SG-1, Atlantis and Universe Prop Builder Mark Nicholson returns to Dial the Gate with more insights to building some of your favorite props from the latter half of the franchise!

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Can’t get it to work, Mark, anymore. My iris is broken. It works fine when I’m offline, and then I go online here and I can’t get it to work. I’ll be right back. Welcome to Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. I appreciate you joining me for this episode. Mark Nicholson, prop builder of the Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, Universe, Ark of Truth, Continuum, is back once more. How are you, sir?

Mark Nicholson:
I’m doing well. Thank you for having me.

David Read:
Thank you for being with us. I’ve got a couple of mods in the chat today. Right now, I’ve got Antony and I’ve got Jeremy. Jeremy’s captaining. Thank you, sir. So, if you are in our YouTube live chat, you can go ahead and submit any questions you have to our prop builder extraordinaire. He was on the franchise for the last several seasons of the time that it was running in Vancouver. And we’ve got a few assets to show you here. I really appreciate you being back, because I think that we covered a lot of ground last time, but there was so much more to cover, Mark. Is it true in your line of work that the amount of time that something is going to appear on screen, do you try to correlate that with the amount of time that you spend on manufacturing and creating something? Or is it that something that can appear on screen for half a second takes up all of your time? Ideally, when you’re at the drawing board with your allocation of time, which is your most finite allocation, as most of us is, is that the attempt?

Mark Nicholson:
I usually find those discussions happen higher up than where I would be. I was just building. The lead prop builder would be going over the bridge, ’cause that was a 15-minute drive away, and coming back with a lot of that information as to how important something was. I would never see a script. The only time I saw a script was when we were using spares as waste paper to help with building something, and I was, “Wait, the script isn’t out yet. What’s gonna happen to this character?” But, no, I would see drawings, and I would get verbal notes, and that’d be it. So, we always wanna make everything look good, is what everyone wants when you build something and you care about your work, but would we know how it plays sometimes? Maybe not.

David Read:
I would think that there would be a threshold there. Of course you wanna make things look good, but isn’t there, “I want this to be exceptional?” I mean, is that a part of the paradigm at all, or is it that, “This is where we can make it to, this is the time that I have. Would I love to do some more stuff with it? Sure. But I don’t have a lifetime, and it’s gotta be on set tomorrow, and here it goes?”

Mark Nicholson:
That, that’s definitely true. It’s, how much time do we have? What’s our actual budget for it? What can we make in that time? Is it gonna work? And not knowing half the answers to those questions when you start, so it’s like, “OK, let’s see what we can do.” And sometimes, some of the bigger things, you’d have a long lead time, you’d have a lot of planning. It’s, I think the Universe Gate, from drawing and starting to plan to it being installed was two months, which was a big project.

David Read:
The Destiny Universe Gate, not the traveling one?

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. Correct. Both of them.

David Read:
Oh, both of them, OK, took two months, from concept to finish.

Mark Nicholson:
And I think the traveling gate we had a bit more time on, because it wasn’t installing the gate into the set was its own part of the process. Whereas the traveling one, we didn’t need until that shoot was starting to happen …

David Read:
So, I’ve gotten some information–

Mark Nicholson:
… down in the desert.

David Read:
Right, because it was first deployed in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which I’ve been three times and cannot get enough of it. I learned since I’ve had you on, that the construction of the Universe Gate was radically different from the SG-1 gate. With the SG-1 gate, they had a metal gear that they could barely fit in through the door, ’cause it was not as great in circumference as the Stargate itself, obviously. But with the Universe Stargate, they went with a chain, which I didn’t realize is what they had done. Maybe that’s news to you.

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t deal with a lot of the mechanical stuff inside. I was mostly doing a lot of the cladding, the outside decoration stuff for it. I did all the symbols. That was, “Hey, Mark, make that up.”

David Read:
You created the concept for the symbols?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. They had a vague idea, and then they changed it, and they were like, “Yeah, just–” So, the gate symbols on the gate for the Universe Gate are my whole creation.

David Read:
I didn’t realize this. This is a big deal. The dots, lines, and squiggles are you.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
I wonder what it was before.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t even remember. I know there was a thing where there was gonna be a specific language used, and so I was doing a lot of deciding a new language, like the Ancient one. And then part of the way through that work, I learned that they were like, “No, wait. We realized based on some writing things that, no, it all has to be in Ancient, so never mind. Scrap all that work. Forget it. And we’re gonna go do this.”

David Read:
It would’ve been easy to put Ancient numbers on it, assign each position, each glyph for a position an Ancient number, one to– How many glyphs were on the … ‘Cause SG-1, the Milky Way Stargate had–

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t remember.

David Read:
Chad, help me out here. How many glyphs did the SG-1, the Milky Way Stargate have? Because the Atlantis Gate was fewer, and the Destiny Gate was fewer than that, because there was no position underneath a chevron, unlike there was for Atlantis. So, they kept on reducing the number of positions.

Mark Nicholson:
It would’ve been, wait, six times nine? ‘Cause there was six on a–

David Read:
So, 54? But there’s four, there’s four in between.

Mark Nicholson:
Or is it four on? So, it’d be four times nine.

David Read:
Yeah, it’s 36. There’s 36 positions.

Mark Nicholson:
36, yeah.

David Read:
Yeah, ’cause there would be four in between, and then, so 36. Anyway, someone can– So, 38. Lockwatcher says, “38.” So, 38, Lockwatcher, 38 for what? For which one? SG-1 is– Now IBREC says, “37.” SG-1 is 38.

Mark Nicholson:
I’ve got pictures here. There’s four symbols on a segment, and there’s nine segments on the gate.

David Read:
For SGU, yes.

Mark Nicholson:
So, it’s 36.

David Read:
There we go. There’s our answer. I wanna ask you real quick: The Universe Gate on Destiny was the first Stargate that actually had nine chevrons built on it. The SG-1 Stargate at the SGC had seven. The other two were not completed because we never saw them underneath. The Atlantis Stargate, it was never completely circular because it went into the floor, so all that we saw was what was on the surface. But the Destiny Stargate, I think, was the first one that was completed, because it went into the floor and then came back out the other side. Was it the same? I doubt it was, because it was CG, but when it moved, the location Stargate for the Universe Gate, was that only seven chevrons as well?

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know. ‘Cause the two segments that were on the bottom of it did have mounting onto the ramp. But I’m pretty sure it– And while it didn’t spin on its own, I don’t know if we actually made things that we wouldn’t see on it.

David Read:
I don’t either. I didn’t sell the SGU props, costumes and set pieces. I sold for SG-1 and Atlantis. And the SG-1 gate was obviously circular and completed, but the dressing wasn’t complete underneath because they didn’t need it. They were never gonna shoot underneath the ramp, although they could’ve completed it that way and did that. Especially when we went to chevrons eight and nine, they could’ve gotten those shots, but they just didn’t worry about it. But I always wondered, because when the SGU assets sold, the Destiny Stargates were everywhere. And I’m pretty sure the one that I have is from the Destiny itself rather than the location SGU gate that was built. Because it was one of the far heavier ones, ’cause they had to be designed differently, I’m pretty sure. And pursuant to that, Lockwatcher wanted to know, “I heard that the traveling Gate for Universe was very different in construction than the traveling Gate for SG-1 to make production easier.” Any information on this?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. So, a couple years later I actually worked with someone at a separate job that was a PA on the first season or two, so we got to share some stories about that.

David Read:
Of SG-1?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah.

David Read:
Oh, boy.

Mark Nicholson:
Which it was a much rougher production then than it was when I encountered this well-oiled machine. Just from years of experience. But the original SG-1 traveling Gate was two pieces, like a top and a bottom half, and it took a big crane to get everything together. With Atlantis, the Gate was CG most of the time. And then the one-third of an Atlantis Gate we made for them to be climbing on for a water scene in Season Four.

David Read:
In Season Five’s “The Shrine.”

Mark Nicholson:
That was it. We made a stand for that to be on the side so that on certain shots, you could see half a real gate as they entered and exited. But for SGU, they were like, “We’re not doing that two-piece big winch thing. We gotta make it better.” It still comes in nine segments, and they all come together. The way to tell the difference between the traveling Gate and the one in Destiny is the spinning is only the front half. The back half stays stationary. So, if you see the internals, you’ll see a dividing line between the frame on the spinning gate.

David Read:
There is a lip on my chunk of the SGU Gate that does come around where that is. It may just be the part where the molds come together. But I’m always very curious about that. One day I’m going to pop it open and see.

Mark Nicholson:
But the steel and aluminum frame underneath, you’ll be able to see it.

David Read:
I see. All right. Well, I may just have to show it to you at some point, ’cause it is very heavy.

Mark Nicholson:
I know where 11 of the 18 SGU gate pieces are. And you’re saying you have one, so now I know where 12 are.

David Read:
Wow. So, there were 18 sold, not 16. That was what I was wondering about, ’cause there’s definitely nine, but I’m wondering if there’s seven of the others.

Mark Nicholson:
There’s definitely– Well, I guess they maybe didn’t sell the two pieces at the bottom …

David Read:
Those are the shells.

Mark Nicholson:
… that were part of the ramp.

David Read:
Or maybe sold them for a really discounted price.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know how it would have interacted with the ramp, so maybe not. But no, I think those were… The more I think about it, the more I think they were just regular pieces that actually went in.

David Read:
Interesting. Well, there you go. Makes a lot of sense.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m not certain.

David Read:
OK, that’s fair. Let me see here what I was saying. SG-1 had 38. Lockwatcher says 38 plus one for Origin. Stargate Atlantis had 35 gate symbols. Destiny had 36. Well, there we go. Thank you, IBREC, Lockwatcher, and I think, DanBen as well. To borrow from Daniel, this Stargate talk really gets my blood pumping, but I have a few things to share with you, and you have a few things to share with me. And we’ve–

Mark Nicholson:
I’d like to share one thing about a part we didn’t even get to, which is my logic for describing those Gate symbols.

David Read:
Oh, please. Absolutely. 100%.

Mark Nicholson:
Because no one knows this.

David Read:
I drove right over it.

Mark Nicholson:
A few people I’ve talked to… And the best part was when I finally got to meet Mika McKinnon, who did a bunch of the math consulting for the show.

David Read:
Science consultant.

Mark Nicholson:
All the chalkboards full of math in SGU, she was writing all that stuff. We never got to talk, but we both worked for Kenny. But later on, when I met with her, I was describing what my process was for describing this, and she was like, “Yes, I understood that, and I ran with that, and that is exactly what we did.” And I’m going, “Ah.” It was so good. It was so much fun.

David Read:
So, your concept transitioned to her without even having to tell her.

Mark Nicholson:
Because what I was trying to describe with those symbols is this Gate is moving. Everything’s moving. The amount of time going on means everything’s gonna move a little bit. Space does not stay still. So, we’re not looking for static locations, we’re looking for phenomena that match a certain criteria. Like planets, stars, distances. Hey, I can find a bunch of these and they become fixed points for a period of time, and I can find them. And as I travel to a new universe, I can find something that matches that same spot.

David Read:
A new galaxy, yeah.

Mark Nicholson:
Because these are likely things that are gonna show up. So, those symbols are a combination of several things that are, like, “Oh, yeah, a star that has this property, a distance between it and another star that has that property. This is a point in space we can use.” And so, even when I’m in a different universe or somewhere else, I can still use these points over and over again because they’re likely to be found, in the way that they use standard candles in astronomy, a specific type of star to measure against for things. So, that was my thinking on it …

David Read:
That’s clever, Mark.

Mark Nicholson:
… where it’s gotta be something that actually goes somewhere, it can’t be a fixed point. And our origin is always gonna be a new different spot, because we’re moving. So, now you get to know exactly what I was thinking for that in a way that never comes up in the show. No one ever addresses it.

David Read:
No, not at all. The location… The Gates at those locations would have the corresponding combination of the details that were around it, and those details could be transmitted down the track of Stargates, because there was a series of them that threaded through the galaxy as Destiny was going down a set of train tracks. Wow, that’s cool.

Mark Nicholson:
And now you’re already thinking about it harder than I did.

David Read:
There you go. I’m thinking, OK, so the solid circle must represent a certain planet type. The circle with the hole in it may represent a star. The squiggle must represent some kind of a phenomena, X, Y, or Z. And there were three or four or five different types of symbols, and it was–

Mark Nicholson:
I think it was about… Let’s see if I can remember them. There was a squiggle, a long straight line, a short straight line, a small circle, a large circle.

David Read:
And a circle with a hole in it.

Mark Nicholson:
And there might’ve been a third kind of circle.

David Read:
This had a hole in it, like a donut.

Mark Nicholson:
There was five or six. But no, that was it. That was all we were trying to do. It was, like, “Let’s make a thing that looks interesting.” People liked it, and that’s what we ran with. So, please enjoy this weirdness that is from someone who actually, like, “I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed what we were trying to make. I liked Stargate.”

David Read:
And you intuited that it would work too, because Mika picked up on it.

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t know whether it would work, but it was very satisfying to learn that it had worked in exactly the way I meant it to.

David Read:
Wow. And I’ve been working on this show, since long before my godson was born, and I’ve never even considered what that was. He’s as old as the show, as SGU is, so– Oh, that’s so cool. Thank you for that. Let’s go ahead and take a walk down memory lane if you will take my hand. Like Teal’c does with Jack on Tollana. So, let me pull this up here. This is the props lockup.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s one of them. It’s the one at the model shop. Where that red X is on the poly sheeting, right behind there, across the way and up on the second floor is about where my desk was.

David Read:
Oh, you were upstairs?

Mark Nicholson:
I was upstairs, but this is a familiar place to me, just from the very opposite point of view.

