character, and he’d have these movie nights at his house. At the condo that they were renting him or whatever here. And in the theater where we’d watch some crazy Asian films or something. Stuff like that. Oscar parties. A lot of golf tournaments. People got married. Tracy Smith. I had her bridal shower at my place. It was very much… You know, they always say a family, but it was….

David Read:
It was.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
We were quite intertwined, all of us. And we’d go to fundraisers and I was really fortunate that Brad or Jonathan or Robert, they’d be like, “Cath-Anne, I got these two tickets to something, and I don’t want to go.” And I’d be like, “I’ll take them.” And I would go to these fancy functions on their tickets and stuff.

David Read:
I’ve been repeatedly told, and I’m beginning to gather, that it’s the rare show. Not a lot of them that would have the occasional barbecue on the weekends at the studio and they’d bring in bouncy castles for the kids. That’s something really special.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And Wray Douglas would be in the back of the studio lot blowing up … you’d never get away with that now in today’s day and age. But they’d be lighting off some special effects stuff and John Smith would be flipping the burgers. It was very …

David Read:
Tight-knit group.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It was a tight-knit group. It was quite close. And I tell you, it was funny because I think I was watching … what was I watching? I think I started watching Lynn Smith’s episode and you said something like, “When you’re baking the cake, you don’t …” When you’re so involved in it and then it started to grow and started to grow, and I remember the first time I’d see these buses coming to the studio. And I remember I went to my office — I had all this swag — and I would roll them up, and I started …

David Read:
Did you toss them?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… throwing them. I was grabbing swag and throwing them to the fans. And they’re all cheering. I went back up and somebody’s like, “Good team spirit, Cath-Anne.” I was like, “Well, these are the people who are gonna appreciate them.” I was always trying to get swag out of MGM, anything they could send up.

David Read:
If people are gonna make a pilgrimage to the gates of Bridge Studios for crying out loud. If you have something there that you can give to them, just as a small thank you to say, “Hey guys, we can’t let you in. We can’t bring Rick out or anything like that. But here’s a shirt.” Or, “Here’s a hat.” That’s pretty cool.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I always went to conventions when they were first started. And last year somebody comes up to me that’s from Japan and she’s like, “Who are you?” and she’s got a crew photo. And I’m like, “That’s me.” And then she’s like, “Would you sign it?” I circled my little picture on the crew photo and signed it. I’m like, “This is crazy. What is happening?” So, that’s when it started really hitting me. It’s like, “Man, this thing is just…” But when you’re in and you’re doing your work and you’re so focused on your day-to-day life you don’t know. You’re just in a microcosm. And then you say, “Holy cow, this thing’s going all over the world.” It was a huge fan base. It started getting really tight at the studio once it got bigger. I think they put cameras in our offices as it got bigger.

David Read:
Was there ever a fan that …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
There was a stalker.

David Read:
… got a little too close?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
There were stalkers. RDA stalkers.

David Read:
The RDA stalkers are fairly well known. So, gotta protect him.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They would come up and there was a motel across the street. I think it was Adam’s Inn or something and they would camp. They’d rent a hotel room and have stuff like that. But that’s standard nowadays. Oh, my God. Go downtown, you see something filming and there’s paparazzi and …

David Read:
Everywhere.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… it’s so much bigger than when we were doing it because of the Internet. You can find out where people are shooting and stuff like that. But I do wanna tell you a funny story. So, my daughter, during COVID, got into film as a COVID monitor type person and it was funny ’cause she did it. People are like, “Oh, no, just…” No, she has not asked me for one connection. And she calls me one day and she goes, “Oh, guess what?” I was like, “What?” She goes, “I got my driver’s license.” Her full driver’s license, which is quite difficult to get these days. She goes, “I got my driver’s license.” I was, “Great.” She goes, “And guess what else?” I was, “What?” She goes, “I’m starting to work on my Disney series as a COVID monitor.” And I’m like, “What?” But what I was gonna tell you is she worked on a show — I’m gonna have to get the name of it ’cause I forget what it is — Motherland, Season Two. And Amanda Tapping was directing and producing….

David Read:
Thought I’d heard that name before.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… and somebody goes up to Amanda, another PA or whatever on set, and is like, “Oh, hey, you worked with Havana’s mom on Stargate.” She turns around and she’s like — ‘Cause Havana was always at my office a lot. She was really one of the Stargate babies. There was a few. Robert had his babies — and …

David Read:
They grew up with the show.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… Amanda turns around – and again, I have a photo of them. I was trying to find it before — and they take a photo together. It was the full circle moment. And then, of course, Amanda’s like, “Oh, I feel really old.” She’s like, “Havana, I remember you!” I had two computers in my office, and the cast would always come up and they would check things online in my office.

