Stargate Producer, not to mention director of nearly 80 episodes, Mr. Martin Wood himself, joins David Read to discuss his incredible career and take your questions LIVE.

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Timecodes
00:00 – Opening Credits
00:29 – Welcome and Episode Outline
00:54 – Call to Action
02:11 – Guest Introduction
05:19 – “Operation Christmas Drop”
10:11 – Martin Wood’s Heroes
13:43 – When SGU was cancelled (Brad Wright)
17:31 – Getting into the Industry / Stargate
23:51 – “Solitudes” (SG1 1×18)
25:29 – Production During the Pandemic
33:14 – Crossover Episodes
35:51 – Shooting in the Arctic (Stargate: Continuum)
49:20 – Shooting on a submarine (SG-1 4×01 “Small Victories”)
53:19 – Watching Technology Evolve
56:15 – Sanctuary Reboot
58:45 – Filming at NORAD
1:06:30 – Working with Amanda Tapping
1:10:08 – Chemistry between RDA and Amanda (SG-1 2×22 “Out of Mind”)
1:14:15 – Filming with Drones
1:16:38 – Major Wood and Siler’s Wrench
1:17:43 – Filming “Travelers”
1:21:01 – Any Guest Stars Who Should Be Regulars?
1:23:50 – General Henry Landry
1:24:59 – Guest Thanks
1:27:34 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:31:28 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 11 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. I hope you’re having a great weekend. I certainly am. We’ve got a fantastic guest for you today. One of my personal idols, producer-director Martin Wood. He is with us today. But before we get started, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click that like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will help the show grow its audience. Please also consider showing this video with, sharing this video with a Stargate friend. And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my notifications of any last-0minute guest changes. So this is key if you plan on watching live, because these talent are working and things can shift all the time. And clips from this live stream, if I can get my butt in gear here, will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.Net YouTube channels.

That’s all I’ve got for you. Before we bring in Martin Wood, I’m going to go ahead and catch up with him a little bit, ask him some questions. Then I’m going to bring in your questions from the live stream, and then we will go and, after we let Martin go, I’m going to show you some Stargate art that was submitted by a Mr. Max Becco.

Big thanks to Linda, the Gate Gabber, for all her work in setting up social and, you know, getting the word out. Summer, Ian, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy, you moderators are fantastic. I am looking for your questions. And without further ado: Director, Producer, Man of the Hour, Martin Wood.

Martin Wood:
Wow. I’ve never been a “Man of the Hour” before. This is great!

David Read:
I doubt that!

Martin Wood:
I didn’t dress for the “Man of the Hour” stuff.

David Read:
No, it’s all good. How are you, my friend?

Martin Wood:
Really good. I’m really good.

David Read:
How is this nightmare of 2020? How have you been dealing with it? Are you staying in production?

Martin Wood:
I am always guilty. I always feel guilty when people ask me how I’m dealing with it because, I actually, I would never have given myself the time off that I took off because I was in the middle of a movie and, and, we’re told tomorrow we’re done. And I kind of went: “Yes!” It had been straight through, I took Christmas off and I’ve been, I was finishing this big Netflix movie that is about to drop.

David Read:
Okay, we’ll talk about it.

Martin Wood:
And I was just trying to finish that, and I was in another production and, and the fact that it was, you have to take some time off now, and there was nothing I could do at that point other than come home and have the family sort of gather. I never take time like that to myself; it was guilt-free time that I could take to myself. And, it was the first time in probably ten years I’d taken that much time off. And, loved it. Loved it.

David Read:
It has been a struggle for a lot of people this year, and simultaneously in the struggle I have, I do Uber and Lyft on the side just to keep myself sane and get out and see people. And, I have lost track of the number of people who tell me, you know, it’s been the hardest year, but it’s also one that my family and I are going to remember for the rest of our lives, because everything came to a halt. We had no choice, and we either pulled together and made it work or collapsed. And there’s I’m sure there’s going to be record divorces when this is over. But at the same time, you know, we’ve also had a chance to catch up with the people that we care about the most.

Martin Wood:
Oh, I have a daughter who graduated university, I have a daughter that was in boarding school and, I was missing… and my son was home, but still going to school. And the fact that they were back here, and the house is big enough to sort of take everybody back in without us feeling on top of each other. And again, like I said, I feel guilty about it all the time because so much of what’s happened has been hardship for so many people. But, honestly, for my life, I needed time away from work. I needed time away from having to think about work. And that time to spend with my family was, at this age when they’re teenagers and what they’re doing is spilling out of the house, to bring them back in and nobody felt it was, there was pressure for it for them to have to perform for any reason at all. It was a gift.

David Read:
Yeah. Well, Martin, I want you to think about some work now. Tell us about this Netflix project.

Martin Wood:
Oh, it’s a Netflix feature that I got offered about a year and a half ago. And what attracted me was, it’s an Air Force movie. And what’s really interesting is that, I really, really love working with the Air Force. So when I was at Stargate, being able to do the things that we were able to do with the Air Force and then, and then with the Navy, with the Navy came up and said, “Hey, you know, you guys want to go on a submarine?”

David Read:
Exactly.

Martin Wood:
It’s just, it was, it’s so much fun to be able to work with that kind of equipment and gear. And people that are so wonderfully nice about it, too. We did a movie called “Operation Christmas Drop”. And, it’s an actual mission that has been run for 68 years now, 69 years out of Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. So I spent a couple of months in Guam. Wrapped a love story around this mission that gets flown there, and we’re amongst some of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. They’ve never had a movie done in Guam before. And Guam is essentially the Chamorro people, and an air force base, and a naval base. Sort of the “power projection point” for the US.

David Read:
Yeah, it’s a little strip of land in the ocean. I’ve landed on it on the way to the Philippines, and that was it. I mean, it’s a little blip.

Martin Wood:
And that’s the tip of the spear for the US military. You know, they call it the unsinkable aircraft carrier. And at a time when all the stuff that’s going on around there, it was quite an exciting time to be in Anderson. And the fact is we were there with the people who had done this mission. You know, Brother Bruce, who has coordinated this thing for more than 40 years, was there. And we got to meet all the people. And then they said, “we’ll take you up, and we’ll wrap a mission around, so you guys get to go up.” And, we shot in the, you know, actually dropping stuff out of the back of the C-130s. And it was a really amazing movie to do. Alexander Ludwig, Kat Graham, and a number of the people that I so enjoyed working with over the years. A lot of local, BC people that I took with me. I took a BC crew with me because, again, Guam has never had a movie done. They’ve never had anything feature wise done there. And so we sort of carried everything [unintelligible] on our backs to do this. And I was able to use a BC crew with me that we sort of were able to handpick and take with us. Michael Blundell, who actually was the director of photography for “Atlantis” was with me and we had such a great time. [It] comes in November 5th on on Netflix. The trailer for it’s up already and it’s just, it’s a lot of fun. And again, the Air Force element is what actually got me to do the movie.

David Read:
Wow. Okay, November the 5th. All right, I’ll post the trailer link. “Operation Christmas Drop”?

Martin Wood:
Yes

David Read:
Is it a supply drop or is it…?

Martin Wood:
It is something that happened… it was by accident. They sort of looked out the window and thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to take Christmas gifts, and drop them to these atolls and the Micronesian atolls and islands around there?” And now, it is a massive operation and it is all donated time, donated goods. The military actually doesn’t get involved until there’s an accord signed with the group that does this, but it’s all military people that are donating their time. It really is such an amazing humanitarian effort, to do this every year, rain or shine, war or not, they have done this thing. And they drop, you know, and I can’t remember the exact number, but it was something like 156,000 pounds of supplies. And it’s not Christmas gifts necessarily. There are there are some things in there that would be considered.

David Read:
Functional. Stuff.

Martin Wood:
It’s mosquito netting, and fishing netting, and you know, things that they can, and rice and stuff that they need. And these people depend on this stuff because those islands are being hammered by global warming right now. Just the seas are rising and their ability to be able to make their own food or grow Taro, is being affected by the fact that there’s all this salt water coming in. So they’re more and more dependent on this. And, it’s a really wonderful thing that, that the Air Force has been doing for years and years and years.

David Read:
I can’t wait to see it. Who are your heroes, Martin? Who are responsible for making you into the person that you’ve become?

Martin Wood:
Wow. Okay. You warned me that you were going to ask me this question.

David Read:
I did.