David Read:
I remember so many of these crates with all the labels on ’em. Ancient laptops, Atlantis graphics. So, much of this stuff. Is this one of your photos, or is this one of the Propworx photos?

Mark Nicholson:
I think this is a Propworx photo. I didn’t actually take very many photos of here. So, we had most of the space, but then there was a section cordoned off for this stuff, where they would come and store things. And I really remember on my first day taking a look in it and seeing a big golf caddy, and instead of golf clubs in there it was swords.

David Read:
That’s right. I remember that.

Mark Nicholson:
I was, like, “OK, this is a weird place. I’m into it, though.” And I’m like, “That sounds like a great way to carry a bunch of swords.”

David Read:
You got full of golfers, so it makes sense that those things would come in handy every now and then, ’cause they’re gonna do something with the clubs. Let me see here.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s another shot, looking slightly to the left of the same spot.

David Read:
Got it. Wow.

Mark Nicholson:
On the back wall.

David Read:
Delta, is that a blender?

Mark Nicholson:
No, that’s a drill press.

David Read:
That makes sense. And we got some Wraith sinewy stuff here. Gosh, it …

Mark Nicholson:
There’s a TV.

David Read:
… smelled. Evidently so.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s on a cart, so it’s like …

David Read:
Let’s go to class, kids.

Mark Nicholson:
… multimedia days in school.

David Read:
That’s it. And a sleigh bed frame. So, that’s what that is.

Mark Nicholson:
The thing is, by the time I was working on the show, it was Season 10, they had so much stuff.

David Read:
I know.

Mark Nicholson:
There were so many random weird things that they were keeping in case they need it again.

David Read:
That’s right, ’cause you just never know what’s gonna happen next. Let’s look at some items. I’ve organized them by SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe. If it was introduced in the earlier show first, it appears in that show. That’s the rule of thumb.

Mark Nicholson:
Perfect.

David Read:
Here we go. Some of these we talked about last time, so we’ll glaze over that a little bit. I’ll bring up what we talked about, and we’ll move forward from there. Mark, it was so hard to let these go, let me tell you, because we had only four of them. These were for the Star Trek dream sequence in “200.”

Mark Nicholson:
I have one here.

David Read:
What?

Mark Nicholson:
Because I have a spare.

David Read:
I really hate you right now. But that’s awesome. That is so cool. Look at that.

Mark Nicholson:
I have four or five things from the show, all spares or extras. A year later it’s still sitting on the shelf. I’m like, I can pocket those because anything going missing, I have to replace. And half the time you put spares on the shelf and you save things for later, because small things go missing and someone else comes back and they’re like– I think I said this last time, even. They’re like, “We need more of this.” And I can go, “Here you go.” And they’re like–

David Read:
The crystals are in a red Solo cup. “You need this series? OK, here they are.”

Mark Nicholson:
Basically, but yes, this is one of the few things I have. “200” was one of the–

David Read:
Can you hold it up to the camera, right in front of you? There we go. Awesome.

Mark Nicholson:
The gold on it is actually wearing off because I’ve kept it in a drawer. But it’s almost 20 years on this paint.

David Read:
Pretty soon.

Mark Nicholson:
It doesn’t last.

David Read:
And I told you last time, some of my batteries in some of these props are still working. They’re not as strong as they were, but you don’t run them and, with temperature and everything else, they can retain a little bit of a charge depending on their construction. When you were using certain devices that would cost a little bit more money to create something, or maybe everything that you created, or maybe nothing, did you have to write down in a list somewhere what it was that you were using the resources for and log it?

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
Or could you go and make it?

Mark Nicholson:
We would go make stuff. No, there was never– The organizational system for stuff like that was, “No, we don’t have time for this.” And I know I spoke about it last time, but sometimes you’d literally stop a project because they canceled it, and you wouldn’t even have time to clean that desk for weeks.

David Read:
Wow.

Mark Nicholson:
You’re busy with something else. Then you get it done and then you have, like, “Oh, I’ve got an hour? I can clean that desk off.” Because I didn’t need that desk, I can go clean it off and get it ready for the next project.

David Read:
Now, in the same category of occasionally, sometimes, always, or never, did other productions come to you and say, “Look, I saw this on the show. We need this. How much would it cost you to make that? Can we pay you for that?”

Mark Nicholson:
I’d never be privy to that kind of information.

David Read:
OK. As far as you know, you may have created something for Defying Gravity that was later on that show that– It’s ’cause you were just creating it.

Mark Nicholson:
Those are the spacesuits, right?

David Read:
They did have a spacesuit all their own on Defying Gravity, for sure. And I know that that was borrowed for another production. Maybe Defying Gravity borrowed it from somewhere else. But the Defying Gravity spacesuits which Propworx sold were not the same ones from Stargate. They were a kind all their own. They had lights built into them and everything.

Mark Nicholson:
They were, but I think we made them too. I know we worked on that show.

David Read:
You made them. That’s what I mean. You do have some of that information. OK.

Mark Nicholson:
No. While we were working on this, there was an aspect of, on the side, we were working on a few other productions in town. I did get to work on a handful of things. Especially in the off season, there’d be people working on stuff. When Tron: Legacy was in town, we had to say no because we were busy building a Universe Gate. So, I didn’t get to work on Tron; that would’ve been cool.

David Read:
Good movie.

Mark Nicholson:
I saw plans and everything, we were getting ready to do it, and then we’re like, “No, we’re not gonna have time.”

David Read:
I have a friend of mine who bought one of the discs, or the hero. Is that what they’re called? The discs?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah.

David Read:
The things that you throw? What a magical show. We sold, for Defying Gravity, a rabbit, a bunny still in its embryonic phase. He’s this big and then a plexiglass crate around it, and little water dish and everything. It was some bizarre stuff. But it’s a good show, even though it ran for way too short. That’s cool, man. Let’s have a look at the Ark of Lies.

Mark Nicholson:
Some would call it the Ark of Truth.

David Read:
Some would, but they would be wrong. And the Jaffa lines. We now establish how far those lines go back. They are all the way back to another galaxy.

Mark Nicholson:
Now I’m remembering, I made the lines for that panel. I actually did those all on a laser cutter. You pull back and you get a wider beam, and softer beam, and you can just scribe that line across. It’s a bit messy, but that was actually a really fun job.

David Read:
This was metal. This was metal. This was a rubber, a thick–

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know if that top bit was actually– Was it metal?

David Read:
Was it metal? Maybe it’s just a …

Mark Nicholson:
It might’ve been–

David Read:
… sturdier plastic.

Mark Nicholson:
It might’ve been RenShape, which is technically a foam with the same density as wood.

David Read:
This was definitely designed to be carried this weight, though. OK, that makes a lot of sense.

Mark Nicholson:
So, RenShape, it’s the same density as wood, but it has a consistent consistency. You can CNC it really easily.

David Read:
Interesting, OK. Yeah, ’cause you were saying you recognized what certain materials would cut up to a certain thickness, and then others you would have to wear a mask because it would cut, like neoprene, but it’s gonna be toxic.

Mark Nicholson:
One of the pictures I’ve selected actually has some raw RenShape in it that we can talk about later.

David Read:
OK, once we hit it, we’ll hit it. Awesome. We’ll go to this one here. Each of these had little wires underneath that ran at the bottom of this, so that when you press them, they could light. We got batteries for it, we plugged it in. But we were clearly missing something. There had to have been a radio controller that went with this and to my knowledge, we never had that.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. A lot of these had radio controllers. Some of the Propworx photos that I didn’t select that you have do have some photos of radio controllers that–

David Read:
There’ll be a couple in these. People will get a chance to look at what they look like.

Mark Nicholson:
I made all the setup for what the front of the radio controller is for the person designing the back. But I remember doing some of the details on this, like all the little vinyl letters on this in Ancient. And yes, they were pressable buttons.

David Read:
Yep, every one of them, ’cause you didn’t know what kind of combination they were going to use, so you gave them maximum flexibility on set.

Mark Nicholson:
I think we actually did for this one. Sometimes we would actually get a note on the concept art, or we’d get a note saying, “It needs to type this.”

David Read:
Truth, in this case. It was the Ancient word for truth.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
There were seven symbols on here that were lit up. So, this one did not correspond to the font substitution for English.

Mark Nicholson:
I think it was ‘veritas.’

David Read:
That’s it. It’s also a font.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s why.

David Read:
That’s very nice.

Mark Nicholson:
So, I think–

David Read:
Very nice.

Mark Nicholson:
I think it was ‘veritas’ was what we had to type for that. Man, this is– Looking through some of these pictures has been really weird, because there’s things I haven’t thought about…

David Read:
Dude.

Mark Nicholson:
They’ve completely left my mind for 15 or 20 years.

David Read:
People are so scared to come on, because they’re like, “I don’t remember anything,” and it’s like, “Trust me. I have the secret sauces. Just let me say them.”

Mark Nicholson:
But also, I don’t care if I don’t remember, I’ll just say it.

David Read:
Exactly.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s fine.

David Read:
Absolutely. These, this cabling here– Whoops. Did this all have to be cut and painted and glued down? ‘Cause you can see the breaks in them here.

Mark Nicholson:
Someone else did that. And then I did all the sandblast mask bits in between them, those little scribey lines…

David Read:
That’s what those are.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, sandblast mask is a three-millimeter-thick, soft rubber-type stuff.

David Read:
So, that’s this?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. That stuff. It was great for laser cutting, and if you wanna mask things, it was really good for that. But it also just makes really easy details that you can go and repair. But it does age poorly.

David Read:
Uh-huh.

Mark Nicholson:
So, there was a lot of old props from the show where they used it for things and they’d come back and I’d have to go and repair it ’cause they’re using it again. Like, all the time.

David Read:
So, is this a pattern in the computer that you lay down?

Mark Nicholson:
Yep.

David Read:
So, you just create the pattern and then you can create it, basically.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, and then it just sent it to the cutter and it would cut it out. And then I’d have to weed the whole thing and lay it on here.

David Read:
There it is with it open. I think we took this panel off and saw underneath it. I may be remembering completely wrong, but there was definitely that, and lots of those things. And then at the bottom of this, you said that you designed what was inside …

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
… of that. So, and we’ll see that in just a moment here.

Mark Nicholson:
I was excited for that part.

David Read:
Absolutely, ’cause it’s a big reveal in the movie, in the cave. It’s like, “What is it? Oh, it’s acrylic pieces.” There they all are.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t think we even see it.

David Read:
You do.

Mark Nicholson:
OK, good.

David Read:
They lean into it and they’re just confused. They’re like, “Oh, it’s a piece of technology. OK.” That is so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
I’ve only actually watched the film once, so it’s–

David Read:
There you go.

Mark Nicholson:
And it’s been a long time.

David Read:
Did you watch it with production, with everybody there?

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. I think.

David Read:
Were you at the one for Continuum?

Mark Nicholson:
I’m not sure I went to the premiere for that one. I went to the premiere for Continuum.

David Read:
I was there too.

Mark Nicholson:
And I watched that one again, at least twice. ‘Cause there was a family member who was like, “Can we just watch this and have you tell stories about it the whole time instead?”

David Read:
That’s cool.

Mark Nicholson:
“Yeah? We can just do that?”

David Read:
For sure. No, that was the week of the Creation Vancouver Stargate Convention. It was that weekend, and Brad and Rob invited us up and we were thrilled. So, I technically saw Continuum before I saw Ark of Truth. All right. And there’s the side view of it. It’s already got scuffing. On all of our listings we said, “The prop is sold as is and may have production marks and scratches.”

Mark Nicholson:
Some of those scuffs, like the big silver ones right on the edge there?

David Read:
Uh-huh.

Mark Nicholson:
That stuff? That’s intentional. That was–

David Read:
Yep, wear and tear.

Mark Nicholson:
That was–

David Read:
Yep. It’s supposed to be millions of years old.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. If anything, it should have more wear on it.

David Read:
Exactly. But it’s Ancient. That was the thing that always confused me about Atlantis. They had, the first season, Weir says, “Can we please get rid of the 10,000-year-old dead plants?” And it’s like, there would’ve been dust on the floor after 10,000 years. Those were some really sturdy ancient plants to make them look only a few years old.

Mark Nicholson:
The thing we see about erosion is if it’s indoors, and there’s nothing to stir the air…

David Read:
It’s alien, but it’s alien plants on the top of that, so there’s no one-to-one correlation per se. All right, this is– Whoops, dang it.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
There it is.

Mark Nicholson:
I literally haven’t seen this since I made it.

David Read:
And it has a light sheet underneath it, so you could plug it in. And boy was it bright. There’s the cable for it. They may have actually used this to sh– maybe not, but they may have–

Mark Nicholson:
No, they didn’t. They–

David Read:
They didn’t use it to shoot the light at Julian?

Mark Nicholson:
No. The idea that this was removable was so that it could put a really big light in instead.

David Read:
Got it. OK. Because you can see where it unscrews, so you can switch it out. I think that we sold it with the larger piece. It may have been separate, I’m not sure. But that is cool.

Mark Nicholson:
It was literally the last day, and they were like, “Hey, we need to figure out what the inside is. Mark, quick, figure something out.” I did this that day.

David Read:
And you put a light sheet under it, and they never used that element. Interesting.

Mark Nicholson:
No, ’cause if they ever shot any of this, it would’ve been with the light underneath it on.

David Read:
OK. The only time that it turns on is when Julian is being shot in the face with it.

Mark Nicholson:
So, no, you don’t ever see this.

David Read:
Just the acrylics on the top. That’s cool, ’cause when I saw it, I knew exactly what it was. Let’s see here. Mark, I have a general question. Do you have any idea how they protect actors when they fire bright, bright, bright lights in their faces?

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
I don’t know either. Because I know what it’s like to just have this one shining on me, but when you have something that blasts so bright, maybe they do it in post-production. Maybe that’s how they make it work.