David Read:
Before they had laptops and things like that.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
They’d be like, “Well, someone says there’s something on the…” They’d Google or do… It was really at the beginning of all that. They’d come up and use my computer, whatever. No, everybody was great. I actually was quite close with Don Davis. It’s really strange. He had script ideas and he would scripts, and would write them out on paper. And at one point I was driving on the weekends after working all week, with a baby, and I would drive out to White Rock where he lived and literally would take his pages and put them into script format. I can’t even remember what his ideas and his scripts were about. And I’d have lunch with him and his wife and… He was amazing. I think he was an academic and then he started doing …

David Read:
He taught for a while.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And got into film. Like I said, at one point after 9/11, they sent me to LA. They were doing a new advertising series and they were gonna do a new poster and a bunch of collateral and–

David Read:
‘Cause it’s switching over to Syfy Channel.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Our publicist at the time, Kim Cowan, was pregnant. She didn’t wanna go. I was very interested in all the publicity side of it. They’re like, “Cath-Anne, would you like to go?” And I was like, “Great.” So, I went. It was a weekend in LA in a sort of photography studio. I was hanging out with the cast. We were staying at the W. And here’s a little gossip note. After the shoot, RDA wasn’t there. I remember Tara was there. Chris Judge was there. Amanda was there. And we were in somebody’s room and we’re drinking whatever. Chris Judge is ordering room service. I get back and I was like, “Oh my God!” I go into Brad’s office, ’cause we had per diems and stuff. And then I’m at Brad’s office. “Oh my God, there’s a huge hotel bill that is owed.” And I was so scared because I’m like, “I’m supposed to be the chaperone.” I was like, “Oh. We’re…” It wasn’t as bad as I was afraid of, but–

David Read:
The stories about Christopher, though. The man is larger than life in so many ways. You had to keep an eye on that buddy. I love him so much.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Such a character. They’re amazing. Amanda, amazing. Honestly, I tried to… I don’t know. You had your own… I hung out… It was quite broad as far as our friendship basis. I hung out with people in the art department. Like I said, we did a lot of stuff together with everybody. But I would go out on the weekends at the time with Joe and Paul and their partners and things. We’d have dinner. I remember once I house sat Brad’s house. I dog sat Robert’s dog. And the guy wanted to kill me ’cause it got out. Anyway, it was all very close-knit.

David Read:
It’s more and more now the rare job that has a built-in relationship structure like that. “You are just one of us now. For better or for worse. We may be all crazy, but you are one of us. You are one of the crazies now.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I think that is what happens on a series. I don’t know if that happens on shorter productions. But once you get to that level– Before I came, all those people go way back.

David Read:
MacGyver.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
MacGyver

David Read:
A lot of them.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Outer Limits …

David Read:
It’s so true.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… with Brad and… All these guys. So, there’s so much history that you don’t even know, that you have to figure out the relationship dynamics as who’s related to who and who’s married to who before you even get going. But it was so well organized, honestly. People always say that it was… God bless John Smith and John Lenic and Andy Mikita and those guys. It ran like an organized… I would say it’s like a military. People think film is, “Oh, the film.” No, it’s a film business and it’s organized and down to every detail.

David Read:
‘Cause so much money is on the line.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
So much money.

David Read:
They have to know where all of it’s going so that they can make sure that they’re in the black by the end of the season. John Smith… I think it was John who was talking about not deliberately moving costs around but making sure to put a little bit of the fear of God into certain people who were going to shoot for the stars on certain things so that they could be sure to arrive at being in the black by the time they got to the end of the season. You wanna make sure that everyone’s got runway for all their planes to take off.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Exactly. And everybody wants to do the best work they can do. So, they want as much money as they can have.

David Read:
They want it to look good.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
So, it’s constant… ’cause you want your work to look good. And I always tell my students various funny stories about my past life in film. But there was a… I can’t remember the episode. Anyways, Brad Wright’s, one of the “God sits on his bejeweled throne.” “Bejeweled” is the word. So, the art department comes back with this mock-up and the budget. It’s gonna be $85,000 for this bejeweled throne. So, Brad comes into my office and goes, “Cath-Anne, take out the word bejeweled ’cause I don’t care. He can sit on a wooden chair for all I care. I’m not paying $85,000 for this bejeweled throne.” But that’s what they do. They want that.