Martin Wood:
My heroes… My dad is my hero. My dad is always.. And I mean, that sounds, it’s one of those, “aww shucks” kind of moment thing, but, quite honestly, he was very much a hero for me. He got me involved in television. He didn’t want me to work in television. He got me involved. And, it’s just that father figure for me is always such an amazing part of when I write, I write with that in mind. I try to raise my kids with that in mind. And so that would have to be, my dad would have to be, you know, my number one hero in my life. I find that I have different heroes that change. Artistically, there’s some some directors that I find that I really, really enjoy watching, that are more than just the style that they shoot with. It’s the way that they tell a story and their work ethic is some of it, too, it’s a big part of it for me. So I like that. I wouldn’t necessarily call them heroes, but I do look up to their directing and directing style. And as directors, that’s sort of what I’m aiming for. You know, a higher bar, because of directors that I sometimes will follow. It’s hard for me to sort of say, as I said, because my heroes change all the time. There’s different people that have always been, those people that you are attracted to and things. I got to say that some of the showrunners that I’ve worked with, like Brad Wright, Robert Cooper and Paul [Mullie] and Joe [Mallozzi] and those guys – the work that they put into a series like this, and then in subsequent series that they’ve done that I’ve also I’ve touched on with them, and things like this… I really appreciate and love to watch that kind of work ethic and then, Damian Kindler for Sanctuary, too, he worked his butt off. So those kind of showrunners. There are showrunners that I follow that I find are my heroes because they elevate the business, they elevate what they’re doing in the television world and things like this. I love to follow those kind of things.

David Read:
And they encourage you to do good work, you know? I mean, what group of people can put out 40 shows per year, three years in a row? That’s insane.

Martin Wood:
I gotta say, I have…

David Read:
That’s either your stomach or it’s a dog.

Martin Wood:
It’s a basset hound.

David Read:
Aww, can you please show it?

Martin Wood:
[Calls dog]

David Read:
I’m sorry, but when I hear “dog”, it’s all dog, all the time.

Martin Wood:
You know what? This is him.

David Read:
Hi, bub! Hello.

Martin Wood:
[unintelligible] groaning

David Read:
Oh of course. So 40 shows a year. The people who can pull this off.

Martin Wood:
You know I mean I I’ve known Brad Wright for, 23 years now. You know, and the stuff that we went through in creating our show, and I have an interesting story about Brad. We were on an aircraft carrier. We were invited on an aircraft carrier.

David Read:

Is this the [USS] Carl Vinson?

Martin Wood:
Yeah.

David Read:
Stargate Universe.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, and I have a picture of Brad. I didn’t know this was the moment, but I have a picture of Brad Wright. We were standing at the tail, at the stern, of the aircraft carrier just watching this amazing sea and behind us. And Brad came downstairs from, he’d been in the tower. He came down the stairs and had this look at his face. And I took this picture of him, and he looked at me and he said, “’Universe’ is canceled.” It was the moment he found out that “Universe” was canceled. We were out on…

David Read:
You’re at sea. Your phones don’t work.

Martin Wood:
No. And, John Lenic was with us, and he just found out from the control room that this had happened. Somebody had seen it on Twitter or something like that, and they just told Brad. And, he looked at me and said, “I can’t tell the cast that we have with us.”
David Read:
Who are on board the aircraft carrier with you.

Martin Wood:
Who are on board with us, yeah. Because we were having such an amazing time, all of us together. But he told me that. I had this picture of him, and that picture is haunting because of the look on his face. And you could see how that affected him, that loss of that show, you know, and that’s a picture that I will always remember. And I will look at occasionally to remind myself how people care about the things that they’re doing, the shows that they work on, and things like that, because it’s such a transient business, and people are in and people are out and other people will pick up the reins for something. And, that was one of those moments where I looked at Brad and I thought, ‘that man just really just got very badly hurt by the loss of that.’ I need to open the doors for the dog.

David Read:
Sure, absolutely.

Martin Wood:
Never darken my door again.

David Read:
All they want to do is have you open the door for them so they can go in and out.

Martin Wood:
Exactly.

David Read:
I remember getting the news that “Universe” was canceled, and I took it very personally. And it took a long time for me to get over because I was so invested in the mythology that Brad had built with Jonathan [Glassner] and with Rob [Cooper] and with all of you over the years. But also, this was the first time that you guys had set a target in a specific show and said, “this is where we’re going. We don’t know what the ‘this’ is yet.” But, ‘Destiny’ had a destination. And it was ripped from us, you know, and it sucks to this day, you know. Which is why I am so behind Brad in wanting to develop the fourth show so that he can carry on, in some form, what the missions of the three commands, ‘Destiny’, ‘Atlantis’ and ‘SGC’ were before. How did you discover, this production or, production, film and television production. You indicated your dad was somehow involved?

Martin Wood:
My dad worked in, he had, a Canadian television show called “This Land”, that he was a producer and host of. And so, very early on, I went to, I hung around on set, with them. I started shooting film very early. And he just did not want me to be, didn’t want me to be in television.

David Read:
Why not?

Martin Wood:
It because I think he realized how fickle it was, and, and, he enjoyed himself while he was in it, but I think that he was not… I wanted to be cameraman. I started out shooting, news and things. And he just didn’t want me, he didn’t want me doing that. Wanted me to get a real job.

And then, when I started doing it, we actually, before he died, we got a chance to do, a documentary together, where we traveled together. And it was, it was a documentary about, Auschwitz, believe it or not. We traveled with a survivor who had been 16 when he was in the camp.

He lived for four years there as a Polish Catholic. And, traveled with two Jewish [unintelligible] and another Jewish survivor, went back, and, and shot this documentary and my dad, wrote it and, produced it and hosted it, and I shot it, and we got a chance to work together.

And that was something that was amazing, to be together. I don’t know how I would have done it without him there, and I don’t know if he would have been able to do it without me there, because we supported each other in such an amazing way. Just because it is the most horrible place on earth.

But it was it was amazing to do that together. And I think that that’s what made it for me. So we got a chance to do that. Having said that, the story of me coming to Stargate was interesting. Because I, I had a friend who was producing the first season of it.

Ron French was his name. And I had done a number of different things. I’d been his, second AD for a long time. Then started “firsting” for him on a show called The Commish.

David Read:
Of course.

Martin Wood:
With “Chickie” [Michael Chiklis]. Yeah. And we… he called and said, you know, I need a, I need a First AD on this thing to do the first or the second block. Andy Mikita was the First AD on the first block. And then I was supposed to be the first AD on the second block. And I said, you know what, I’ve run, I’ve started directing. I’d done one episode of a series called “Two”, and really wanted to pursue directing. He said, “well, maybe, you know, we might have some second units” or something like that. So I went in and I First AD’d, First Assistant Directed the second show and the fourth show of the series.

And while I was doing the second show, Michael Greenburg and Richard Anderson said to me, “Hey, you know, we understand that you’re drinking some stuff. Can you direct some second units for us?” And I said, sure.

David Read:
For SG-1 or for MacGyver?

Martin Wood:

SG-1. And, I said sure, and started doing all these inserts for it. And then, they put the first, the pilot episode together that Mario Azzopardi directed and, and “oh, we need some scenes reshot. We need this done. We need this, we need this. We have to add this scene after this.”

So there were full scenes that were coming forward, and there was one with Michael [Shanks] and Amanda [Tapping] in the prison. And they had to get out of. And we were shooting, I had to shoot that reshoot that scene. And there was a couple of those scenes that I had to reshoot. And so I did that, I was able to get the stuff to them and they end up doing, and they said, “Oh, you know what else we need? We need somebody to go to NORAD and shoot some establishes.

David Read:
Colorado Springs.

Martin Wood:
I’ll do it. Yeah. And so went and that’s a story in and of itself. The first time and the second time was a very much different trip for me, to go and do that. But, went and shot all the establishes for it because, once we got, you know, everything done, it was, it literally had to come back and go into the movie right away because it was going on the air.

And, so I went and shot all that stuff. I was finished with the, fourth episode. So the two that I was supposed to do and, I was saying goodbye. It was the day I was saying goodbye, I was saying goodbye. And I remember Mike Greenberg called me over to Rick’s [Anderson] trailer, and he said.

He said, “Hey, you’re not going to leave without saying goodbye.” I said, no, no, you guys are my last stop on this. So I walked over to the trailer and I walked in and, and Rick goes, “You’re not going anywhere.” Yeah. I go, my time’s up, and Billy Mizel is coming in to First AD. And he said, no, we’re using you as our second unit director, we’re hiring you as our second unit director. And, Brad and John Smith had gotten together and decided that they were going to have me in as the second unit director with, Michael and Rick pushing them. So, I started second year directing, and then, sometime in the next couple of episodes, they said, “Alright, we’re going to give you an episode, too.”