Mark Nicholson:
I think some of it is like that light that they have in that scene where they blast the guy. Some of it is a very intense light, some of it is post-production. And isn’t he wearing lenses already?

David Read:
He is.

Mark Nicholson:
Maybe they just have fully opaque ones.

David Read:
Yeah, that’s a– it’s possible. They coulda given him that, for sure.

Mark Nicholson:
But yes, part of it probably is someone who’s just gonna get a lot of light in their face and be careful with that. Though that does lead into a fun story I don’t have any pictures for.

David Read:
What’s that?

Mark Nicholson:
For the end of Atlantis Season Three, when Elizabeth Weir gets blasted and the glass all glows everywhere. For the stunt actor, they actually had a plastic face shield for her that we quickly developed. And the prototype for it, because we had been doing some 3D scanning work, there was a little thing that they’d chosen my face for. So, they quickly did up the prototype and did it with my face, and put some little bubbles for eyes, and put it on, and was like, “How comfortable is that? Does that work?” They did the prototype for me because we were gonna see whether we could bring her in, scan her face, make one for her. And so it was like, “Let’s test this. We’ve got Mark’s face ready to test with. Let’s go.” So, we did the prototype for me. It worked. I was like, “Yeah, it’s fine. You can see, you can move.” And then we brought the stuntwoman in, scanned her face, CNC’d out a thing to mold from, molded her face, put it on her, and then she went and got a giant pile of fake glass in the face, and–

David Read:
Candy glass, which, it still hurts.

Mark Nicholson:
But it protects her face. And the only time I got to visit the Atlantis set was like two days after that, and there was still glass everywhere. They’d had professional cleaners come in and they were trying to get rid of everything, and you’d still, in nooks and crannies you could see bits and pieces of it.

David Read:
With dirt devils. And they did it in one take, I’m guessing.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. They did the one take, and it just– It was a lot of glass everywhere.

David Read:
But it’s an incredible shot. It really works.

Mark Nicholson:
It was a fun way to figure out the technology on the fly to be like, “How do we keep people safe?” Because you gotta keep people safe. It’s important.

David Read:
And we’re gonna see some examples of candy glass here fairly soon, ’cause you made props with it. The team made props with it.

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t actually make much candy glass. But continue.

David Read:
I will show you. This next one we spoke about last time. It’s either the IOA or the NID, I think it was the IOA, created this replacement Asgard core crystal.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
Which I originally thought was an SD card with the guts pulled out and put in here. But you said it was from a Nintendo VR.

Mark Nicholson:
Virtual Boy.

David Read:
Virtual Boy, which you later found out. You didn’t know that when you got it. It was just in a bin of spare parts.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. The Virtual Boy Forum contacted me, and they were like, “Hey, is this our thing?” And I was like, “Hey, I actually built that, so I’m the person to ask.” But yeah, here’s the picture of it. That was actually a little bigger than an SD card.

David Read:
Oh, it was? OK.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes, it’s the same shape, but it was actually a slightly larger size.

David Read:
OK. Was there a consideration to do just an SD card? Because it would’ve made sense for us to see those, just like we saw USB– Wraith devices with USB things on them for cross-compatibility.

Mark Nicholson:
I made a lot of those USB devices. USB to everything stuff all the time.

David Read:
Exactly. Area 51’s gotta be doing something.

Mark Nicholson:
No, that was because it was going into a piece of Asgard tech in the ship. It had to match the Asgard crystals.

David Read:
I see.

Mark Nicholson:
So, that’s what it was, and it was like, “Hey, we’ve got these old Asgard crystals that are from Season Three or Four when Thor shows up.” That was when that shape had been established. So, it’s like, “No, we’re matching that shape. It has to go into that kind of thing.” This is what it is.

David Read:
It’s an apple.

Mark Nicholson:
They’ve lost me again?

David Read:
What? No. You’re broadcasting audio.

Mark Nicholson:
OK. Someone said we can’t hear Mark, and someone else can hear him.

David Read:
We can hear you just fine. Hang on just a second here. Let me switch something around.

Mark Nicholson:
OK, they can hear me now. It was probably just them.

David Read:
OK, good, guys. Don’t freak us out like that. All right, very good. What they’re maybe doing is they’re watching back in time. So, if you’re not current, folks. Yes, that’s the case. All right, continue please. So, the Asgard shapes, basically, that shape to it, we always called it, if you slice an apple, you cut, that’s basically what that shape is. Whoops. All right, I keep on going back to that. OK, Stargate: Continuum. This was Baal’s time traveling– It’s a solar flare detector.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
He put satellites in orbits over a ton of stars across the galaxy, and then he went back in time and changed history to the way he liked it, and then for some reason, went and completely made the same thing over again. Probably just in case he wanted to do some tweaking. And it’s got Stargate pieces at the bottom of it here.

Mark Nicholson:
Yep.

David Read:
So, you’ve taken design elements from the movie and just brought it in.

Mark Nicholson:
And then if you look on the top on the two wings, there’s those little monitors sticking up on the side.

David Read:
Yes.

Mark Nicholson:
No, right above them.

David Read:
Oh, these?

Mark Nicholson:
Those boxes. There’s a little monitor stuck in there, and then it’s got the little Naquadah lines on the panels.

David Read:
It does. Naquadah lines.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s the part of this I did.

David Read:
Naquadah lines, I prefer that to Jaffa lines. Really cool.

Mark Nicholson:
That was what we called them.

David Read:
Fandom calls them Jaffa lines, but you’re more accurate ’cause there were no Jaffa in the movie.

Mark Nicholson:
Man, it’s weird having this stuff pop up in your brain again. I don’t even think about it.

David Read:
And you’re invoking the pyramid shapes here. Look at that. That’s so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
So, that part would’ve all been done over in the construction shop two doors down. And then all of this stuff was our team. I did do something on that. There’s the little bit on the middle with the little four octagons just below that, and then all the buttons with all the gate symbols on them.

David Read:
All the gate symbols.

Mark Nicholson:
And those all would’ve lit up when pressed.

David Read:
Absolutely. There’s Baal’s symbol. That’s probably the symbol– You know what that is? That’s Praxeon. It’s gotta be the point of origin for Praxeon ’cause that’s where this is. That is so cool, and you’ve got Earth down there. Then you’ve got Destiny.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember there was the old meatball symbol on one of them. And I’m, like, “OK, cool.”

David Read:
Baal could have gone to Destiny ’cause Destiny, the ninth symbol, Earth is the point of origin, so that is awesome.

Mark Nicholson:
That would have been a good show.

David Read:
Yes. Baal on Destiny. Cliff would have been all over that. And then there was a projector, I think, inside, which would’ve put this up here. This little, I think it was Ancient. I think the text, if I’m recalling correctly, the text was Ancient, but …

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t remember.

David Read:
… I may be wrong. So, cool. There it is.

Mark Nicholson:
Part of it is, I never saw that projector lit up. That happened after it left our shop. I think they would’ve come in once and checked that the projector would’ve fit correctly, and that would’ve been it.

David Read:
That would’ve been it. “I’m sorry, Baal, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. That look was not lost on us.

David Read:
Very cool. The BFG, the big effing gun, was the name that at least the set-decorating team called this. Do you recall that being the name as well?

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, yeah. Everyone called it that.

David Read:
This is one of the, I called it a micro-Naquadah generator or reactor which was installed on the top of it ’cause you guys made a smaller one. And then you had this panel here, which was removed for the photo shoot here, and lit on the inside, just like everything else lit up, was never, not once shown on screen. We went and checked in every scene that it’s in. You never see it, and you guys had an access port there with a heat sink on it that you could pull off, and it was just one of these most beautiful pieces, and all of your work is on the inside.

Mark Nicholson:
That, the stuff on the inside is my work, and yes, sometimes they tell us to make things, and then on set they just go, “No, that doesn’t work for what we’re shooting.” And that’s OK.

David Read:
Yeah, ’cause they had to open it up the first time we saw it in “Bounty,” and they’re trying to fix it on stage, and you could pull the pieces out, and it’s a beau– there’s online, if you go online there, we have a video of going through and showing off your work specifically where we remove each of the pieces, ’cause something was rattling around when we got it, and we were like, “What’s making that noise?” And you don’t know because there’s no hinges or screws. It’s all rare-earth magnets to put– We wouldn’t have known to pull the heat sink off to grab that and look underneath, and there it was. So, fortunately we were like, “That’s gotta be–” So, we just started pulling on things. Eventually we started realizing that you guys had designed stuff that never made it into the show, so we were always careful, if something was a large object, to see if we could pull on drawers that were hidden in things, like the Goa’uld consoles and all the various stuff that was there. Just amazing work, dude.

Mark Nicholson:
Or you’re gonna undo a lot of double-sided tape.

David Read:
That’s true too. Oh, I already had a higher-resolution photo. Little bitty bit of that.

Mark Nicholson:
The other thing I remember about this thing was that handle on the side was a late addition.

David Read:
Oh, this one here?

Mark Nicholson:
Because the original drawing for it just had a handle on the bottom, and the first time I saw it, I was like, “No, people can’t hold something this big that way. That doesn’t work at all.”

David Read:
Unwieldy.

Mark Nicholson:
“We’re gonna need this.” No one believed me, and then when they finally put it together, they were like, “Oh, yeah, no, it doesn’t work at all.” And I’m like, “Told ya.”

David Read:
‘Cause it’s configured for a tripod underneath here, but …

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah.

David Read:
… Sam, she doesn’t pivot it and then lean it down. ‘Cause you could only do this with it, so she has to dismount it and then aim it to shoot it at the guy, which for some reason it shoots green, so, way cool, man.

Mark Nicholson:
What color it shoots is definitely the kind of stuff where I don’t get to see that until it airs.

David Read:
That’s a post-production picture.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh wow, yeah, I remember that. Yep.

David Read:
What a beauty. And none of them were broken, but they had definitely been rattling around. And you got the hex keys. I’m surprised I don’t have a picture of the heat sink. We just took it off. But yeah, go over to the Propworx YouTube page and look up BFG, Bravo Foxtrot Golf, and you’ll find it. So, we had a ton of these, and let me tell you, Mark, it was really interesting with eBay posting so much of this stuff. Because it was like, “Prop C4.” It’s not actual C4. There’s no plastic explosive in here. It’s just folded cardboard together, so look in the technical descriptions, everybody. And things like Wraith eyes, contact lenses we couldn’t sell. We’ve had that conversation before. But this is, I was surprised you pulled this.

Mark Nicholson:
‘Cause it’s a thick paper. It’s printed with that, and I mean depending, there might be modeling clay inside if you actually gotta pierce it on set. Or it’d be a 2×4.

David Read:
Manufactured July 28th, 1999.

Mark Nicholson:
It’d just be a block of wood if we needed it to be heavy and sturdy, and it’d be funny because we’d just, “Oh yeah, we need to make some more C4.” And someone would hand me some sheets, and I’d be like, “OK, I’ll go to the table saw.”

David Read:
Just folded them up. If you could crunch your fist down on this, you’d destroy it immediately. It’s just a little empty box. Aw, look.

Mark Nicholson:
We had a high-quality 3D printer in 2007, and this was some of our early test work trying to figure out what it could do.

David Read:
So, why wouldn’t you use it? Absolutely.

Mark Nicholson:
It was 2007, so it was still not a very-well-working 3D printer.

David Read:
Looks pretty darn good, I think.

Mark Nicholson:
I thought it looked great.

David Read:
Furling.

Mark Nicholson:
This is the Furling setup for the actors inside. They had that helmet, the mask, and then the control pieces rigged up.

David Read:
Wow. We could hear servos inside of the ears, but we had no radio controllers for it, but we would move and then they’d go, “Eeh, meeh.” And it’s, “OK, we’re not doing that anymore. Gonna break it, lock them into a position.” But really cool. Giant koalas.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, you can see a piece of the concept art in the corner on that, that one.

David Read:
Looky there. I’ve never seen that. Makeup?

Mark Nicholson:
Probably. And then there’s a piece of RenShape at the top middle, that pink stuff.

David Read:
Oh, OK.

Mark Nicholson:
So, it’s a very dense foam. And it’s as hard as wood, but if you try and take a drill bit through wood and you hit a knot, all sorts of bad things happen. This is just a synthetic replacement for that.

David Read:
Wow. So, cool. And now, Sommer, you haven’t answered your question. How many teeth do Furlings have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. There you go. Ah, look, there it is. Yeah, giant koalas. And some tech on their arms. I don’t think we saw them wearing any tech. Look at that in the ears.

Mark Nicholson:
There was a console they were working with …

David Read:
There was, yes.

Mark Nicholson:
… or two.

David Read:
But I mean, wearable tech.

Mark Nicholson:
In the scene.

David Read:
Yep. Lot of tree trunks. Neat. Rotate this. Wow. How cool.

Mark Nicholson:
It was fun to watch this come together. The early stuff with the scanning, I did a little bit of work on, and then the rest of it was other people in the shop. But these are fun pictures. Everyone loves the Furlings.

David Read:
Yep. And they are furry.

Mark Nicholson:
And because I had watched the first four seasons by chance the year before I started working on it, I knew exactly why everyone was excited for this. So, it was a lot of fun, and it was helpful to be able to say why everyone was …

David Read:
You could share it with the model shop.

Mark Nicholson:
… excited for these, ’cause some of the other people building had no concept of why this would be important. It’s like, “No, people have been waiting to see these guys for 10 years.”

David Read:
Yep, absolutely.

Mark Nicholson:
And that’s one of the actors on set, taking a break. He’s sitting on a piece of wood or something there. And there’s the two actors with three of the four members of SG-1, because …

David Read:
Wait, what?

Mark Nicholson:
… someone didn’t have a shaved head at that point, and they were gonna film from the back.