David Read:
“Bejeweled” does suggest adorned in jewels. That’s gonna cost money.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Gonna cost money. Constant funny stuff like that. There’s so many stories.

David Read:
There’s so much that goes into making just one episode. And to make 22 per year, I don’t know how they then went on to do 40 a year. I don’t know how they did it. Sure, you can add more bodies to share that load. But the folks at the top, man oh man. I talked with Joseph Mallozzi extensively about this. And there were times when they were never not thinking about stories.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No.

David Read:
Anywhere that they would be going, in the back of their mind was, “This much time until you have to have another story. We have to have stories.” And it’s a lot of work to produce all this content. And they did it for 17 television seasons.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Everybody said …

David Read:
Who does that?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… Brad would go home and be like, “I’ve gotta write eight pages this weekend or I’ve gotta… or tonight.” It was always deadlines. And then the younger writers, too. It’s hard. It’s not easy pitching ideas to these guys. Getting shot down. Happened a lot. If Brad ever said, “What were you thinking?” You never wanted to hear that.

David Read:
Not everything’s gonna be–

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Brad was a very Canadian– As I told you, we found out, after I’d been working for quite some time, I said, “Oh, where did you get married?” And he said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know it, it’s a little park in Scarborough called David and Mary Thomson Park.” And I’m like, “What?” And then we start realizing that we both grew up in the same area, and have all these cross-references, and …

David Read:
You’ll know a lot of the same people.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
… it was so funny. We’re both huge Barenaked Ladies fans. So, for his 40th birthday I got tickets and I went with him and his wife and I think my husband at the time. And, then Jonathan was the American producer. He was a lot more scary than Brad in terms of personality, but not really. He was more introverted and–

David Read:
Heather E. Ash always said of Brad … to this day Heather Ash and her family says, “It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.” That was Brad’s thing.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
If Brad was mad at you for something, that was even worse. Because it’s like, “Oh no, Brad’s mad at me.” Joseph and Paul, love those guys. Joe is one of my favorite human beings of all time. He’s so interesting, he’s so funny, he’s just such a joy.

David Read:
He loves to share. He loves to share stories and the experience. I can’t thank him enough for that. He’s been on 15 times.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I saw that.

David Read:
At least.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It’s amazing.

David Read:
“How can you have that much to say?” “Oh, we do.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
He has a lot to say, and he has so many interesting hobbies. Like comics and his office was full of collectibles. Everywhere you looked, all these various comic collectibles and–

David Read:
How did you know — with all that we’ve said here, you would think that you would be on this train until the very end — How did you know when it was time to get off?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I had a friend who was coming to town making a bunch of movies and had offered me to be the associate producer which, of course, is a fancy title when they don’t wanna give you more money. It was kind of like the time… It was Atlantis and I think it was time. It was time to go somewhere else, I felt. As I said, I had a daughter who was quite young, and I was kind of burnt out at that point. I wanted to do something different. Then, I eventually went back to school. So, it’s so funny because it all comes full circle.

David Read:
It sure does.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
And I use so many of my experiences now in teaching. For example, if somebody spells my name wrong or you’re doing a resume or you spell your name, I circle it in red and that’s the biggest thing you could do, and then I tell the story. These guys — you may have heard this story — they came into pitch, and I remember who they were, and they kept saying– As I said, to get into pitch in that room your agent’s gotta jump through hoops. It’s not an easy thing to get in that room. So, they’re like, “OK, so, the team from Stargate SG-I,” and then they’d go… and then Brad would go, “Stargate SG-1.” “Then the team from Stargate SG-I go to the gate…” Then Brad would go, “Stargate SG-1.” And it–

David Read:
So, they’re not taking the note.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Maybe they did, but when they left we were all like, “Learn the name of the TV series that you are going to pitch for.” I tell my students, you spell somebody’s name wrong, or something like that, that’s a big deal. You need to get those details.

David Read:
It’s like you don’t care. It’s like, “Eh, whatever.” But they go, “We’re moving on, this is not the important stuff.” It’s important.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
For me, I kept thinking, “To get into that room, it’s such a rare opportunity for anyone to have been able to get in there and pitch ideas.” Because especially by that point, unless you pretty much came through one of their agents or somebody they knew, a fellow writer or somebody had recommended somebody, but usually, somebody’s agent, they’d say, “Will you give this guy a read?” Rob Rothman was all of their agents and then Rob might recommend somebody.