And that was “Solitudes.”

David Read:
Yes. It was.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. And, I pulled my waistband on my pants tighter, and decided, okay, this is what I have been talking about me wanting to do for so long. So let me get in there and do it. And Brad was so funny because he’s like, “Well, this is this is where it’s supposed to be.”

And I said, well, then we’re going to freeze the studio. And John Smith goes, “Yes, we can do that.” And Brad’s like, “What? We can actually freeze…?” And I said we need real ice, she’s got to slide.

David Read:
Right, she slides.

Martin Wood:
And it was very funny because it was one of those things where you sit there going, we’re really we’re really going to do it. And I said, well, we need breath. We need cold breath. We need, you know, it’s got to be real. And, and then I need to take Amanda up to Pemberton Glacier and shoot her there.

David Read:
With the shot of her coming out of the, yeah, of the snow.

Martin Wood:
And what was funny about that is that, as we were helicoptering up there, that the second unit director of photography that was with me, goes, you know, “I’ve got a bad shoulder. And this has got to be handheld.” I said, I’ll shoot it. So I got it. I have this great picture of Amanda and me on the glacier that Amanda sent me. I can’t remember. It was a little while ago. She sent it to me and reminded me that this was one of those things that, you know, happens, that you, these memories that aren’t there until the picture is there. And it’s like, oh, yeah, I shot that shot of her coming out and, you know, it was it was a lot of fun that was putting that first season together was a huge amount of fun.

I got two episodes out of it, and that’s kind of how I came into Stargate, how I came into directing Stargate.

David Read:
I want to talk more, specifically about that in the future, but right now I have too much to, and the fans are chomping at the bit to ask you some questions as well. What is the pressure like to stay on time and on budget? I mean, you’ve got a line producer on your shoulder saying, you’re going to lose the crane shot in about, five, ten minutes there if we don’t get this… oh, no, crane’s got to go home. Sorry. … things like that.

Martin Wood:
That pressure for me has changed over 25 years. The pressure now, I’ve had enough experience that I know, I know how to fit what I need into a day.

David Read:
Yeah, you can feel it.

Martin Wood:
What I don’t have is that camera going down, or that sudden rainstorm, or… I’m working on a series right now, a Netflix series that we decided we were going to shoot eight days on Grouse Mountain in October, at the end of October.

David Read:
That’s where Bra’tac and Teal’c have their fight in the flashback in “Threshold”.

Martin Wood:
Very good.

David Read:
I just remembered Tony Amendola saying “Grouse”. I’ll never forget him saying “Grouse”. Please go ahead. I’m sorry.

Martin Wood:
So, we decided we were going to shoot up there in October. Now, the eight days’ worth of shooting actually is 12 days because you have two weekends in there. And I said, you guys realize that this, essentially in the script, about four hours passes in the time that I had to shoot that eight days worth of stuff.

And I said that “You realize that over that four hours, we’re going to have every different type of weather?”, and we’re on a mountain. So the clouds that you get above when you go up to the gondola that you’re looking at and going, oh, it’s so beautiful down there. I’m dreading it because I know that as the day gets warmer, those clouds come up over top of us and we’re just sitting in fog in clouds, right. And you watch it come in. You’re just literally sitting there watching your shot disappear in front of you as this cloud moves through. And so the reason I’m saying that, in answer to what you’re talking about right now, is that it’s those things that take up, my brainpower these days. It’s watching the sun drop when you’re on a mountain into a little notch that, that you’ve sort of timed it out so the sun is going to be right there on my last shot. And if not, then I don’t have this last shot. And it’s things like that that I watch. When I started directing, I didn’t know how much stuff to put in, so I put in too much stuff. And there was always, you spend way too much time shooting in the morning, you know, and, you know, there’s a number of different movie adages that say, you know, you shoot “Gone With the Wind” in the morning and “Starsky and Hutch” in the afternoon, or desperately old references.

But the fact is that you shoot like you’re doing a feature in the morning, and then in the afternoon, you scramble to try and watch the sun go down. With the cameras we have these days, you know, they have such amazing light gathering capability that when you look at you with your naked eye, you’re going, this is too dark to shoot.

And you look at the monitor, you’re going, “that’s crazy”, because it’s bright. It’s like daytime. As long as nobody sort of has a light in the picture, which blooms all over. But it is kind of crazy what they’ll do these days. So when I started, it was, putting too much stuff in the bag.

Now it’s, I know how much stuff I can fit into the bag. For the most part, it’s the things like the cloud coming in. The camera giving up the ghost or, an actor not showing up on time. You know, those things that you don’t have control over. Those are the things I wrestle with right now. For the most part, can speak to the line producer on my shoulder and horse trade with them, too.

So it’s like, I know, I know, I’ve got a crane for this much time, but I need it, and these days it’s a drone,

David Read:
That’s true.

Martin Wood:
You know, I need, I’ll give you this if I can have that or let me take some meal penalty here. I’ll get us out of here an hour early tonight if I take that meal penalty.

If not, I’m pushing against the sun. And it’s that kind of thing that I know enough about now. You know, after putting in the 10,000 hours that, that you have to put in, I know enough now. So I’m very comfortable with the days these days. There are still scripts that I get that “uh!”, you do one of those on. And especially now, especially now when I look at a crowd scene and I go, there’s a different way I have to shoot a crowd scene, I can still shoot crowd scenes, but I can’t shoot them the same way. And I spent 2.5 hours the other day, making a crowd, because I couldn’t have one.

You know, I had 60 background that were all, every four of them has a COViD person with them who also counts as a background person, but they’re separated. They’re family groups you put together rather than…

David Read:

Right, you’d be strategic about it. Yeah.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. You have to put them together. Go into longer lenses, so that you can compress everybody into it. So I have my actors walking through a crowd, but they’re actually not. There’s a corridor for them to walk through, but because I’m shooting through people on a long lens, it looks like they’re in amongst this crowd all the time.

So it’s things like that. But the COViD of it all is one of those things that is it’s taking a little bit more time these days. I’m used to it now. I’ve been shooting for, since June. And I have enough of it behind me to know, you know, you’re wearing a mask, you’re wearing a face shield. You’re being tested all the time. You’re wearing a watch that buzzes when you’re too close to somebody for too long that tracks you. We’re wearing wristbands that show how close we can get to the actors and things like that. So, Yeah, it’s a different world right now.

David Read:
Well, I mean, you’ve got to make it work, but this industry, like so many others out there, will die if you don’t have, you know, something in the process of moving and… but at the same time you have to have precautions. So it sounds like you guys are doing it.

Martin Wood:
You’re dealing with people who have to take your masks off. Yeah. You know, the crew is masked all day long in KN95s, which are, not the N95s, but they’re the next best thing. So we treat everybody like they’re asymptomatic. So if something does happen on set, you can contact trace, and for the most part, people, because they’ve been wearing a face shield and a mask all day long.

But the actors are the ones that have to take their masks off, you know, and have to act in amongst other people like that. And that’s where the danger is for us.

David Read:
Yeah. We’re talking to Garwin Sanford. During the Gatecon reunion and he was like, I’m out until this thing is settled down. You know, there’s a lot of actors who just, they like, they’re not willing to, put their families at risk, you know? And then there are others who are like, you know, my kids are grown, I’m not in that position anymore, or for whatever reason, I can do it. So Joe Flanagan’s doing “See” right now, he just finished I think so, yeah, it’s a crazy time.
The uh, I have so much I want to talk about with you. You know what? I’m going to skip over some of my own stuff, and I’m going to, I’m going to let the fans, ask for a little bit here. Jeremy Heiner, if you don’t mind me going straight to fans for a little bit, he says I love crossover episodes, with “The Pegasus Project” being one of my favorite episodes of Stargate. If you could have directed a crossover episode with the cast from all three shows, what would you have liked to have seen it be about? What do you think they were good at? As a fan of the material yourself.

Martin Wood:
Right. What do I think they were good at?

David Read:
If you could have directed a crossover episode for the cast of all three, what would you like to have seen?

Martin Wood:
That’s tough, because I was [signal glitched here] watched all the episodes. I.

David Read:
Martin, I’m losing you.

Martin Wood:
Am I back in?

David Read:
Yeah.

Martin Wood:
Okay. I have a son who’s a Minecrafter.

David Read:
Hahahahahahahaha. At least he has taste.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. I mean, I think the meeting of David Hewlett and David Blue would be a really interesting sort of, match up. I think that, I mean, Louis was I’ve done a number of different projects with Louis.