David Read:
Wow! Didn’t even occur to me. That’s not Herbert, is it?

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know who it is.

David Read:
OK, it doesn’t look like Herbert Duncanson. Interesting.

Mark Nicholson:
All they needed was someone that height and with his head from the back, ’cause they were, “No, we’re not gonna get–” Wow, my name’s blanking.

David Read:
Christopher? Yeah.

Mark Nicholson:
They were like–

David Read:
To shave his head for just one scene.

Mark Nicholson:
“We’re not gonna get Chris to shave his head for just the one scene, because we need him for all sorts of other stuff too. So, we’re just doing this. We’re just gonna get someone else to shoot him from the back, it won’t matter.”

David Read:
He would’ve been easy enough to put a bald cap on. There you go.

Mark Nicholson:
I wasn’t privy to it. I saw the pictures–

David Read:
Exactly.

Mark Nicholson:
I saw these pictures the next day. ‘Cause one of the other prop makers had gone on set to do the remote control for the ears and stuff. And mind all the costuming. And they shared these pictures the next day. They’re like, “This is what happened yesterday down at the park where it was.”

David Read:
In so many ways, this is the best episode of the show, in so many ways. Because all it is, is just a Valentine.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s a love letter to all the things everyone loved. And because it was one of the first episodes I got to work on, I’m sitting there, I’m getting to build, “What? I’m doing this now? I’ve got one of these?” That was so much fun. I’m getting really dark in this room.

David Read:
Sure is.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m gonna turn on some lights behind me.

David Read:
Light your soul.

Mark Nicholson:
There we go.

David Read:
Continuum. After the Goa’uld, we’ve been hearing about Tok’ra extraction since maybe Season Three or earlier, because it happens to Klorel. And apparently it’s been a thing at this point, because Landry has seen one done. He says, “It’ll blow your mind and everything else.” But then we see it, and the Goa’uld passes through an eye of a needle before it ends up in this thing, this container, which was expressed on screen as CG bubbles, until the Tok’ra leader smashes it on the ground. And this is the one that was destroyed, what we’re seeing here.

Mark Nicholson:
What I found interesting about the pictures of these is they all looked like they were still full of what I think was K-Y Jelly. But that one clearly had something happen to it; it dried out, and it actually, because it was airtight, sucked in.

David Read:
Probably from the heat of being where it was stored.

Mark Nicholson:
Maybe?

David Read:
But it was only a couple of years before we got it, not even that.

Mark Nicholson:
But if K-Y Jelly had anything to dry out with, or if it was hot on set and then cooled down, that might have happened to it afterwards.

David Read:
It may have been left in someone’s car; there’s something weird happening to it.

Mark Nicholson:
If anything, it would have been left in the enclosed back of a cube van, which would be much hotter.

David Read:
But yeah, there were different versions and different parts to it. I thought that was an interesting shape, this little thing in here.

Mark Nicholson:
That is weird. And then one of these other things is, these are all spare parts. Those are bits of RenShape that I was talking about. This was the one I knew, but I’m like, “How did–” I’m assuming some of these spare parts would have gone in the bin of spare parts for the set, but these ones wouldn’t have, because they’re not prepared.

David Read:
They weren’t even ready to go.

Mark Nicholson:
How did you get these?

David Read:
We were grabbing stuff that they authorized us to grab. So, this was a part of– If they created it and there was a chance that we could sell it, they let us have it. We sold a Jack O’Neill mockup of the puppets. And it’s clearly Jack’s face on it. But the only thing that’s rendered is his hair, and everything else is just– And he’s got a little wooden stand and wooden dowels for all the parts to make work. And Martin Wood and I have yet to have that conversation about that particular piece.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember making all the little– All the military uniforms had little service medals or whatever they’re called, like the little bars. And then the little bits and pieces for those. I got to make all those.

David Read:
For Hammond.

Mark Nicholson:
I got to make all those. It was a lot of fun. I live by the words of Puppet General Hammond, “Spinning is so much cooler than not spinning.”

David Read:
That’s right. One of the best lines from the whole show. “It has to spin. It’s round.”

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah.

David Read:
So, we talked about how these denature really quickly, these little joints. And all you said, it’s just latex, leather, or rubber gloves.

Mark Nicholson:
I think it was a different medical …

David Read:
And they’re good for a couple days and then that’s it.

Mark Nicholson:
… one. Every time we would have one of these go to set, you’d have to carefully pull the last one off and put a new one on ’cause they do not last.

David Read:
Fans have been trying to make a durable replacement for years, and I don’t know if they’ve figured it out.

Mark Nicholson:
So, much of the stuff just doesn’t last. You can’t keep it the way it is. The sandblast mask, or that, the Goa’uld extractor thing. They just–

David Read:
They wear out.

Mark Nicholson:
They’re designed to work on set that day.

David Read:
And then that’s all.

Mark Nicholson:
And then that’s it. There’s an aspect of maintaining these props that is, you can’t keep them the same. You can’t.

David Read:
And you only needed to do these for the ones that opened and closed. Once they’re in the closed position or the open position, the actors have those. The locked-to-open position have the rubberized …

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
… sections. You only need these for the ones that are gonna transform. And these were one of the later series because it was servo-based, whereas the first ones were air compressed.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
We sold both kinds. Look at that paint job on that. That is so cool. So, you have this gold underneath and then this black on top.

Mark Nicholson:
One of the servo ones, I know where one is. I’ve gotten to use it.

David Read:
Wow. Very cool.

Mark Nicholson:
There’s so much about these props where they’re designed to work on set that week. They’re not built to last.

David Read:
We had to be very careful with anything that was electronic because it was really easy to damage it. You can see buttons and things.

Mark Nicholson:
I picked the pictures of the ones that aren’t looking very good because– They never looked like that on set, but now they age out and they don’t last.

David Read:
And these were photographed in 2010. So, as you can see, the hex keys.

Mark Nicholson:
So, some of the other pictures from that same period, they’re in better shape. But this was the whole collection, not just the one I was repairing ’cause I would usually just get one. It’s like, “Oh yeah, we’re gonna do a shot with a Zat gun today. Can you fix one up for the shooting?”

David Read:
Here’s one of the ones that were static.

Mark Nicholson:
We would sometimes do those ones up too, if they had one that was looking bad already.

David Read:
Sure. Cannibalize it. I’m assuming that this was the power cell just like the staff weapons were.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know. It’s the purple bit on the end.

David Read:
So, radio controller. There you go. That is how–

Mark Nicholson:
There’s one.

David Read:
And they put the buttons on there and then little labels to assign each. You could make it fast. You could make it slower. You could make them overload. Who was the guy who designed all of the electronics? Was that Paco?

Mark Nicholson:
No. We had another person. Again, I don’t really wanna name everyone because they’ve generally been uninterested in this, even when I’ve talked about it. But we had one guy who was just doing electronics all the time. He would make that controller. He’d get the little box for the controller, and he’d be like, “Here’s a diagram for where all the buttons are,” and then I’d make that front plate to go on it.

David Read:
Wow, and then these ends popped off, so a little rare earth there.

Mark Nicholson:
And I believe that person is still working with Paco. Paco has his own shop now. And I sent him a question earlier this year from a prop collector.

David Read:
Very cool. If anyone that I’m going after from behind the scenes, it’s the sound guys at Sharpe Sound. I’ve done everything I could to get them on, but the two people who were chiefly responsible for Stargate, they’re still there. And every time I call, they’re in the studio editing. It’s like, there you go. So, you’re in business.

Mark Nicholson:
Hey, it’s a job.

David Read:
It’s a job.

Mark Nicholson:
You’re still making money.

David Read:
They’re good at what they do.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m getting really dark here.

David Read:
You are.

Mark Nicholson:
There we go. That better?

David Read:
There we go. All right, and you look like a Tok’ra now. That’s perfect.

Mark Nicholson:
I’ve got different colors. It’s just a little LED light setup here.

David Read:
There you go. It works. Whoa. Is this the front of the prop shop, model shop?

Mark Nicholson:
This is the front of the model shop. We had a room in there that was really nice. In the later seasons, it turned into an office when– So, we were in a part of Burnaby away from Bridge Studios. And across us was the old Norco Bikes factory building that had been turned into extra film sets for Stargate. And then–

David Read:
There’s the double-ended staff right there, right in the middle there.

Mark Nicholson:
There were offices in there for a bunch of people. And then when they stopped using it for that, it turned into Amanda Tapping’s show, Sanctuary.

David Read:
Sanctuary, yep.

Mark Nicholson:
They filmed there, all of it. That was their office. That was their studio. That was everything. They filmed everything on that one lot. It was remarkable what they did.

David Read:
As Peter DeLuise called it, Snorco.

Mark Nicholson:
This turned into offices later. But for the first couple years, it was just a display room, so we put stuff we had on display here, and anyone coming in would get to see a bunch of cool stuff.

David Read:
So, this is Anubis, the jackal. This never, believe it or not, appeared in the television series. I don’t know who it was built for. I don’t know if you guys got it from the feature film.

Mark Nicholson:
Those, that, and the other two were from the film.

David Read:
But the Horus appeared throughout the series. For whatever reason, this one made the transition, but– Whoops. But this one did not. And guess which one ended up on the cover of volume one of the two catalogs? This guy right here. I’m like, “We’re putting something on the front here that never showed up.” We sold it, saying that it was stock from the movie, which is what we figured that it was, but I was like, “This is–” I was overruled.

Mark Nicholson:
I expect that, like you said, the electronics were fragile, and they didn’t survive, and that’s why it never plays even here.

David Read:
This is static. This is a rubber mold.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know why. Maybe they just didn’t write–

David Read:
I’m not expecting you to. I was curious about that. What’s interesting is these ears just kept on falling off, and so we had to keep on getting epoxy.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember that was true too.

David Read:
So, it wasn’t the first time they fell off?

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
So, we had a prop guy on our team at Propworx, because the idea was we were gonna start getting a license to sell props. And so he stuck around for like a year and a half, didn’t make one thing, made a ton of money without having to make anything. But one of the things that he did was repair stuff for us. And he was like, “OK, I got some epoxy for this. I’ll reattach it. It’ll never come off again. Never.” This guy was one of those guys where he was so sure of himself that he really had to watch out, because if something didn’t happen the way he said it would, we went for him, and those things fell off all the time.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m hearing that, and I’m going, “No, gluing stuff together does not work great.” It really doesn’t. Attaching things to something else in an interesting way is hard. You know what was really hard to attach stuff to?

David Read:
What’s that?

Mark Nicholson:
These guys. ‘Cause they’re just a little acrylic piece.

David Read:
Yeah, and you had a little pin on the back of it.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, and it was like, “How do we attach the pin?” I don’t even remember what we actually did in the end.

David Read:
You had that adhesive, that industrial-strength adhesive now that you can get, where you select the number of pounds that you want it to put and just get whole sheets. And it’s clear, and you just put it on, but I don’t think that was really commercial back then.

Mark Nicholson:
Probably not. But no, sticking stuff to each other is hard. Like I said, lots of double-sided tape. We went through rolls of that stuff. But it also means it’s easy to repair, but it’s hard to maintain for long periods of time under hot lights.

David Read:
Exactly. So, with this, we already talked about the story where this was one of the first things that you did in terms of backlighting for these crystal pieces here. Which is so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
And you know what? We could, we can relate it to the thing I was just saying, ’cause the set this was on, the Ori bridge, was one of the things on one of the Norco sets. And this was the time where I’m like, “You know what? I know they’re not shooting right now. I’m just gonna go sneak over there and take a look at what’s going on and walk through these sets.”

David Read:
You took this photo?

Mark Nicholson:
No, I didn’t take this photo. This was probably done in the same room as the ones just before.

David Read:
This chair was not stable. Just look at it.

Mark Nicholson:
Actually, I think I know who has this chair.

David Read:
We didn’t sell it, but I’m sure it was. It’s a beautiful piece.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, I think I know who has this chair. But getting to sneak over and see it in the set was like the first time I got to see a set at all, was seeing this thing. And I think one stage was like a Goa’uld shuttle. And the third stage was Atlantis Season Three, at the beginning, they’re on a Wraith ship.

David Read:
Yeah, the Hive ship.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, they’re on the Hive ship. But the set that they had from Season Two at the end when they’re on the Hive ship and the set from the beginning of Season Three, they’re completely different. We built a whole new one.

David Read:
Hewlett, he left for the season and came back for Season Three. I remember talking to him. He was like, “The Wraith ship is cut this year. Like, it is so muscly.” That’s what he said.

Mark Nicholson:
What’s weird is, when I was on it, it was full of color. It was all bright red and vibrant, and it looked amazing. And then when they light it, it’s all this very dark purple.

David Read:
Interesting.

Mark Nicholson:
You could barely see it.

David Read:
Wow. Guess that’s the way they want it.

Mark Nicholson:
But there was a lot of work for that. And I was over helping them with some of it. It looked super cool. It was a lot of fun.

David Read:
Anti-Replicator guns. So, Jack had his in Season Eight, for “New Order 1 and 2” which was later reused in “Gemini.” And then this one appeared, I think its first appearance was in Continuum with– I don’t know if it appeared in Continuum first or in Atlantis Season Three first. No, you know what? It had to have been Atlantis Season Three.

Mark Nicholson:
It was Atlantis Season Three, ’cause Continuum was the next year.

David Read:
That’s right. It’s during production with Season Four of Atlantis. So, this stock collapsed in and out. I don’t know if it was with this one. I think it was. And then this turned here. To turn on and off. There were several settings to it, I suppose, stun the Replicator and kill the Replicator. And then these lit, and then the front was just a plastic piece that was fitted on. These were heavy.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes, they are.

David Read:
And you had stunt ones, and you had metal ones, and you had rubber and metal ones. ‘Cause this here at the bottom was attached. It was generally, this piece here was not.