David Read:
That was the name of a character actually.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Was it?

David Read:
Robert Rothman.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Let’s see. Exactly. So, there’s always something. I was a character. There was a Catherine Ambrose.

David Read:
There was and I believe that …

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
It was, and then they changed it. It was Chelah.

David Read:
Chelah Horsdal.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Chelah was …

David Read:
That’s right, we had her on recently. That’s it.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
A really good friend of mine, April Telek, who was also on the series After I left …

David Read:
She was in “Avalon.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
April is the hostess with the mostest and she would always have parties and a lot of film people would be there and I met Chelah and I was like, “Hey, you played me.” But the only reason is the wardrobe department came up, and they needed names for badges. You’ll see, I think, Christina McQuarrie’s on. Pretty much they went around … I don’t know if Tracy Smith … but a lot of the people on the show got these—

David Read:
They sure did.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
So, people in the Gate room had our names on their badges just because they knew it would clear. But then I think Chelah started getting more lines and roles.

David Read:
Yeah, she went through at least two or three names on the couple of ships that she had and as the show progressed and the resolution increased you can see the name tag more. The same thing happened with Gary Jones. He started off as Norman Davis and then became Walter Davis and then it became Walter Harriman and he’s like, “OK. OK. I’m who now? OK.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
We reused especially our extras and things. They reused those extras. It was the same crew… It was different costumes … the same group of people. Yeah, it was–

David Read:
What an experience. I am so pleased that we got a chance to connect and share some stories. And there’s so much that went into creating this thing and just to hear little stories, to hear you bringing up certain things, it’s like, “I know what that episode was from. I think I know what that episode is from.” There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes to make an individual episode and I really appreciate you taking some time to share some of those details.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
Thank you so much. This has been such a great experience. It really brought up a lot of great memories of that era. It never ends. I always say it’s the gift that keeps on giving, Stargate.

David Read:
For sure. There’s always gonna be someone who will come around who’ll be like, “I’ve seen that show. I love that show.”

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I know. And it’s so great to see my students who are like 19, 20 years old who have heard of it or who are fans.

David Read:
They’re streaming it now. Did you — You probably didn’t even have a chance to think at the time what it is about the content that you guys were creating. It was just churning out the episodes and “We’re in active production on a show. There are gonna be people out there who are gonna like it.” Did you ever think that it would be something that you would be talking about 25 years later?

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
No.

David Read:
Exactly.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I did not at the time. Like I said, when you’re talking to Lynn Smith, you’re so caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of what you’re doing. And then when you go to a convention or you see how many people and how vast across the world, that was the thing that always shocked me. Like, “You’re from Australia? You’re from Germany? And you’re here for this? Wow!” Or, oh my God. There was a really… It was my first experience with science fiction fandom in terms of the most rabid fans you could imagine and in a good way, of course.

David Read:
Of course. But they’re gonna come check you out at your office, so you better have the gates up.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
I remember one time, one of the guys – you probably know him — early on at a convention, after he went out and got a big huge Stargate tattoo, came in the next day. I think he won a contest or something, I swear. Anyways. Thank you so much for having me. I had a lot of fun.

David Read:
Thank you, Cath-Anne. No, this has been terrific to have you. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Cath-Anne Ambrose:
All right. Well, you take care, David.

David Read:
Thank you. That was Cath-Anne Ambrose, script coordinator and production associate for Stargate SG-1. Really appreciate having her on. I’ve been wanting to have her on for a long time to tell some stories about the production office. There is an ongoing studio that makes these episodes possible week in and week out. And it’s an office like any other office, except that it has an unusual objective, which is to put out television. I’ve really wanted to have her on for a long time to share some of those stories. Before we let you go, if you like what you’ve seen in this episode, please click the Like button. It makes a difference with the show and will help us continue to grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. And if you plan on watching, I recommend you click that bell icon so that you’ll get notified of any last-minute guest changes. And 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. My tremendous thanks to Cath-Anne for making this episode possible. Tremendous thanks as well to producer Linda “GateGabber” Furey, my moderators: Antony, Tracy, Marsha, Jeremy, Sommer. You guys make every live show possible. Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb who keeps dialthegate.com up and running. And Brice and Matt, EagleSG, my animators who keep the show looking good. We’ve got a lot more heading your way, so keep it on dialthegate.com for all the latest details regarding what’s coming up. Our San Diego Comic-Con episode should be arriving fairly shortly, so look at dialthegate.com for all the specific dates. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, and I’ll see you on the other side.