David Read:
Ferreira. Colonel Young.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I, I’d like to see what he and Joe Flanagan do together.

David Read:
We established they know each other in “Universe”.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. And, what was always interesting was Amanda was always the person that could float from one to the next. And when, when we brought her over to Atlantis, it was like, it really wasn’t like there was a big transition in there, you know, as she moved into that position. But I would like to see sort of what happens to the command structure on, you know, in “Universe”, on the Destiny, you know, when, if, Carter had been there, because I think that that the dynamic in there would have changed a lot, and, especially for Robert [Carlyle], I think that Bobby would have, his character would have, there would have been a different dynamic to his character if Carter had been involved in some of the decision making that was that was happening on the ship.

David Read:
Well, with her years of experience, that makes sense. Absolutely. Claire Callan wants you to talk to us about filming in the Arctic. It’s interesting you started, directing in the Antarctic, and I made this comment to you a couple of years ago, and then finished in the Arctic. So, there’s a certain symmetry to that.

Martin Wood:
Forever grateful to Barry Campbell for who a lot of and who everybody’s met these days and that.

David Read:
Wonderful guy.

Martin Wood:
You know, that day that he walked up to us, we were signing autographs and said, “Hey, you guys want to go up to the, the Arctic and, watch the submarine come through the ice?” And our immediate response was, ‘yes’. And Brad’s like, “I can write. I can write a scene about that. I can write some scenes about that. Yeah, sure.” You know that to me, it was one of those indelible moments of Stargate for me was that, that understand, you know of the fact that we could actually get up to, you know, the North Pole and shoot in the Arctic and truthfully, I mean, I’ve told the stories at different conventions and things like that about what happens and, the fact that we were sitting on this little tiny spot of ice, you know, six feet of ice and 12,000 feet of water beneath us.

And, and everybody literally all the time was looking at each other, going, “I can’t believe we’re here,” you know, in the middle of shooting and that the day that that, that “Evil” Kenny [Gibbs], and I, our props guy, got on to, a snowmobile and said, “We’ll be back,” because it was, you know, -58. And the wind was blowing to a point where we couldn’t shoot, and we went, “We’ll be back.”

We got on the snowmobile and rode away from the ice camp where we were to try and find a place we could shoot that was surrounded by banked ice enough that would cut the wind. You know, and, we were able to do that. We actually were able to find a place that we could actually shoot that was, had enough protection from the wind. We went back and I was just watching the thermometer get higher and higher till it got to the point where we could say, okay, nothing’s going to break immediately when we step out, so let’s do that. I had to step outside once in my shorts to get a picture taken.

David Read:
Of course you did.

Martin Wood:
So, -28, and I think a lot of people may have seen that picture, but, I have a picture where I stepped outside and I ran over to, the girls’ hooch that was over there, the place that they were living, and I knocked on the door. Amanda opens and goes, “You’re an idiot!” and closes the door. Yeah, ‘cause I needed that picture for people like Claire who just keep talking about my shorts.

David Read:
How many days were you up there?

Martin Wood:
Seven days, I think. I think it was seven.

David Read:
And you shot five of those days, I’m guessing.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, it was quite something. I know that Rick arrived later. He arrived two days after we got there, and, so it was Ben and Amanda, and the majority of the crew.

David Read:
So you can get their walking shots in.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the helicopter flyover, which was a brilliant shot that, you know, Peter West and our Key Grip came up with, it was the ability to be able to shoot from a helicopter when we are tracking them across the landscape there and the sunset and the sunrise that we shot and things like that.

There was just some amazing stuff that happened in there. And then coming back from that and having to recreate it for Michael.

David Read:
Exactly. Yeah. On the stage.

Martin Wood:
Was something too. Which has always held up for me. I was worried about it, you know, and, there and I don’t know if you’ve heard this before, but, the Director’s cut was finished, and Brad comes in to sit with me and we’re watching it, and the submarine comes up through the ice, and it took us three tries to get that submarine to do what it did. I don’t know if I… Have I told you the story about what happened?

David Read:
Tell it again.

Martin Wood:
So the first day we were supposed to have this coming up through the ice, and all we decided to do was shoot it coming up through the ice, because I hadn’t seen it yet. I didn’t know what it was going to look like. I didn’t, I sort of didn’t have the set up yet where, you know, Carter asked him, what are we waiting for? And he goes, “That”, you know, and points to it, and then it comes up through the ice. You know, I didn’t have in my head how I wanted it to look, so I just thought, okay, that’ll be a POV. It’ll be looking past them to it and, you know, and then, he could order Major Wood to do whatever he wants to do.

And, so, I had to be there because I was there was only “Evil” Kenny and I to be the background extras for it. So, it was one of those things where, we were the only people up there that that could, you know, could fit into the white coats.

David Read:
And you have an established character, you know, it’s a background character, but nonetheless, we gave him some dialog.

Martin Wood:
Exactly. So, the first day it was supposed to come up and, the way that you get it to come up is, you’re in an area of water that has, literally, broke apart overnight, collapsed into the, deep down into the ocean, sending these white frozen sails down into the ocean, and then it freezes up overnight.
So where the ice on the sides is between 4 and 6ft deep, the ice that has refrozen is about two feet deep. And so you mark it with a, you take a snow shovel and just mark this long arrow, you put a hash mark in it, and you put a circle and an X, and they’re coming along in a submarine, looking up with the periscope, spot it, give you the signal, come up and, break through. Now, in the history of doing this, I guess they had never sort of hit the X before. So we were all prepared. We were all told, you know. The one comment that always gets me is, “so they can’t see us, so if you feel something move underneath your feet, run.”

It’s like where do we run? Yeah, well, like it’s back that way because the ice is thicker. So, the first day we’re all looking here, and then somebody hears something way over there. And about 200m away, we see this, submarine come up and it’s like, oh, they used the marking from yesterday. It’s like..

David Read:
Oh, no, the “X” was still over there?

Martin Wood:
So I couldn’t use the shot because nobody was pointed at it.

David Read:
It’s way too far.

Martin Wood:
So then, we try the next day and it’s not working. And then finally we have this one shot at it, and I thought, you know what? I’m just, now that I’ve seen what it looks like, we’re going to put Rick here. Ben and Amanda here, and I’m going to look between them. And Peter West, the director of photography, looks at me and he goes, “Are you nuts?”

It’s not going to be that accurate. And I said, you can find it. You can just stand there. You’re on your feet. You’re, you know, you’ve got the camera. Find it as soon as you see it. Well pointed out to you and so, but put the X right between you and so we do that and, there’s a hydrophone in the water, to hear, because we’re pinging them.

But there’s also, there’s other actors underwater that, that we’re not supposed to, you know, give any information to so, they can’t talk to us through the hydrophone except for one word. And their word to come up was ‘football’. So we hear ‘football’ and we know they’re coming up and everybody’s poised and ready. And, you know, we’re sitting there and I’m looking everywhere but at the ‘X’ because I’m thinking he’s going to come up somewhere, he’s going to come up. I had, Andy, my second camera, just sort of sitting there scanning, ready for it to wherever it came up, because I couldn’t miss it this time. And it comes up, the shot you see is the shot it came up in, and Peter didn’t have to move at all. It was like this thing just came right up through and you hear the X.O. on the submarine go, “That one’s for Hollywood.”

Breaks out through the ice, and it’s this glorious thing, and nobody can cheer because they’re all on camera, right? But, as soon as it was finished, I say cut. There is cheering and cheering because we’ve been waiting for three days for this. So I’m sitting in the edit suite with Brad watching this, and he looks at me and he goes, “They’re all going to think it’s a viz effect.”

It’s true, it’s true. Why did we go up to the Arctic? They get that because it would have been a viz effect if we didn’t.

David Read:
I’ve always wondered, the sequence up there is just extraordinary. And from my perspective, it looks like you got everything that you wanted. Was there any shots that you wanted that you didn’t get, that you couldn’t get? Or that you ran out of time?

Martin Wood:
Any shots I didn’t get? I don’t think so. No, I didn’t run out of time. I know that Rick wasn’t feeling well.

David Read:
Oh no.

Martin Wood:
Because three days later, he went in surgery. He didn’t know he needed it, but he wasn’t feeling 100%. And I know that there’s a couple of things that we wanted to do, that I want to spend a little more time on, but quite honestly, that’s as much as we filled the day with that, with what we got. We filled the days with it. Even though it’s such a little, tiny amount of time. It would have been more fun on the submarine itself to do a little bit more shooting. We were invited on, and the scene in the, in the officer’s mess that we do, where we meet up with, Daniel, that was actually shot on stage, and rightly so, because, a Los Angeles class submarine is no place for a film crew to be working around.