Mark Nicholson:
But the hero ones were just a block of aluminum. They’re very heavy.

David Read:
And then the little carving and everything else.

Mark Nicholson:
And then I was doing all these laser-etched details on it into the paint.

David Read:
A beautiful piece, that you literally pinch these and the thing pulled out.

Mark Nicholson:
That action was wonderful.

David Read:
There’s video of me on KOMO News demonstrating it.

Mark Nicholson:
They were very heavy. And I remember, the prop master that year, Dean Goodine, I think he has a book out this year. I gotta go read it.

David Read:
It’s been out for a couple years.

Mark Nicholson:
He had a book. I was looking him up this year, because I live near a place that’s filmed constantly here in greater Vancouver, and I ran into some people on a set and was talking to them, and we got talking about people we both knew. And Dean came up, and I looked him up, and he had a book from a couple years ago. I’m like, “Oh, I should go read that.” It’s on my list.

David Read:
They Don’t Pay Me to something. I forget what it was.

Mark Nicholson:
They Don’t Pay Me to Say No.

David Read:
That’s it. And there’s a picture of him holding a cow prop, dead cow prop.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember he came back, and he was like, “Yeah, these things were so heavy. And some of the actors did not like it, and some of the actors who were …”

David Read:
Fatigued.

Mark Nicholson:
.”.. much smaller–were running around with them all day, one in each hand like a pro.”

David Read:
Sangraal crystal. Why’d you pick this one? Did you design the box?

Mark Nicholson:
I designed the box. And it was definitely one of those things where I’m like, “I’ve not thought about this for 15 years at all. I was like, “Wait. No, wait, I built these things.” And the first picture I saw was with the larger box that has nothing in it, and I’m like, “What went in here again?” And I’m like, “Oh no, right, it was those little red orbs that were really important to the plot. This is a big important thing, and I’ve forgotten it.”

David Read:
The other box was for communication stones.

Mark Nicholson:
Was it? OK.

David Read:
From “Identity,” I think. It was “Identity,” at the end of Atlantis. But this one was from the episode where Daniel, we get him back, but he’s a Prior, “The Shroud.” So, Merlin, when he designed the whole apparatus, he was nice enough to design a box for the Sangraal before he died.

Mark Nicholson:
Him and me, ’cause I think the designs on the outside–

David Read:
See what I mean?

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know if that actually was in the drawing, but it was one of those fun things where I’m like, “Oh yeah, I made this thing. I forgot about it.”

David Read:
It would make it interesting. So, this is the location SG-1 Gate. So, you can see the Atlantis section right here that was one third.

Mark Nicholson:
I just saw Gate pictures, and I’m like, “Everyone wants to see Gate pictures.” Actually, hang on.

David Read:
This is where it was in lockup with me.

Mark Nicholson:
That thing over on the side is from the Season Three Wraith set.

David Read:
This one here.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember building that.

David Read:
Yep, and then you’ve got, back here you have the– We’re gonna see pieces of this later. This is the Asuran core with the acrylics that are on top of it. We’ve got highlights of those.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s what it was.

David Read:
And there are nine of these sections. It goes, this is number eight. That’s probably number nine for the SG-1 location Stargate, and you’ve got the frame underneath, the scaffolding that it went on. It took them a day to put up and a day to take down. And then back here, we have the Atlantis central core where the ZPMs were. This was made for “Before I Sleep.”

Mark Nicholson:
Ah, yes.

David Read:
Yeah, and this, I’m not sure what this is. This is a cabinet for something.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s a cabinet, but it’s the back of something …

David Read:
Exactly. No clue what it is.

Mark Nicholson:
… ’cause I think the dolly’s attached to it.

David Read:
Yep.

Mark Nicholson:
That dolly’s screwed into it.

David Read:
Oh, there you go.

Mark Nicholson:
What is that?

David Read:
I know what it is.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, good.

David Read:
It is the Asgard puppet from Season Three, so when Thor was used in “Fair Game.” And you, “squee,” you open this thing up, and it’s his coffin, and he’s laying on the inside of it. And I didn’t know why, but I think it was screwed on there that way to always keep him oriented up, so that when he was stored he could be stored vertical, so that he wouldn’t be stored on his head. That’s why they did it that way. Man, the details that come back after just seeing something. You’re right.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, it’s been long enough that all of this is a weird trip.

David Read:
Yeah. That’s SG-1. We got two more shows to go. Let me pull this up here. So, we were talking candy glass earlier. Candy glass was used to create ZPMs in the Season One episode “Home” because McKay goes, “And this, and this!” And he throws the thing over, and then he holds up the pieces of the ZPM to show it’s a fake universe that they’re in. And there it is.

Mark Nicholson:
OK, so that’s a candy glass one …

David Read:
It’s a candy glass ZPM.

Mark Nicholson:
… ’cause I was, “This one looks really rough.”

David Read:
We were very careful with it, and you can see the lines are completely different. They just use this kind of epoxy or whatever, whereas the other one was plastic lines.

Mark Nicholson:
The other one was heat-extruded ABS, like you would with a 3D printer now.

David Read:
That’s how it was done, OK, ’cause– We’ll talk offline. But yeah, this is all candy glass.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s what this is.

David Read:
Ancient pull-away panel. I don’t remember what this was to, and I haven’t translated this.

Mark Nicholson:
It was in Season Three. And I remember it mostly because the box behind it, I wrote a secret message for a friend in it.

David Read:
Really?

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. This was the friend who had lent me the first four seasons of Stargate right before.

David Read:
Oh, wow. Thanks for the DVDs.

Mark Nicholson:
I was out of town at an event for them that was really important when I learned I got this job. I was like, “No…” And if you go hunting for it, you won’t find it. It’s obscure. There’s only a handful of people who know what it is. But it was just, “No, there’s a bunch of random shapes in here. I can make some of them slightly less random.” And not be a really obvious thing. But it was just, hey, so when my friend watches it, I could be like, “Hey, this thing? Yeah, here, let me tell you the notes to show you what it is.” And they’re like, “Ah, cool.”

David Read:
That’s cool. All the little details. I think these are to the museum in “Bad Guys.” I may be wrong.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
OK, so this is in the wrong show. That’s my bad…

Mark Nicholson:
That’s OK.

David Read:
Very, very cool.

Mark Nicholson:
And I have the key still.

David Read:
You do? Look at that.

Mark Nicholson:
‘Cause this was my prototype for does it work?

David Read:
Put it right in front of you.

Mark Nicholson:
And then we made a small change for the actual ones, but I kept my spare prototype. I still know how to get in. I haven’t watched it since, but that’s my favorite episode.

David Read:
I love “Bad Guys.” “You’re hostages! We’re heavily armed! There’s a whole school of etiquette to this!” “Don’t eyeball me.”

Mark Nicholson:
The whole thing’s so much fun. I love how everything’s turned on its head. It was a lot of fun.

David Read:
You guys made it so that they could put something close to it and it would change color. So, I think, I don’t know if you put a sensor inside of this swipe, but there was a way to do it. These had batteries.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t remember how that worked. I think there might have actually been a sensor in there that did, “Hey, something passed through, and we’re gonna change color.”

David Read:
Yup, sure did. Red and green.

Mark Nicholson:
I would’ve made all the buttons for that as well.

David Read:
This is a crew gift.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes, it is. I forgot to grab mine when I was grabbing stuff today. It’s upstairs.

David Read:
Ah, how cool is this?

Mark Nicholson:
I got an alarm clock a couple years later that accepts an iPod. I put music on it and I listen to that when I wake up every morning.

David Read:
Apple’s a long-lasting product. The Vanir Asgard helmet. This is the version that was made for “First Contact” and “The Lost Tribe.” Look at all the wear and tear on it. Look at all the aging. You have to build something, and then you have to take, what? Industrial appliances and damage it?

Mark Nicholson:
I think the mesh tubing on there is the only thing that’s a pre-made part. Everything else is custom molded for this.

David Read:
This is why they were $300,000 for the three of them.

Mark Nicholson:
Basically. That was a lot of work, making those suits. It was a really big lift from our team to put those together.

David Read:
And you had, what, a month of pre-production? A month, a heads-up for that?

Mark Nicholson:
I think it was six or seven weeks.

David Read:
OK, good. They gave you some real runway. That’s not what they had when they built Prometheus sets for the first time. But that was the construction team.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, that would’ve been rough.

David Read:
Wouldn’t it, though? I’m so glad these are preserved in photography. Look at that.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m trying to think if I still have the– Because one of the things we did was we 3D scanned these and made a digital model for them for the VFX team. I think I might still have that somewhere.

David Read:
The assets for them?

Mark Nicholson:
Maybe.

David Read:
Very cool. And we were talking about the glow sticks last time.

Mark Nicholson:
They needed a gun– This was a little rubber-cast gun thing.

David Read:
They’re both rubber.

Mark Nicholson:
And they were like, “We need them to glow, but really simply.”

David Read:
No power. “We can’t run power down to them. The arms or the guns.”

Mark Nicholson:
So, they just did glow sticks.

David Read:
And the little–

Mark Nicholson:
It works. And then the front just comes off, as you can see in the little bit below.

David Read:
Yep, we just pop these off.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know what that symbol is.

David Read:
It’s Asgard. It has to be Asgard.

Mark Nicholson:
It should be, but I don’t know how to read it.

David Read:
They evolved their language completely differently. I can’t read it either. And the Asgard, it’s very, very different writing from the– Oh, what’s the Norse writing system called? I forget what it is. Chad, help me out here. All right. Speaking of, this would come off. This one did not.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. And I think we spoke about this last time. I glued those on, and they were like, “Are you sure? ‘Cause this won’t come off.” They were like, “No, we’re never using them again. You’re good to do this.” And I was like, “Poor Thor.”

David Read:
I’m trying to remember what year this one was built. He was definitely used in Seasons 9 and 10. So, what we’re masking here is all of the steel rods that go into his arms. And I think that that’s it. Maybe his legs as well? But we Photoshopped all of that out, and then my buddy Lee put these in to make it look like he was standing. He’s on his back in this shot, and it’s just– It was such a joy to be able to sell him and such a travesty what happened to him. Whoever got him didn’t take care of him ’cause I saw pictures of him later. Look at his little teeth.

Mark Nicholson:
Again, they’re made of …

David Read:
Silicone.

Mark Nicholson:
… latex and stuff. It doesn’t last. It’s what happens is what happens to them. It’s hard to preserve. It’s expensive to preserve. And even then, you look at some of the old Muppet stuff, latex doesn’t keep.

David Read:
Yep. No, you’re right. It’s just the guy who bought it said, “Yeah, I’m gonna get a nitrogen case for it.” I’m like, “Oh, you did, did ya?” So, that’s just what I’m lamenting.

Mark Nicholson:
Also, he bought it. It’s his. He’s allowed to do what he wants with it.

David Read:
Sidebar. You fully endorse that?

Mark Nicholson:
100%.

David Read:
There is a person in the prop community who buys things and then cuts them up and alters them.

Mark Nicholson:
They’re allowed to do that.

David Read:
Of course they’re allowed to do that. The question that I’m saying is, should they do that?

Mark Nicholson:
100% it’s theirs. They can do whatever they want with it. I will say, I’ve talked to some prop collectors who know you for your hard stance on that.

David Read:
There we go. I have the hard stance on that because the fact of the matter is, most of this stuff will outlast you. Those items will be reinvested back into the community, very likely, because whoever it is that has to get rid of all of your stuff, they’re going to want to, presumably, maximize their return out of it. And it’s going to diminish the amount that it could potentially go for because the provenance of the item has been damaged, if not destroyed. So, I’m not saying that when you get this you have to sign something saying that you’re never gonna touch it. I’m not saying that at all. You’re talking to a libertarian here who’s very, very much, “Yeah, you can do whatever you want with it.” What I’m also saying is that it’s a dick thing to do. Those two things can exist simultaneously.

Mark Nicholson:
I understand what you’re talking about, diminishing its value. Yeah, totally. But also, one of the things I’ve been mentioning is so many of these props, they fall apart and they degrade naturally on their own. Or you’ll get things where we’ll build something and then the lighting crew will come in and they’ll put all their lights in it on set. And then when it’s done, they will pull all their lights out and it comes with no lights when you buy the prop and you’re like, “How do I light it?” I don’t even have– people ask me this constantly and no one– I don’t even know the people to ask the answer to, let alone whatever light product it was 20 years ago, you probably can’t even get, so you’re just, go find whatever. That’s what I would do in the position when I would be asked for things like this.

David Read:
To restore it to how it appeared on screen, not to alter it for its own sake.

Mark Nicholson:
But even so, I’m saying restoring it to how it appeared on screen is impossible. And I’ve worked with enough of taking old things from the show that we’re using again in the show and we …

David Read:
For production use.

Mark Nicholson:
… can’t restore them to how they were. All the time. You make it work, you do the best you can. That is the nature of the process. And so when I see fans doing this, yeah, that’s what we do. That’s how it works. That’s what it is. There is no restoring it to what it was. We rework these things all the time. It’s like taking a sandcastle and you pile up the sand just enough so it– You can take a picture of it at the top, and then it all falls down again. And then it’s a bunch of work putting up new sand to do the same thing again.

David Read:
So, the Louvre can put a mustache on the Mona Lisa and you’re completely fine with it?

Mark Nicholson:
That’s not at all the same thing.

David Read:
It’s very much the same thing. You, you are–

Mark Nicholson:
No, ’cause they go in and they restore it as best they can when they rework these paintings.