It’s just so… it is very tight. If we were on one of that, the boomers, I think we’d have a little bit more room. But, we needed to build that inside. The stuff in the con is actually on board the submarine itself and, that’s the actual submarine commander. It has the line.

David Read:
Yes it is.

Martin Wood:
That sort of paid for the trip, no problem.

David Read:
Always a pleasure to help the Air Force.

Martin Wood:
To save the Air Force’s ass. That was, that was wonderful. And there’s another, there’s one more story I’ll tell you very quickly, about that. As the submarine comes up through the ice and then there’s a bit of dialog on the actor’s side.

And I turn around and you see the periscope and the antenna come up. And, so I’m on the radio, and I have the X.O. beside me and the sub commander is on. And so I say, “raise periscope,” and the X.O. actually looked at me, and there’s this look on his face and he goes, “Nobody’s ever said that except the commander.”

And I went, “Okay, well, he gets to say ‘cut’ a couple times for me.”

So there’s a scene where Rick walks away. I walked up to him and I said, “So you can actually say ‘action/cut’ in this one if you’d like to.” And he’s excited about doing it. And I said, “But you have to, you don’t ever just say, ‘cut’ to Rick.

You have to tell him, you know, what you thought of the performance.” And he goes, “Really? To Richard Dean Anderson?” And I said,” Yeah, you have to,” which is not true. Okay. He’s going to get the full meal deal here. And Rick has to come walking down this hallway and so we shoot and he says ‘action’ and Rick finishes and, “Cut! Anderson! Come on, be more believable!” And Rick goes, “What?” And he goes, “That was crap. Let’s do it again.” And I’m like, ‘nice!’

David Read:
Wow. What an opportunity though. And that wasn’t the first time you shot on a submarine. “Small Victories.”

Martin Wood:
“Small Victories.” Which is one of my favorite all-time shows. That and “A Matter of Time” were two of my very favorite shows. You know, certainly from early SG-1, “Small Victories” was for me, it was such a technological kind of change for me to be able to have all those screens going and all those things going.

And, we got on the Russian Foxtrot submarine and on the Raven and, I knew I wanted a shot from the Replicators position at the back, you know, of this thing as the torpedo tube gets opened up and, so.

David Read:
Oh, the opening of the episode.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, yeah, with the with the two Russian sailors, yeah. And, I love the fact that Brad actually has them say what they say, in the translation.

David Read:
Yeah. It’s, what do you think it is? I think it’s the creatures from the last episode.

Martin Wood:
He said, “I think it’s the creatures from the last episode.” It’s one of the things that in a writer’s room, everybody’s laughs about. And then Brad goes, yeah, let’s do that.

David Read:
Okay. Why not?

Martin Wood:
So I look at Will Waring, who is the, Will was the “A” camera operator on the show. [unintelligible] So the next one is get in and pull the camera with you. You have to put your feet against the sea wall at the back there, the torpedo door at the back, but you have to crawl in.

And he goes, “No.”

David Read:
Wow.

Martin Wood:
And I said, really? And he goes, “I’m not going to the torpedo tube. No way.”

David Read:
This isn’t a retired sub, right?

Martin Wood:
This is the retired sub.

David Read:
Oh it is retired, okay.

Martin Wood:
The Russian one. Yeah. And I went, okay. And I look at Andy, the “B” camera operator, and he goes (shakes head). And I went, okay. And Jim Menard, who is the DP, looks at me. He goes, “Looks like you’re going in.” So I thought, oh, that’s nothing. So I go in. Now, I’m six feet tall and I have fairly broad shoulders.

I had to squeeze in like this and didn’t realize that the entire interior of this thing is covered in rust, rust flakes in this case. And so I have to go like this. And I’m pulling a camera with me until my feet hit the sea wall, the torpedo door, on the outside of the submarine. This is a submerged submarine, remember? It’s this part of the…

David Read:
You’re underwater.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. And I can only see, like, little slivers of light on either side of the camera as the doors open. I said, “Okay so, Jim,” to Minard, “essentially, let’s just get ready to roll because I have no communication. I have no walkie communication. I have nothing because it’s a steel tube, a steel coffin is what it is.

And, I’m starting to feel a little bit, I’m thinking, that’s weird, that my feet are against the water, you know, and, I’m in this tube, and then they close the door. And I’ve caved, I’ve spelunked enough to know what real darkness looks like. But I’ve never been in this position. And complete darkness.

David Read:
You’re entombed.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. And no sound either. Nothing. And I’m yelling. ‘Action, action, action!’ Nobody’s doing anything. And I’m like, oh, man, they can’t hear anything. They don’t know I’m saying ‘action’. So finally out there, one of them says, “He’s probably saying action and we just can’t hear it.” And so the guy opens the door, we get the shot and I go, ‘got it, let’s go.

David Read:
Get me out of here.

Martin Wood:
And Jim says, are you claustrophobic? And I said, I didn’t think so until now, but, that’s how that shot came about, was with me with my feet against the wall of the sub.

David Read:
I would have thought you would have put a, you know, the thing on wheels and taken a pole and, you know, pushed it in the back and shot it and come back out.

Martin Wood:
That would have made more sense.

David Read:
I meant to ask you earlier, the, that you’re talking about, you know, we don’t usually use cranes anymore. We use drones, little things like that, crowd sequences. A lot of times you can you can add people digitally later. What has it been like watching the technology evolve? Because I’m always interested in the technical front of things, in whatever industry there is, as we move forward in time, just watching things get smaller and smaller and lighter and in many cases cheaper. All right. Is it more complicated to film today? No, pre-COVID, than it was when you started?

Martin Wood:
No. In fact, it was a conversation I was having with the DP I’M working with right now, is that for probably about 20 years there was very little innovation. You know, there’s this Steadicam, there was a techno crane, you know, that crane that moves on a head. There wasn’t a lot of huge innovation that happened.

And nowadays the cameras are so tiny. There’s this new Red Komodo that’s come out, you know, and they’re so sensitive to light and there’s gimbals and there’s, you know, the drones that we’re using. And I just finished using a racing drone the other day, this FPV racing drone that was, I was doing a treetop course in this show I’m doing right now, where these people are doing these ropes course, and literally this thing is flying at the at the two actors who are on a net, on a rope net, and it flies through one of the loops of the rope net while they’re on it, and then comes out the other side, which it looks like a viz effect shot.

There were these mountain bikes coming down a mountain, and this drone is flying around them as they’re going down like that. It’s ridiculous what these things can do nowadays. And that kind of innovation is happening so fast. You know, this thing [shows smartphone] has changed everything. You know, just the fact that you can make a movie on an iPhone these days you know.

David Read:
And it looks pretty good.

Martin Wood:
It looks pretty good. You know, there’s not necessarily the dynamic range. And then it’s like, you wouldn’t [unintelligible] for like a feature screen necessarily, but, the capabilities, you know. You’re editing on iPads and laptops. That changes happen so much and it has made it more accessible. Whereas there was this, you know, sort of, cadre of people that could do film before they could make film before, because it was so expensive to use the equipment and or rent the equipment. Nowadays, young filmmakers are able to do it on their own. I don’t think it means you get around the rules, but, the rules still need to be there. But it has changed so much, you know. We’re in talks for a ‘Sanctuary’ reboot right now.

David Read:
I did not know this.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. So there’s you know, there’s a script being written right now as we speak.

David Read:
Fantastic.

Martin Wood:
To try and pitch a reboot for ‘Sanctuary’. But on the call we had yesterday, we were talking about technology and what you get to do with it. And, the advent of light walls, you know, in “The Mandalorian’s” volume and things like that.

David Read:
The volume is insane.

Martin Wood:
It is. And I just I finished, I used a 30ft light wall the other day, you know, with an Unreal Engine on it and it’s crazy. So for ‘Sanctuary’ for sure, it’s going to change the way we make, you know, a show like ‘Sanctuary’. Anything that we would do that we used to, you know, we were pushing things like rear screen projection. We were pushing things like, you know, what do we see out these windows. Now that you can use a light wall and actually have the light streaming in on you from this light wall?

David Read:
Yeah. There’s no longer any green bleed or anything like that. It’s real.

Martin Wood:
Driving cars. I mean, driving cars were where you used to have to reproduce the trees and the leaves and this kind of stuff. Now those things are actually happening on the screen and it actually it changes on your face enough. And you can wear sunglasses and you can do this kind of stuff, and you’re looking at the thing that you’re supposed to look at.

David Read:
And the actors, I’m sure, have to appreciate it just as much.

Martin Wood:
They’re actually able to see what they’re supposed to see.

David Read:
Seeing what they’re supposed to. I cannot wait, and I’ve been waiting and waiting, and it keeps on getting pushed back. It’s from an innovation perspective alone, for “Top Gun”. The stuff that they did in that or that it looks like that they did I can’t wait.

Martin Wood:
So, when I went to Guam, I needed another camera. We’re using a thing called the Sony Venice camera, there, which is a great camera. I needed one more, and I was told ‘no’, because. And we’re getting a bunch of our camera gear out of Hawaii. They said no, because “Top Gun” has all of them, you know. What do you mean, all of them? They said they have all of them. They’re shooting with, like, 40 cameras. And I’m like, ‘Okay’.

David Read:
It’s Tom cruise for you. Jeez. You mentioned I, I didn’t realize that you originally went to NORAD. I thought that you had gone the second time for the second round of footage that we got a few years later. Can you tell that’s that first story?

Martin Wood:
Yes.

David Read:
Because the shots are in every episode.

Martin Wood:
So, they asked me to go, and, I had someone from MGM there with me, that, we sort of decided that we’re going to go and I’m going to shoot for 24 hours straight. I’m going to shoot day, night, day. So I had sundown, sun up, I had night, I had all that kind of stuff.

And we put together a film crew. I’d never met any of them before. And went to NORAD and said, okay, here’s what we need to do. And, I said, I need this number of people before I get there so I can use as background extras and, like, ‘are you serious? Really?’ We’re going to take time out to do this? Now, what’s funny to me is it was the beginning of my relationship with the Air Force and, at the time, a Canadian general was in charge of NORAD, and so I was able to sort of, with MGM we were able to sort of pull a few strings that normally wouldn’t have been able to be pulled and got access to a number of different things, like the doors closing in there.

David Read:
Yeah. The soldiers running in. Yeah.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. And needed to do a bunch of stuff while we were there. And I think I had 25 background people. So, over the course of, you know, eight years, it’s the same 25 people doing all this kind of stuff, you know, and.

David Read:
Were the military personnel real, or were they all actors?

Martin Wood:
Oh, yeah. No, because they I wouldn’t have been able to get not, non-real people that close to the base, you know, and get them in.

David Read:
Wow. That’s cool:

Martin Wood:
This is what I love about the fact that, you know, when I was in Guam, I said, I want all the background to be real. And they’re like, sure. And I needed some actors from it, too.

And I said, yeah, so we just do a casting call and the Air Force office in Los Angeles. Colonel [Nathan] Broshear and Captain [Travis] Schimer, who are our people in Guam said “Yes, we can do this.” They didn’t hesitate, and they really just wanted to do what we were asking them to do.

And then they went out and did, you know, pulled people and said, we’d like to be in a movie. Sure. Yeah. Have you got any acting experience? Sure, yeah. We did a casting with them. Same thing when we went to NORAD the first time. We sort of called the production office, which is in its infancy at that point, you know, saying, ‘this is what we’re going to need’.

And they said, ‘okay, we can probably swing that’. ‘We can probably get that’. So we went and I shot for 24 hours and, we were exhausted at the end of it. We got the film back, and like two weeks later, the pilot was on the air. And then and around year 7 or 8, we thought, we we’re getting really tired of seeing the same establishing shots. How about we go back and shoot another one another day? And I said, I’ll do it. And they’re, “Yeah you can. You’ve got the clearances. Now you do this Kind of stuff.”

David Read:
You know what you’d like to see different now.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, yeah. And the fact is I knew how to get into things and what I could see and things.

David Read:
You shot there.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. So, I landed and I get off the plane and there’s a car waiting there for me, and the woman that was driving me was so exuberant. She says, “Oh, my God, we’re so happy to have you here.”

First time around, nobody knew who we were because nobody had ever seen the show. That, and I remember that day, the head of their security came up to me and said, “You know, yeah, I answer all these questions about, you know, about nukes in the middle of the mountain and stuff this all the time. Now you’re doing a show about something there’s 28 floors beneath.

David Read:
There’s no missile silo there.

Martin Wood:
And, and he goes, “Oh, great.” So anyway, the second time I came in this woman is so happy, this corporal that was driving. We get there and, no, it was the captain that was driving me. It was an officer who was driving me, this captain gets and says, “I’d like to introduce us to these people,” and she opens the door, and we go into this room, and there’s 200 people sitting there, and they cheer.

Hi, how are you? And they said, we want to be in the movies. And I was like, so I had 200 people now that wanted to be background people on the new establishing shots. And they said they won the lottery to be able to do it, you know, so it’s like, ‘we want this, and we’re taking two days off and we’re going to help you’.

Okay, terrific. So there’s so many people who are fans of the show that came up and talked to me about it, too. We’re starting to shoot, and, I’m getting some stuff, and this car drives up, one of the security Hummers drives up, and out steps this man, brush cut, flat top. [unintelligible] Oh, no. And I went what do mean ‘oh no’, What is ‘oh, noo. And they said, he looks like he’s coming for you. And it was the head of security now comes walking over to me goes, “Son, come with me.” I said, okay, we’re just…” He goes, “I know what you’re doing. I knew the second you stepped off the plane.”

I’m like, oh man. Okay. So, I get in with them and we’re driving into the base. Now the base, it’s more than a kilometer long, the drive. And, I’m trying to talk to him, and he’s not talking to me. I said, “Have you seen the show?” And he’s, like, straight ahead, not talking to me. And I said something, and at one point he went (head gesture) and I went, okay, I guess we’re not talking.

And, so we get there and he goes “Come with me!” And we start up into the control area, which, when I first walked through it, a lot of the doors had been shuttered in space command and wasn’t allowed to look into and things.

And now the doors are more open and I can sort of look in. And so I’m rubbernecking as we’re going. And he goes “Eyes ahead!” And I went, oh, man, I am going to the principal’s office in a big way here. And I’m thinking, what did I do that got us? We walked down this corridor and we stop and he goes, “Look!”

And I look to the right and there’s this door, this white door with a window in it, and it says, ‘Stargate Command’ has an arrow down like this. And I went, what? He goes, “It’s a broom closet. I finally had to make it so that there’s some place here that, people, because they all ask where’s Stargate Command, how they get down to it?”

He goes, “I got you, didn’t I?”

He’s laughing. He’s a huge fan of the show. “I got you. You should have seen…I was expecting to see a wet spot on that passenger seat, when you got out of that seat!”

And I went, oh, man. He goes, “I’m a huge fan. Can I be in it?”

I went, ‘sure’ So there is a door there that says ‘Stargate Command’.

David Read:
And it’s a broom closet.

Martin Wood:
It’s a broom closet.

David Read:
Fantastic. I’ve wanted to go for so many years. It’s still on my bucket list. My only issue, Martin, the next time you do it, go and get some shots in winter. It’s snow half the year there. Wonderful story. Thank you.

Was there, Iris O’Dair, Was there any difference between working with Amanda, tapping on ‘Stargate’ and working with her on ‘Sanctuary’?

Martin Wood:
There is a big difference between [Helen] Magnus and [Samantha] Carter.

David Read:
That’s true.

Martin Wood:
There’s a difference between, Amanda. Amanda and I have known each other since that first day in 1997 when I stepped onto the set. It was a boardroom scene. We were sitting together on the table in the boardroom. And we were talking about something and I realized that we had certain things in common.

So that’s when we talked and eventually, like, her house is a couple of blocks from mine, and so-and-so is a couple blocks the other way. [unintelligible] is there, our kids are best friends, you know? Her daughter and my daughter and son, she’s between the two of them. And they’ve been friends forever and ever. Michael Shanks and Lexa Doig. Her two kids are best friends with my two kids, and we’re all together.

We’ve been friends forever and ever. And so, by the time we were doing ‘Sanctuary’, Amanda and I were best friends. I didn’t notice a big difference, in Amanda, in the way that Magnus was 100% different character than Carter. For Amanda and, when we decided to change her hair color and all that kind of stuff and, you know, make Magnus that different character.

When we were doing the webisodes, you know, Amanda was very open about the fact that she said, I don’t want it to be mixed up with Carter. I don’t want Magnus to be different, that is, mixed up with Carter, because it is a different show. And the way Damian [Kindler] was writing, it wa, you know, she’s a different character completely.