David Read:
They’re restoring. They’re not altering.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. But can a private collector go and tear a painting in half? They can. It’s their–

David Read:
All we’re talking about is the question of law, not a question of what’s right or what’s wrong. These pieces are being held in trust for the future by the museums. What I’m suggesting is that, as someone who possesses a lot of these pieces, I’m recognizing that while many of these pieces will not outlast me physically, they will deteriorate beforehand. Many will not. And I feel I have an obligation to the future to take care of them, if it is within my power, and I find a deliberate alteration of them to make them, for this individual that I know, look better in-person, is an affront and a violation of the work that was created. It’s a piece of film and television history, and you should feel a responsibility to take care of it. I think it’s a similar argument between burning your country’s flag. You can do it. As a libertarian, think that you should be able to. It’s a dick thing to do. Unless you’re specifically using it as a symbol for protest for something. You can have that argument as well. And that’s my only argument with it. But yeah, you can do whatever. There’s all kinds of things that you can do, and …

Mark Nicholson:
What I’m trying to say is …

David Read:
… there’s consequences after.

Mark Nicholson:
… when people change it to, “Hey, I need to light it, but I can’t light it the authentic way.” “The light’s broken. I have to tear it apart. I actually have to damage it to even get in there to put lights in it.” That’s gonna happen, and there’s an aspect of it that has to happen. Always will happen.

David Read:
To restore.

Mark Nicholson:
I see someone in the comments talking about Banksy shredding a picture during the auction. That’s a great example of it, where no, the art piece is that it was destroyed during the auction, not what people thought it was going into the auction.

David Read:
You’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to give some background. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Mark Nicholson:
No, there was a Banksy painting in a frame.

David Read:
Banksy? That’s an artist?

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. And it sold for millions of dollars at auction, live auction. And then someone remotely, on Banksy’s team or himself, hit the button and it went through a shredder hidden in the frame.

David Read:
Why? Was it designed to do that, or were they making a statement?

Mark Nicholson:
It was designed to do that, and they’re making a statement. You should look up Banksy’s work to understand more. He mostly started as a graffiti artist.

David Read:
So, the art is in the action itself.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes. And so part of that was, it was a very–

David Read:
I can appreciate that.

Mark Nicholson:
I think some of it was, “No, like, the people spending money on art, this is silly,” was one of the things he was trying to say with it. What I’m trying to say is, a lot of this stuff can’t be preserved. You have to change it if you wanna be able to have it work. Getting it–

David Read:
That’s not what I’m arguing, that’s not what I’m arguing for. Or against.

Mark Nicholson:
Can people transform it and make it their own thing? They’re allowed to.

David Read:
Yes, they can. They are allowed to. But I think there’s a conversation to be had there as well about the future. The restoring, damaging stuff in order to restore it with someone who’s really– May I give a specific example of what happened to me? And please, God, let him not be watching. I have one of the three spacesuits that you guys built for the Vanir in my living room downstairs. And stupidly, so stupidly, I plugged it in and had it run a lot. The first thing that I did, every time I was home, not realizing LEDs from that early on have an even more finite lifespan than the ones that we have now do. And lo and behold, my God, the chest piece went out. It burnt out. And my guy down the road who I had rip off the back panel on the inside and install a power plug that I could plug into the wall for it, restoring the ability–or creating an ability–for it to run continuously as opposed to on batteries, said, “Yeah, that was gonna happen.” I’m like, “Shit, OK, very good.” I said, “OK, well, here’s the box.” I said, “Can you make this work again?” He said, “No, you can’t.” And I’m not sure if he was right, so I kept it for years and years. I’ve got it somewhere. But I returned it to him. This one that you guys made, it had holes in the front where the lights went through. Or the light went through, and that specific sequence. And I was hoping–I gave it back to him, and I asked him, “Restore this for me as best you can.” And he said, “Got it. Totally.” I got it back, and I can see plastic fronts of the bulbs sticking through the holes. I’m like, “That’s interesting.” And I plugged it in, and there’s a square piece on that chest that was lit when it was on Atlantis but was not backlit when it was on Universe. It was now lit up again, and it’s got all these different Christmas-light colors going. And he said, “Look, I made it more colorful.” And I said, “Yeah. You did. I sent you the video of the light sequence and which light goes where, and the prominence of this piece has been reduced by the alterations that you made without–and one of the reasons that I paid you as much as I paid you–faithfully restoring it as best you could to the version that was in the show.” And I don’t know how much of that I told him. Similarly, I had the USS George Hammond plaque from the Hammond. Duh.

Mark Nicholson:
I think I’ve seen that picture in there, and I remember making a few small pieces for it.

David Read:
Yep. And the paint job, the paint was scuffed and everything. And I had a friend who was very good with paint. And I was like, “There’s three layers of paint. They’re three different colors.” She said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” It came back, amazing job. It’s seamless. I turn it over. She’s painted the back of it. And she was like, “Yeah, I did a great job on the back too.” I said, “Jan, did you see all the stage instructions that were written here with pencil on the back, explaining details about the set and everything else?” She’s like, “Yeah, but I didn’t think anything about that.” I was like, “OK.” I appreciate the paint job that you did on the back for something that no one will ever see, and definitely it didn’t show up on film, but at the same time, it’s a lesser thing now than it was potentially when I turn around to share the story of this piece in the future, if I perhaps sell it on before I– which is more than likely gonna happen, so I’m gonna sell it far sooner than my time on this Earth. It’s little things like that that just frustrate me, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this.

Mark Nicholson:
My first thought is that is part one of learning to let go when you’re not in full control of working on a team. Someone else is gonna do it differently, all the time, every time. And I work on creative projects where there’s three or four people above me, and someone is like, “I wanna build this,” and we all build bits and pieces that all aren’t what they envisioned, and yet we all still have to move forward with it. That’s the creative process.

David Read:
You guys are the creators though, so it makes sense …

Mark Nicholson:
Yep. No. What I’m saying–

David Read:
… to reuse stuff later for other productions.

Mark Nicholson:
But where you gave someone a direction to paint and they do it differently, there’s an aspect of it that’s maybe your contract for, hey, do it this way and how much instruction you give them. But it’s always gonna be different than what you envision. There’s always gonna be something that bothers you about the way it works. That is inherent to this process at all levels all the time. And internally, on this show even, we would build something, and it wouldn’t be what they envisioned, and we’d go make revisions, or we would not depending on the time, money, and the decision going on. But that thing where it’s never quite the same or never what you envision, that is always there. And it’s always as strong as what you just described. And learning to move forward through that is a really important skill.

David Read:
The pieces that prop collectors possess, they don’t have them because– In some cases they have it because it was production made, if it was never used on screen. But a lot of us wouldn’t, pretty much everyone wouldn’t own the piece or have paid as much money for the piece unless it had appeared on screen and is a slice of that show’s history. And if it was reused later, that makes sense, for another project, that makes sense. But then for me, who’s not involved in the production, to put a mustache on the Asgard puppet, for instance, is my right as its owner.

Mark Nicholson:
Again, I ruined the Asgard puppet. That’s a really good example of it. I glued a thing on that doesn’t come off.

David Read:
To be used in production.

Mark Nicholson:
But also just like–

David Read:
That’s not what I’m talking about. Because you used it for production.

Mark Nicholson:
And what I’m saying is, everyone else doing this same thing all the time is how these things get used. Yes, you care about it that way, but the person you hired to do it didn’t understand it the same way, and you hadn’t conveyed it to them the same way. And that–

David Read:
For sure, and that’s on me.

Mark Nicholson:
And what I’m saying is, that aspect of communication in the creative process is universal, in and out and everywhere else, all the time. This always happens. What I’m trying to say is, if you get anyone to do work on your stuff, it’s not gonna be the same as what you want, always. And so this problem, if you’re ever getting work done on your props, it will always happen. This is always going to happen. But the thing is that that process happens all the time all the way through. No one building it is bothered by that process. It’s only those of us who really care about it and are invested in the show, ’cause I am too, I get it. But they can. It’s fine.

David Read:
For sure.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t agree with it either, but–

David Read:
I think you and I are probably coming at this exact same conclusion just from two completely different directions based on what I’m hearing here.

Mark Nicholson:
Sort of, but also, one of my prop collector friends did mention you– He was doing the same stuff too and you were getting in his face about it.

David Read:
I was getting in his face about it?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. In person.

David Read:
I’m even more proud of myself now. Good. I’m glad I did.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m not.

David Read:
OK. It’s all right.

Mark Nicholson:
No. I disagree with it, but that’s OK.

David Read:
That’s all right. That’s free speech. What I’m talking about is not when production uses it.

Mark Nicholson:
No, I’m talking about when people are trying to preserve and keep it the same way. You got in their face about that same thing that you just defended now.

David Read:
Well, is it not my right to be able to express my opinion with what he was doing with his own stuff?

Mark Nicholson:
But you could …

David Read:
It’s still a dick thing to do.

Mark Nicholson:
… not be a dick about it.

David Read:
Exactly right. He has a right to do with it what he wants, and I have the right to express my opinions on it. And I know who you’re talking about. And that’s OK. He wasn’t harmed. I think one of the distinctions that wasn’t being made between the two of us is if it’s reassigned by production to be something else, then that makes perfect sense because it’s still going to represent whatever it was in the last show that it was used in, so you can’t be precious about something if it has to be used for production, because things change and are altered by production all the time. And so that absolutely makes sense. And the situation that I’m talking about here, when we sold the Asgard puppet after it had been used in “The Lost Tribe,” which is the last episode that it was in, my hope would be that whoever got it would maintain it from how it looked in “The Lost Tribe.” Because for a while there, we were thinking of removing the piece that was on his head because he didn’t normally appear mostly as that. But then it was like, but the chest piece doesn’t come off, and then you’re gonna have a discontinuity. And so we sold him as is because that’s–

Mark Nicholson:
But even then, it’s made of something that’s gonna rot. There’s an effort to be able to preserve it, but also just understanding, after about 20 years, that’s not gonna look the same at all anyway. No matter what you do.

David Read:
It’s a Ship of Theseus paradox, is what it is. The Mona Lisa, the paints that we see when we go into the Louvre, and I’ve seen it in person, the paint that I’m looking at is not the paint that Leonardo applied to it. I understand that. Someone has made the deliberate effort to preserve it for the future.

Mark Nicholson:
And then some things we take and we transform them into something else, and that’s OK too.

David Read:
Absolutely. It is your right to do that. OK is subjective.

Mark Nicholson:
No, but think about restoring old cars, to collectors or to turn it into a hot rod that’s got a big chrome extra engine in it. Both of those are cool things to do with old cars. And we celebrate both of them. This is the same thing.

David Read:
You can take a giant can opener to the thing and use it as an art piece to display it at various events because it’s yours to do that with. But how people feel about it is gonna be inconsistent from one person to the next. And as far as I’m concerned, diversity of opinion is the spice of life. And if I could force whoever our mutual contact was to go back in time and undo it, I wouldn’t. It’s his. My point–

Mark Nicholson:
I’m glad you understand that part.

David Read:
Of course I understand that part. I’m not a fascist. The point is that just because if someone doesn’t think exactly how I think, it’s not gonna bother me. Anyone who thinks that I have to believe the way that they do is a fascist. It’s just not ideal for my circumstances because we have a different mindset about what it is about the pieces that we have, and that’s what it boils down to. If you’re trying to make something look like it did in the show but, to the naked eye, be more realistic, that makes a lot of sense. Because you can photograph things with cameras and bring out certain things in certain lighting. But if it’s in front of you, it’s not necessarily gonna look like it did in the show. If you’re doing that with the intent of making it more authentic to what it was on the screen, that makes a lot of sense. But to be like, “Oh, I’m adding lights to it here to make it look cooler,” you can do that, and I will never use any mechanism of law or courts or anything else to stop you because it is yours, but it’s a dick thing to do. Just like me going up to a person and saying– It wouldn’t be a dick thing for me to say that I disagree with that. If I yelled at him, then that’s a dick thing to do. But I don’t think I yelled at someone. If he said that, then that’s not …

Mark Nicholson:
I recall …

David Read:
… the case.

Mark Nicholson:
… someone saying that you got in their face about it and it was confrontational, in–

David Read:
Confrontational probably, but never got up in their face. That doesn’t sound like me.

Mark Nicholson:
Anyway, again, I’m paraphrasing, and I don’t remember the exact words. I will say, I see someone in the comments saying, “Mark invested time, talent, heart, and brains to create his works of art. It makes me sad to know someone could destroy or alter them.” It’s work for hire. I don’t even own it. I would build these things, and as soon as it was finished, that hour, it would go out the door and I’d never see it again.

David Read:
Yep. You can’t be precious.

Mark Nicholson:
You have to let go real hard.

David Read:
You have no time.

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
That’s exactly right.

Mark Nicholson:
Most of the photographs all of us had of the things we made, and it was me realizing partway through, I’m like, “If I don’t grab a picture of this stuff, it leaves forever and then no one has a picture of it.”

David Read:
That’s right. You wanna archive it somehow.

Mark Nicholson:
It was halfway through 2007 when I really started taking pictures of stuff, and I still didn’t get everything. But after the show ended and the team parted ways, several people contacted me, “Hey, I don’t have any pictures of any of the stuff we made,” and I’m like, “I got you. I have pictures of stuff.” I gave my collection of pictures to Joe as well, who posts them on his blog, Joe Mallozzi, the producer. So, you can see a lot of it there as well. But yeah, this stuff would leave never to be seen again.