They’re both unbelievably strong female characters. And, Amanda does that really, really well. But, I think she made a conscious decision to not have the two women share too many character traits. And, so in dealing with Magnus and talking to Amanda about Magnus, it was a totally different conversation than I would have with Carter, Amanda about Carter.

But again, because we sort of were there at the beginning of both of those characters, I watched them both grow up, you know, and Amanda was so remarkable with the way that she dove into those characters and imbued them with life. That all I did was follow her lead and deal with them. You know, the way that she built them.

David Read:
And she has followed you into the director’s chair. You must be so proud. She is excellent.

Martin Wood:
She is beyond me in terms of what she’s dealing with these days. You know, I mean, she’s got, she’s got much. I’ve been sort of, lately, been doing a lot more, romantic comedies and romantic dramas and much more character-based stuff. And she’s dealing with massive shows with big, huge effects. And so she’s taken off with that and she, in this town, she’s the director to get if you’re going to do that kind of work.

David Read:
I’m really glad to hear that. “XFChemist1”. There was such a chemistry between RDA and Amanda. How was it directing them together?

Martin Wood:
What’s funny is, it was. to my recollection, I’m not sure how much of this is real and how much of it I said in my head, recreated, made up. But, Rick and Amanda and I were playing with it more than anything else. We were fooling around with it. It wasn’t originally part of who they were.

They weren’t originally, you know, that wasn’t the characters. They weren’t, there was no crossover with that, you know, romantically with that. And I remember the scene where, it wasn’t ‘Nirrti’… It was in ‘Nirrti’ where they woke up on the beds in…

David Read:
Is this, ‘Out of Mind’, end of season two?

Martin Wood:
I think it’s ‘Out of Mind’. Yeah. Where they’re lying on the beds and…

David Read:
Yes. They’re frozen.

Martin Wood:
Is it Nirrit?

David Read:
No, it was Hathor.

Martin Wood:
Hathor. Right. Okay.

So, you’re right. It’s they’re on the beds and, Amanda got up, and Rick did this thing that Rick does, not O’Neill does. And he’s looking at her naked back. And I said, “Oh, we got to use that.” He goes, “I’m not doing that on camera.” And I said, “Yeah, we got to do it. We got to do it. We’ve got to do it. It’s so much fun.” And he goes, “Seriously?” And I said, “Yeah.” He goes, he goes, “Well, let’s do one with that. We’ll do one with…

David Read:
For safety. Yeah.

Martin Wood:
Sure. And we did it. And then as we were in the hallway and they’re escaping, he has this other one where I put them really close together and he goes, “She’s like right up my back.” And I said, yeah, yeah. Just because it’s we’re behind a column, you have to be right. And he turns around and they’re too close.

And I said, keep it, let’s try it. And he goes, “You’re really pushing this, aren’t you?” I said it’s fun. Come on.

David Read:
And there’s this sexual tension between these two characters, just as there are with people in real life. You know.

Martin Wood:
It was more that we were playing around with the two, the three of us were just playing around with something there. And I think that, that, Coop [Robert Cooper] and Brad [Wright] sort of saw that. The other writers sort of saw that starting to play out and were enjoying it and so started to fill it in a little bit.

And then they were both conscious of I mean, Rick was all for it, but I think Amanda was a little bit more conscious of the actual rules and what she had to do, but.

David Read:
Like military rules.

Martin Wood:
Yeah. As we progressed over the years, it was it started to get easier and easier for that. But it wasn’t an immediate thing. It wasn’t sort of season one kind of thing. It was that the chain of command was there and very obvious. And it wasn’t the characters so much.

But I think that, and that’s, again, to my recollection, it was more that we started playing around with it, and it started to be something that was actually that everybody was noticing and, was having fun with.

David Read:
Well, you had the ship episodes, for sure. If there were any ‘relationshipping’ episodes, you got ‘Solitudes’. You’ve got ‘Divide and Conquer’. I mean, that’s the big one where he admits that he has feelings. It drives the plot.

Martin Wood:
The ‘Saran Wrap’ force field.

David Read:
Exactly! And that was used for years and years throughout the show. There’s a picture I have of a behind-the-scenes shot of Jason Momoa with Saran wrap across his face, and whatever it takes to get those shots, man. And sometimes you just have to be innovative if you want something to be achieved in camera practically.

Martin Wood:
It’s true.

David Read:
EasySparky: Is there a shortage of drone support drone companies, pilots? Would this be a good time to get into doing this, or are there enough doing it now already?

Martin Wood:
There’s no shortage of them. There’s a shortage of the ones that do it really well, because I think a lot of people have jumped into it because it is so easy to get into. The hard part is being able to get drones that we can use. You know, it’s one thing to have, you know, a DJI Pro that will do 4K, but there’s another thing to be able to have a drone that’s big enough to be able to put a6K camera on there.

David Read:
They’re heavy.

Martin Wood:
It’s not so much anymore with things like the Komodo and stuff, but still you have to have an octocopter and things that can raise it. The Inspire 2 is probably the bare minimum of sort of what you’re able to do, you know, with an X7 on it and, you can’t really go into it with, even using these racing drones that we’re using right now, which is so lightweight, the quality that you’re getting on them is not up to the 4K.

The resolution is there, but the codec isn’t there to be able to use, with some of the stuff that we’re doing. So, it’s one thing to be able to fly them. It’s another thing to finish the ground school, get your licensing, and be able to get permits and stuff like that. There’s always three people there. There’s a pilot, there’s a camera operator, and there’s a spotter.

David Read:
Yeah. To watch it with the naked eye. Yeah. Keep eye contact.

Martin Wood:
Not a one man show. I’ve done, I did the paperwork so I could fly drones because I was being told, ‘no, you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it’. So, I bought a drone myself and flew it for a couple of movies. But it is, it does, there’s a lot of safety concerns and things that that have to go with it.

So you have to be well up on that. So, yeah, if you’re keen on being a camera operator and things like that, the camera operators have to be part of the Union, that are operating the cameras, you know, so it’s not as easy as just buying a drone and throwing it up in the air and being able to shoot pictures with it.

And again, we’re getting closer and closer to the actors with these drones and shooting scenes with them. You know.

David Read:
It can get dangerous.

Martin Wood:
Yeah.

David Read:
John42: What happened to the wrench that you and Dan Shea, as Siler?

Martin Wood:
Somebody swiped it. Somebody swiped it. We went to find it one day, and it was gone. And so we, that’s when it when it stopped being used was the day it was stolen. And so, yeah, we for years and years and years, we sort of, I kept it in my office, or Dan had a hold of it after he’d used it.

And it was always something that was a joke prop that a friend of mine had given me. About something else, like.

David Read:
Oh, it wasn’t a real wrench.

Martin Wood:
It was a real wrench.

David Read:
I thought it was real. Yeah, okay.

Martin Wood:
But he gave it to me as a joke. And I brought it in one day and said, we’re using this because the big lugs that are on the…

David Read:
It’s Stargate size. Geez. I was under the impression that someone said, “No more. Stop using it.” And so that’s not true.

Martin Wood:
It was, it got stolen, and it was like. Oh, okay. Well. Too bad.

David Read:
Yeah, exactly. David Stula: You directed one of my favorite ‘Travelers’ episodes, “Room 101”. How was directing ‘Travelers’ different from, for example, ‘Continuum’, which also deals with, with time travel? You’re back with Brad again, which I’m sure was wonderful.

Martin Wood:
‘Travelers’ is one of my favorite shows that I’ve directed. And it was a lot of it was the shooting style. The shooting style was set up, in the pilot, by an amazing DP and an amazing director that did that, and sort of set a style that, Andy, Will, Amanda and I followed because it was so beautiful.

You could shoot through things. You could shoot, it was, you know, reflection based. It was a lot of long lens stuff through things. And, you know, so as we got into that, James [Robbins], who was the production designer at the beginning of the episode, sort of said, you know, let’s put these cages on water.

So you get this beautiful reflection. And so we waterproofed the room that we were in and put them in there. And I got to say, that cast was amazing. Eric McCormack is a dream to work with. And the rest of the cast, too. It was so nice to work with that cast and that idea. And the idea of time travel was interesting because it was very ground based. It wasn’t, “Oh, we can just flick back and forth. So if something we didn’t like, we can change.” You know, that kind of stuff. It was, “we’re committed to this by the time they get here, and the limit of the knowledge they would have, gleaned from, you know, Facebook or whatever they were gleaning it from, as it shows up in so many other things. And MacKenzie [Porter], you know, had this persona that wasn’t hers in there. That was erroneously given to the traveler that came in, you know, and so there’s all those things, which I thought was a brilliant way of dealing with time travel.