David Read:
As an editor and a video creator who often does this for hire, I have never understood the mindset of people being so precious or like, “Do you not have any integrity?” I’ve edited a couple of features, and I sat down with folks who were working at– I was in LA working for a month and a half on this one. It was a director’s cut of a film. And he just wanted it for his own edification. And I sat down next to him, and I had some ideas, and he said, “I’ll take that. I won’t take that. I’ll take that. I won’t take that.” And I said, “OK, good, good, good, good.” And just, we just went through it, and he said, “You’re sure you’re good with the changes that I made?” And I’m like, “I created this thing for you based on what I thought you wanted. You’re the director. It’s your creative vision that I’m supporting. I’m not gonna be precious about any of my work. Yeah, I may have spent an hour on this piece over here. You didn’t end up using it. That’s too damn bad for me. It’s fine.” I’m proud of creating that, but I’m not going to be, “You should–” because the previous editor, they couldn’t finish the project with him because he was standing on every hill of every creation of his and dying on every one of them, and they couldn’t get through it. And it’s like, that’s not my job. My job is to be creative, and then the director takes it, and then it’s gone.

Mark Nicholson:
If you go back to the picture of the SG-1 Gate pieces, and that Wraith console next to it.

David Read:
That’s that library.

Mark Nicholson:
That was the thing we were building where we built it and they were like, “We just need the front.” Yeah, this thing. “We just need the front.” And we’re like, “We built the back for them too,” because we knew. And then they were like–

David Read:
That was that piece that you were talking about last time.

Mark Nicholson:
But that was the piece where it was, no, we knew what they would need instead of what they asked for. But also, learning to let go and understand that we build things to facilitate a director’s whim, not to go on set and be seen. It’s their job to make that decision. We have no control over it. I don’t know how it’s gonna play. So, the Asgard chip with the Virtual Boy chip in it, the actor puts that right up to the camera, and I was watching the film and going, “Whoa, I get to see that one up close.” It was surprising because I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. And so, learning to let go really early, ’cause that Wraith console was one of the first things I made in the first two or three weeks there. I’m so happy I learned that lesson quickly.

David Read:
No, you have to …

Mark Nicholson:
And it’s the same thing–

David Read:
… because you won’t survive otherwise. You’ll get so sucked into something and won’t be able to finish anything creatively. It’s the same thing, we have to cut ourselves off, desensitize ourselves in all kinds of industries. 911 phone operators, I think the most, otherwise you can’t get through the day. But in this kind of a situation, it’s one of the things that I pride myself in, in any of my creative endeavors, is the ability to disconnect from the work and not– It’s Faulkner who said it, “Kill your darlings,” because you’ve got to. At least you made them. And if I really want one, I can make myself another one. But I’m hired for a purpose, and then it goes.

Mark Nicholson:
And this is the thing between art for someone else versus art for yourself. The Mona Lisa is a good example. That was, I think he was still hired to make it for someone. But there’s students who are making the same painting, and they have some of those versions. But Stargate, Brad Wright is the guy in charge. And everything else flows from there creatively as to what we’re making. None of us have control over anything. And at the same time, he still has to trust people below him to make some of this stuff to be able to work as a team to make a big thing. And it’s a complicated process.

David Read:
And he’s not necessarily deciding what colors the lasers are gonna be when they come out of the ships. That’s why he surrounds himself with creative people. If he makes a decision, though, I do think that it’s– The only way that we can learn as people is if we are given some kind of pushback sometimes. So, that’s why I’m like, if I really am doing something– God knows if I know everything that there is. Maybe a better way to do something here, and for me to have a chance to learn by someone explaining something to me. “Oh, I didn’t think of that. That never would have even occurred to me.” And there are instances in my life where that’s happened. But also at the same time, knowing when to, “OK, I understand what you’re doing, I understand what you want, it’s yours.”

Mark Nicholson:
I’m actually wondering whether, because I don’t know if I mentioned this last time, but an observation I’ve had that Robert Cooper’s episodes were always more difficult to work on.

David Read:
Of course.

Mark Nicholson:
They’re great episodes. No comment there. But it’s because he’s writing, directing and producing all of them. And I wonder whether him having more control is part of why we would always have more changes or more feedback or more pushback on things in a way that always made it stressful.

David Read:
He’s the boss.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
And not only is he the boss, because he’s got all these other hats now, now he’s really the boss. So, you have fewer cooks in the kitchen on those particular episodes. He’s gonna put a little bit–

Mark Nicholson:
No, it’s not fewer cooks in the kitchen. It’s the same number of cooks, but you’ve got–

David Read:
That’s right. There’s the director, executive producer, the writer, it’s all one person in that case.

Mark Nicholson:
You’re having to look at the guy over your shoulder and say, “Yes, chef” 16 times instead of once. And all that time means you’re not actually cooking.

David Read:
I see what you’re saying, but in this case Martin Wood isn’t there along with the writer. The writer is there along with the director.

Mark Nicholson:
But it’d be like, “Oh, no, we’ve gotta redo the work. Oh, this work needs to change.” OK, and so you spend time doing revisions, you spend time changing what you’re doing to match, and you have less time to make a good product. I mean, it still serves the purpose, and it’s still gotta go there and do that. But there’s an aspect– Maybe it’s micromanaging?

David Read:
I was about to ask, did you feel more micromanaged on certain episodes?

Mark Nicholson:
The Robert Cooper ones, where we would just get more feedback on it, and it was– Micromanaging as in getting feedback once a week instead of once the whole time. It was very minimal, but it was only after working on several of them that I started piecing things, and I’m like, “I wonder whether it’s him?” I go watch the episodes, they’re great, and so I’m …

David Read:
They’re wonderful.

Mark Nicholson:
… not even knocking the process, I just had less fun under it.

David Read:
The end result is definitely, for sure, you can go afterwards and be like, “Yeah, that was worth it.”

Mark Nicholson:
“Time” is my favorite episode from Universe.

David Read:
Amazing episode.

Mark Nicholson:
And it was one of his, it was one of the ones that I noticed was a little more stressful to work on. “Sateda” in Atlantis Season Three was the first one where I’m like, “Why is this all more stressful?” There was a lot more to build on it, but it was mostly–

David Read:
He has a very specific vision, and he’s gonna execute it.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
And the fact of the matter is, I remember when these episodes came out, and Darren and I over at GateWorld were sitting there thinking, “How’s it gonna be?” And I said, “I know this. It’s gonna look and sound the best of all of them, because the guy at the top is in the driver’s seat for this episode.” Because you know those things are gonna happen. He’s not gonna be like, “Their episodes are more important.” At the very least, he’s thinking, “My episodes are gonna be just as important as anyone else’s.” And as the executive producer and writer and director, he has the leverage to say, “You know what? We’ll figure this out later on for this one. Let’s take this unit of money and this unit of whatever, and apply it to this one. And I will make sure, because I’m in a position to be able to do that, that we’re covered later on.” And the bottom line is that he gave us some banger episodes, so at the end of the day, it’s worth it.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s only my theory, I don’t have a good proof for it, because you only get a certain sense of what props you’re building.

David Read:
But you felt it. You were there.

Mark Nicholson:
The thing is, the order we shoot in is sometimes a little different than the order they air, and the lead-up time for certain props would come at a different time. So, the chronology is fuzzy and disjointed from building to what you see in the thing. It’s harder to get a sense of, I have to pay attention to what episode this prop is for to even know which is which. So, it’s a fuzzy sense of, “Why is this so hard? Oh, right, it’s a Robert Cooper episode. OK, great. It’ll be great, but whatever.”

David Read:
“It’ll be great. All right, all right, I’m coming up for air. It’ll be fine. All right, I’m going back in.” A buddy of mine wrote to me, he just texted me in WhatsApp. He said, “For what it’s worth, you’re…” This is his opinion to me. “For what it’s worth, you’re absolutely right regarding the collector modified props: altering the object after production ends changes its authenticity, provenance, and aura.” Good, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The fact of the matter is it’s just my opinion. And I think it’s interesting that there are people on both sides of the conversation.

Mark Nicholson:
We can’t even preserve without altering. This stuff isn’t made to last at all.

David Read:
I’m not arguing that. And the fact of the matter is a lot of this stuff is gonna break before I sell it. My point was, and I’ll lay it to rest after this, was the intent behind what it is that’s being done. All right. These are from the top of the Asuran core. There were several of them. We saw a piece of it earlier. And then you’ve got these acrylic pieces on top of it. They were mirrored. They were very interesting to photograph. Let me tell you, Mark, this was not gonna be an easy one.

Mark Nicholson:
I think that’s double-sided tape sticking them on there.

David Read:
OK, very good.

Mark Nicholson:
This one was really weird for me to look at in the selection of stuff you sent me, because I’m, “Wait, …”

David Read:
What is that?

Mark Nicholson:
… Did I make this?

David Read:
You had to have.

Mark Nicholson:
What is this?

David Read:
You did a lot of–

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
This flat stuff, didn’t ya?

Mark Nicholson:
‘Cause what it is, is that red color…

David Read:
And look at that. I think that’s one of the pieces of tape right there.

Mark Nicholson:
You can see the little piece of the tape at the bottom of that section.

David Read:
OK, so this one …

Mark Nicholson:
That’s it.

David Read:
… popped off. OK, got it. ‘Cause I’m, “Why doesn’t this look like it does?”

Mark Nicholson:
But I would’ve drawn all this, and then built all of this, and then that red color would’ve happened at the last moment. And so I would’ve spent a week and a half with this thing looking completely differently. It would’ve changed to red and gone out the door at the same time. And so my memory of it doesn’t match what it is.

David Read:
Interesting. OK. Went through some more stations before it ended up on screen.

Mark Nicholson:
There’s this thing where it’s, what even– I didn’t even do it– Hey, hang on, that one has some mistakes at the bottom. Go down to the big rectangle there. The lines go in that one when they shouldn’t.

David Read:
Only you, Mark, would see that as a mistake. I understand what you’re talking about, because of the others here. Hey–

Mark Nicholson:
But that’s–

David Read:
You know what? An Asuran didn’t build this after all. Look at that–

Mark Nicholson:
I built it.

David Read:
One, two, three, four, five. See? Absolutely. Wow.

Mark Nicholson:
But this is the kind of stuff–

David Read:
What kind of program do you use for this?

Mark Nicholson:
I was using CorelDRAW for this. It’s like Adobe Illustrator, but it’s just lighter. It has less functions. It’s much faster. It was really great–

David Read:
Would you render it 300 DPI?

Mark Nicholson:
Sorry?

David Read:
Would you render it 300 dots per inch?

Mark Nicholson:
No, this is all vector-based drawing.

David Read:
You can make it as large as you want.

Mark Nicholson:
And the DPI is the number of pulses on the laser when we’re cutting this.

David Read:
Wow, OK. Good to know.

Mark Nicholson:
So, speed and pulses per unit of measurement was actually a thing we would do when we were cutting, but–

David Read:
No wonder I tripped you up.

Mark Nicholson:
But no, for all of this, it was all vector work. You couldn’t do it that way and have it work easily.

David Read:
These are some of the ones on the sides. I think this is upside… No, it’s right-side up. I was misremembering.

Mark Nicholson:
It was a lot of fun lit, but I never got to see it that way.

David Read:
Exactly. You could only put something behind it to… OK, yes, that’s working. All right, moving on. So, when you’re doing this aging here, a lot of this was done on Universe. We’ve seen it for the–

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t even see that part.

David Read:
OK, so that doesn’t– OK, so that’s not your team.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know whether that would have been– ‘Cause the division between props and construction and set dec is usually– Props is something where an actor handles it. And set decoration is stuff they don’t handle. I think. But for this, my part of it would have been making those panels, and I’m assuming construction building sets built the thing that it was housed in. My panels went over there, and it got painted over with their painter. I didn’t even see– See, and this is what I mean when I try to remember this stuff, is sometimes the context is not even what I remember.

David Read:
OK.

Mark Nicholson:
Still dark. There we go.

David Read:
You’re okay.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s getting later in the day, and it’s cloudy here, so it’s …

David Read:
This is true.

Mark Nicholson:
… getting darker faster. But it’s one of those things where what I remember, I don’t even have the luxury of remembering the thing as it gets seen by everyone else.

David Read:
And you’re seeing these pieces in a vacuum, not with the final product on it. Were these just mirrored acrylic? Wait, could you just get that from the factory, or did you have to apply the mirrored surface to the acrylic underneath? Or was that all one piece?

Mark Nicholson:
Is it even mirrored underneath, or is it just a chunk of acrylic?

David Read:
These were reflective. We photographed these in such a way so that the light wouldn’t hit them that way. You can see it here in this example. You can see the light hitting it funny. These particular pieces, if you were looking at them head-on, you would have seen a reflection.

Mark Nicholson:
That would have been a paint we applied. ‘Cause it was a sheet of acrylic that you cut up on a table saw, put a panel of it in the laser cutter, get those shapes out. It’d have that nice, clean edge.

David Read:
Wow. Asuran Replicator stunner, one of my favorite. You can see the toggle. You pull this up and down.

Mark Nicholson:
And you can see the LEDs in the side. I think the only thing I actually made for these was some of the little inserts that covered up sections.

David Read:
And you made these.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, I made those, ’cause that was a little rubber insert with– It’s got double-sided tape behind it. And then in the front of the hand guard there, that little angled piece down below, both of them, those little inserts. You can actually see all the CNC marks–

David Read:
I’m telling you.

Mark Nicholson:
In there.

David Read:
Were these circles the machine?

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, that’s just machining marks that didn’t get erased, ’cause it’s, you can–

David Read:
That’s so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
The interesting thing about this prop is one of the actors who used it, I’ve worked with him on other projects, as a voice actor. Elias Toufexis, who you might know from Deus Ex, ’cause he played the main character with his low voice. He was one of the actors holding these guys in the background. We were working on that, and then later, we were working together on MechWarrior 5.

David Read:
That’s cool. Now this–

Mark Nicholson:
And I ran into him at a MechWarrior convention and we got to talk about this briefly. It was a lot of fun.

David Read:
This is by far one of my favorites. This is easily top three.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s a cool gun.