And not to the not the kind of time travel we always had trouble with. In ‘Sanctuary’ we talked about it a lot, too, but how much are we going to be able to do this? Because if we can do this, if we can move in time the way that Druitt, you know, is able to teleport himself, it’s a superpower that you can’t, it’s so powerful that you can’t get around it sometimes, you know. Time travel is a massive superpower that is just, you know, you’re too powerful, you’re Superman.

David Read:
Yeah. Once you give it… It’s my dad’s issue when we watch ‘Star Trek’, you know, it’s. Oh, it’s a horrible situation. Well, you know, they can just fly around the sun a few times and undo it, you know? And that’s his answer for everything. You have to be careful when you give your characters the ability to undo something.

Martin Wood:
Yeah, yeah. Let Lois Lane die, and then you can bring her back to life by…

David Read:
Flying around the planet. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Last question from the fans. Theresa McCallister: Were there any guest stars that you would love to have made as regulars in any of the ‘Stargate’ shows, if it were up to you?

Martin Wood:
Oh, man. Yeah. I mean there’s so many of them. You know, what’s funny is, is the story about Ryan Robbins. I’ve told you this story, before, and I have to get the names right on this. Oh, so the scene where, where Ryan is running through the gate.

David Read:
Ladon Radim. Yeah, the Genii, they’re bugging out.

Martin Wood:
So, the end of the script said, you know, he gets shot as he’s going through the gate. So we know that he’s not going to be a threat, you know. And we enjoyed working with him so much. And that was one of the first times I’d ever worked with Ryan. And it was like, ‘this is great, why are we killing him? You know?’ And so in a conversation with Brad, very, very quick conversation with Brad, I said, well, let’s, you know, let’s not. I’ll just work it so that he doesn’t he may or may not have gotten shot. And so as we’re doing this, I looked at the guy beside him and I said, are you okay if we squib you?

And he said, sure. And so the guy that was beside him gets shot. Now, the guy that was beside him was Cory Monteith. I didn’t know that at the time.

David Read:
That’s right, Cory.

Martin Wood:
But I killed Cory Monteith instead of Ryan Roberts.

David Read:
Man, oh man. And he went down to LA for ‘Glee’. And may he rest in peace. Wow.

Martin Wood:
But, yeah, that was it. I really, there are so many people like, Richard Kind was so much fun to work with.

David Read:
Here I come.

Martin Wood:
And I was so glad I got to do both of them, because it was just. It was like, ‘Wow.’

David Read:
Richard Kind has my, if I may insert, my favorite line from all of Atlantis: “Well, you know, the lame don’t walk, but they crawl a lot faster.” Sorry. Go ahead.

Martin Wood:
There were so many people that that it would have been nice to be able to hold on to for longer and things like that. I’m surprised actually, looking back on it, the people that we had on the show that you know, have gone off and done their own shows and stuff like this, and when we had them, they were there for a line or two, you know. Which is really interesting to me.

David Read:
Lou Gossett, Jr. I love Beau [Bridges] as the General, but I can’t help but sometimes think because, what would it have been like for Lou Gossett, Jr., to have been Landry? I mean, he’s just such a presence.

Martin Wood:
Landry was so under spoken, you know, by Beau, that it would have been, it would have changed again, the dynamic of that. It’s so interesting because you had Rick, you had Don, and you have Rick, and it’s like, to have somebody that comes in that’s just very level, you know, was a great contrast to what we’d already had with this. And Lou would have been a, it would have been a whole different thing. There’s a command to him…”

David Read:
Exactly.

Martin Wood:
Beau didn’t have to raise his voice to have command. And I think that Lou would have been able to raise it and still maintain that same kind of command, you know, stance.

David Read:
Martin, this has been fantastic. And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Martin Wood:
Wow, that’s an hour and a half?

David Read:
I know. Isn’t that extraordinary? I would love to have you back. One of the things that the show is designed to do is be a place where people can go on YouTube, where it’s capturing, our show is capturing, the oral history of ‘Stargate’ for future generations, for, not just for a limited number of countries or for an annual fee, but for any ‘Stargate’ fan out there, past or present, who hasn’t discovered it yet, and for free.

And so, I really appreciate you taking the time. I talked to you at Gate Con a couple years ago about doing a director’s reunion. And Zoom has come along and presented a new opportunity. Would you? Because you know them all.

Martin Wood:
Yeah.

David Read:
When do you, January. But what month should we should we, you know, look toward for this, do you think. Because I would think December would be insane.

Martin Wood:
If we have a second surge… because then we’ll all be not working. Yeah. My schedule is starting to fill up in a big way into the new year right now. Thankfully. I know Amanda is tied up for a while, with the show she’s doing right now. She’s show-writing a show right now, as a producer/director and just…

You know, there’s Will and Peter [Deluise]. I know Will is working on something, and Peter was just finishing another movie. It would be interesting to see. And he’s show-writing a series as well, called ‘Family Law’ that is wrapping up before December. Yeah. Be interesting to do.
Certainly get hold of him. Be kind of fun to have Jonathan Glassner and something like that as well.

David Read:
Absolutely. Yeah. I’m sure Jonathan, you know, if we can get Brad and Rob, I wouldn’t mind having the creators in as well. Just have a great big hoopla.

Martin Wood:
Rob did, you know, did some giant episodes as well.

David Read:
He sure did. So, all right, we’ll have to talk about it.

Martin Wood:
I‘m in.

David Read:
Thank you so much, my friend, for joining me. This this was a treat, and I look forward to having you back.

Martin Wood:
Absolutely.

David Read:
You take care of yourself, okay?

Martin Wood:
Absolutely. Bye.

David Read:
Be well, Martin. Martin Wood, director and producer. Ladies and gentlemen. You know, it’s, he’s hard to beat, let me tell you. Thank you for joining us and sticking around for this show. We have, who have we got, how many have we got in there? 154 concurrent viewers. Thank you for helping us to bring the show where it has come.

I have fan art to share with you. Mr. Max Becco submitted this to me. He said this specific piece I chose has lots of meaning to me. I personally don’t like my art. I don’t think I’m good at all. -Max, You’re wrong- But there are some people that do, and one that really liked it so much that he recently discovered the ‘Stargate’ franchise and sent me an art commission, my very first.

And I made him this showing the hard-edged Jack O’Neill from the feature film. With the gate looming behind him. I wanted to showcase Jack, but also the gates, the thing that made me fall in love with the franchise. So Max, thank you for submitting that. And if you have your own artwork or photos of something physical that you made or something like that, submit that to dialthegateshow at gmail.com.

And I want to appreciate the other artists who have submitted. I’m still catching up on emails as well. Big thanks to Linda the Gate Gabber for all of her, promotional work in the show. Summer, Ian. Tracy. Keith. Jeremy. You guys, have been fantastic. Next weekend we have prerecorded episodes I recorded in this past week. They are both nearly two hours long.

Robert C. Cooper, executive producer, writer, director of ‘Stargate’. He was co-executive, he was co-creator of Atlantis and Universe alongside Brad Wright. This is a two hour special that you will not want to miss. And so that’s going to be airing Halloween, October 31st, at 1 p.m. Pacific time. Then we have Andee Frizzell, the Wraith queen on Atlantis, nearly two hours with Andee.

I’ve already posted a preview of that, so you can see that on the channel now. She will be, she’s been prerecorded and she will be, live at 3 p.m. Pacific time, streaming live. So I hope to be in there in the chat. My schedule is still working it out for next week, but they will be premiering, the… I’m trying to figure out how… It’s a live stream, so they will be they will be airing on YouTube. You won’t just be able to play and go through the whole thing. So it will be actively starting at those specific times. For Rob, it will be 1:00 Pacific and Andy, it will be 3:00 Pacific.

It’s that all that I have? Oh, one last thing before I let you go. If you like what you’ve seen in this episode, I would appreciate it if you’d click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. And please also consider sharing this video with a ‘Stargate’ friend.

And if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that subscribe icon. If you plan to watch live, I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes. And bear in mind clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the ‘Dial the Gate’ and ‘GateWorldDotnet’ YouTube channels to help promote both.

Thanks again to, director/producer Martin Wood for joining us for this fantastic episode. Martin is just one of my favorite people, and, he’s, as you saw, a wealth of knowledge. And hopefully we’ll have him back very soon to, share more stories as we go through the franchise. I’m David Read for ‘Dial the Gate’. Thank you so much for watching. It means a great deal to me, to have you here. And we’ll see you on the other side.