David Read:
It’s heavy. It’s– Dadgummit. The aluminum in this is just– It’s a beautiful– It feels real. It’s one of those things where it’s not like, “Oh, I hold it and I’m disappointed.” It’s the quality of it, what you can imagine the actors had in their– To be able to hold it and give them this kind of a response, and click it closed and open again, helps them sell it even more. Even these pieces here, they’re a different shade. They’re installed separately. It’s all pulled from that Atlantis kind of shape, which Bridget McGuire pulled out of the Frank Lloyd Wright design. And it’s just a beautiful piece. I sold mine, and then I regretted selling it, and then when I sold my house in Phoenix, I used some of that money to buy one back. It was a mistake to sell it. But beautiful prop. Similarly, this is the Attero device key, is what I called it when we sold it. This is the–

Mark Nicholson:
The bread box.

David Read:
Yes. This glowed red when Janus’s room was accessed, and they came and grabbed this and returned it. This is what the evil Asgard went and grabbed on Atlantis and then returned it to power and activate the Attero device at their science lab complex thingy.

Mark Nicholson:
So, I built all the little application panels on it. But the really interesting thing about this was this was built out of wood.

David Read:
Really?

Mark Nicholson:
And a carpenter literally measured every single angle to do this perfectly. This is a work of art.

David Read:
It’s beautiful.

Mark Nicholson:
Someone did this on a table saw.

David Read:
Wow.

Mark Nicholson:
This box.

David Read:
Look at that. The routing.

Mark Nicholson:
No, that’s just laser cut. But the box itself, the geometric shape–

David Read:
The box itself, underneath it.

Mark Nicholson:
Someone did that on a table saw.

David Read:
And then these are all double-sided tape.

Mark Nicholson:
And it all joins up perfectly. It’s just simple stuff.

David Read:
It’s the same technique that they, when they’re upgrading your kitchen countertops. They get to some of those corners and it’s like, “You’re not gonna be able to get that exactly right.” And they do. They measure well. And it’s like, “Geez, some people are just artists.”

Mark Nicholson:
No, and there was definitely some rivalry with the carpenters, or carps as we call them.

David Read:
For sure.

Mark Nicholson:
But some of them are really simple guys. They’re doing woodwork, it’s fine. And then there’s a couple other leads who are really skilled. And this was definitely the finest piece of work I ever saw out of that team. And I wanted to point it out, like, “Yo, that was awesome.” We looked at it and we were all blown away. I remember seeing some of his drawings when I went over there to see what he was doing. And he’s literally just mathing out everything, doing angles with a calculator and a piece of paper.

David Read:
And he’s got it together. I have a question about your graphics. Do you have a database to pull from of just different shapes and things? Or do you have to make everything whole cloth, or is there software that you can buy that will have patterns in it and you can select them? What were you doing for Stargate?

Mark Nicholson:
All of this was whole cloth and any database of things to pull from was a database of my own making. And there would definitely be a part of me writing notes, preserving for the future and keeping stuff on the side or reusing it. But every time I went back to look at my notes, I’m like, “Oh, these notes are deeply insufficient.”

David Read:
You only knew what you knew. Your number one question is, or whether they’re gonna provide it to you is, is this a species we’ve seen before? Is it Ancient? OK, ’cause, I mean, the Ancient you used again and again and again, that whole library.

Mark Nicholson:
But also, half of those shapes or more would have been stuff the concept art would have had on it. Someone would have drawn stuff and it’s like, “OK, we’re building it this way. We copy what they do. We faithfully recreate this thing that they have where we can and we do something else where we can’t.”

David Read:
There we go. Let me pull this back up here.

Mark Nicholson:
What you got next? I think I saw it briefly. The chevron lights.

David Read:
The chiclets for the Atlantis lights. So, the big tall ones that were seven, eight feet tall, a lot of them didn’t survive storage when we went up to Bridge and collected them. They threw them all on a pallet on top of each other. We kept the ones that we could and the ones that didn’t, we pulled them out through the hole and took them and sold them individually. And fans went and mounted them and did all kinds of things with them, you know? Repurposing it under those circumstances.

Mark Nicholson:
So, that set is covered in hundreds of those.

David Read:
This is metal. This outer shell here, you can see at the top where the seam is.

Mark Nicholson:
You could actually see the metal folds in it right there.

David Read:
And then you’ve got the plywood underneath, and then you had these here put in.

Mark Nicholson:
Which were half-inch acrylic pieces and then they’re backlit. So, one of the things about getting the laser cutter and me using it was when we had to make more of these, because stuff would happen or they’d be doing something else or have an extra room in Atlantis that they suddenly needed. Cutting them out on a laser cutter is really easy. You make a pattern of a bunch of them and hit print.

David Read:
It’s, they’re coming out like cookies, faster than.

Mark Nicholson:
When they needed 200 of them, it used to be they’d get three carpenters and a band saw and a blowtorch to cut them all out and sand them all down, and then polish that edge with a torch. I was just cutting them with a laser, and I could pull out, I think it was 180 of them in two hours.

David Read:
Look at you, Mark, destroying jobs. How dare you?

Mark Nicholson:
And I’m sitting there doing nothing, doing it. No. And this is a really important issue about technology is, whenever artists get better tools, they don’t do less work. They just make more art. Because they’re artists, they make art. We just make stuff. If we can make more of it in the same amount of time, that’s just what we do.

David Read:
If you’re hired again, yeah.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, but I’m just saying, from that standpoint of, oh, it’s gonna take away jobs. Yes, that might also be true, and sometimes that can be really awful. For instance, with how AI art is doing stuff right now where I understand a lot of what AI is doing as a concept is cool, but also the data sets for all their art stuff is people’s stolen work.

David Read:
For many of them, yes.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t agree with stealing people’s work.

David Read:
Yep, agreed.

Mark Nicholson:
So, I don’t agree with some of what’s going on with AI, and I feel awkward about a lot of the rest of the stuff for that same reason. But when you get a tool that does something twice as fast, you just do more.

David Read:
That’s the thing. John Gajdecki came on last week, we were talking about his transition from physical models into digital. And we talked a little bit about Light & Magic, the ILM documentary that came out on Disney+ a little while back, which if you haven’t seen it, it’s amazing. And they talk about the transition from–John correlated this to his experience as well–from practical models into digital, where a lot of the guys threw up their hands and didn’t want to transition into the new era of technology. They wanted to work with their hands, they didn’t want to click with a mouse. Their artistic talents, 9 times out of 10, could transfer from one to the other, but that’s not the medium that they wanted. And–

Mark Nicholson:
As someone who has done both, yes. And this is actually one of those things that’s another weird argument against using these AI tools is, and I see this in programming as well, is that training of doing it yourself to make you a good artist, or a good programmer, whatever, without these tools that assist you so much, is what makes you a good– It’s what refines your skill.

David Read:
You’re not offloading your brain power.

Mark Nicholson:
And so, when you rely on a tool and you just type some words in, you might not be learning why composition matters the same way, because you’re not practicing the skill, you’re just offloading it to a system. So, there’s a balance to be found there in what is an artist and how do you make your work versus how much are you relying on a tool that’s doing all of the work for you. Where does ownership end, especially when you might say, “Do it in so and so’s style,” and their name appears in the bottom of the piece of work because it’s copying literally their work.

David Read:
Literally their work, yeah. That’s unacceptable.

Mark Nicholson:
So, that part’s like, no, they’re just stealing people’s work, and I don’t support that. But at the same time, it’s like–

David Read:
Tell me someone who you know who would support that. That specific point. If you have a soul as a human being, but a lot of people are like, “I don’t want to think about that. I’m just going to go ahead and use the tool. Don’t tell me–”

Mark Nicholson:
Everyone at the top of an AI company who wants to make money because making money is their goal. That’s who. But again, it’s one of those things where we all, as artists, borrow and transform each other’s work to make more. I mentioned MechWarrior, that’s an IP where people are designing giant robots. And the stuff they were drawing in the ’80s and the stuff they’re drawing today is completely different, partly because people had 40 years of learning how to do better. We built up on that work, and it allows people to go, “I can do better than this.” And then everyone else sees it and goes, “Oh, I can do the same, or I can match it, or do more.” And we build, and we get better, and we practice. But copying someone’s work faithfully is a really great way to learn.

David Read:
You have to start somewhere. And I’m sure a number of those robots look like ED-209. There is something that, maybe not necessarily MechWarrior, but I’ve seen him iterated… Where do I have him? He’s in the other room. I’ve seen him iterated everywhere. It’s something that sticks with me from childhood.

Mark Nicholson:
Do you want me to run away for a moment?

David Read:
Sure. Do you have him?

Mark Nicholson:
One moment.

David Read:
I’m gonna get mine. Hang on, everybody. OK, that was funny. Sorry, everyone. He’s gonna show his and I’m gonna show mine. Sorry, we’re running long, everyone. I hope everyone’s cool with this. Two hours and 14 minutes. Mark, I think we ran longer than anticipated here.

Mark Nicholson:
We’re going quite a ways, but I’ve got this.

David Read:
Look at him. Put it in front of your face. There you go. Is that the one from the new RoboCop?

Mark Nicholson:
No. But it’s a similar shape, right?

David Read:
It evokes.

Mark Nicholson:
The details are different.

David Read:
But, yeah, I mean–

Mark Nicholson:
But it’s the same idea. But if you look at it really close, you’ll be like, “Oh, no, this is a slightly different thing.”

David Read:
Yeah. It’s inspired by, or was created by someone that got inside their brain, or saw something else that was inspired by that.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, it’s, no, we learned and we did something similar, and it might even be three or four steps down. But the person who drew one of these two probably saw the other one.

David Read:
My buddy, Nick, he developed a piece of music. God, this had to have been 20 years ago at this point. He dreamt this music. He dreamt it, and then he woke up and he wrote it down. And then he was a couple of weeks into production for it, and he realized, “Oh, God. It’s the underground sewer music from Super Mario Brothers.” And he’s like, “My subconscious extracted that, played it back to me when I slept, I woke up and wrote it down, and assumed it was mine. When in fact, some guy in Japan made this.” It wasn’t exactly it, but he was looking at it and it’s like, he didn’t see it until he suddenly did. And then he’s like, “I have to scrap the whole thing.” ‘Cause he thought that he had created something, and all he did was copy 80% of someone else’s work.

Mark Nicholson:
Have you heard the jazz album that’s borrowed from?

David Read:
No. Please send it to me afterwards.

Mark Nicholson:
‘Cause a bunch of that work is …

David Read:
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Mark Nicholson:
… inspired by a lot of jazz work from 5 or 10 years earlier. And you can hear the bits and pieces. I just found the other day, ’cause I love listening to film scores and music like this, Fantasia on a Theme where I was listening to it and I’m like, “Where have I heard this before? What is going on?” And there’s a bit, three to five minutes into it and I’m like, “Oh, this is from the end of Return of the Jedi.” John Williams definitely listened to this and transformed it a little bit, but it’s like, no, no, he had to have gotten it from here.

David Read:
That’s it. I think one of the bigger offenses is, for anyone who is a fan of this, one of my favorite pieces of music of all time is James Horner’s Wrath of Khan, and he took huge chunks of, is it Prokofiev’s? It’s Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Number One, and you go in, if you’re very familiar with that piece, you go in and you play that, he took huge hunks of it out, to the point where Nick Meyer called him on it. He says, “I know this piece. I’ve heard it before.” And Horner said at the time, he’s like, “Maybe I’m not as divorced from my influences as I would hope to be.” And they kept it in. It’s like, well, particularly when they’re running toward the Mutara Nebula. They just lifted it.

Mark Nicholson:
And this is one of those things where it’s like, how transformative does a work have to be before it becomes your thing versus the original thing?

David Read:
You can’t copyright a chord progression.

Mark Nicholson:
Or one where it was the same artist. I was listening to a Japanese anime series that’s really big called Evangelion. They made some films near the end of it.

David Read:
Yeah. I’ve seen the toys.

Mark Nicholson:
And in one of those films, the music’s great, but I was like, “This piece is cool.” And then I’m listening to an earlier work by the same composer called Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water, and I’m like, “Wait, this is, like, almost the exact same piece.” There’s a few differences, but 95% exactly the same. And I’m like, “It’s his. He can do it, but, whoa.”

David Read:
And Horner was notorious for recycling phrases, especially through the ’80s. I don’t even have to look at the end credits. It’s a Horner film. His brass flourishes are exactly the same in this scene as it was in Aliens. He’s using– And Wrath of Khan. They all sound– They’re his sound. John Williams, if you have– You can hear his stuff. It’s light and flourishing with the woodwinds and everything else.

Mark Nicholson:
There’s a point at which you can listen to a piece and you’d be like, “I know who that is.”

David Read:
His fingerprints are all over it. That’s right. Or who inspired it. I got a couple of these. I managed to salvage a couple, and when I moved to Nashville, the acrylics on a few of them were destroyed, and I found the acrylic manufacturer in Nashville, and I took one and I gave it to him. And I said, “I need four of these ’cause four of these didn’t make it.” It’s a hot glue gun or something similar that installed them. And I gave it to him. I came back down a month later and he gave them to me, and the frost on the edge was not there. And it kinda surprised me ’cause I expected exactly that, and he didn’t do it, and he said, “Oh, you want me to add the frost?” I’m like, “Yes, I want you to add the frost.” When the light hits it from behind, that’s what scatters the light. And he said, “Well, it’s gonna cost a little bit more.” I’m like, “Do it. I’m trying to restore.”

Mark Nicholson:
It’s a fair ask when he’s going, “What is the cost value of doing this project?” Those are the aspects of the scope of project and money that I love not dealing with.

David Read:
Sure, absolutely. You wanna be creating in there. You wanna get your hands dirty, so to speak.

Mark Nicholson:
That was one of the things we experienced a lot was our lead, the guy who would go down to set, or Kenny would come back with him, they handled all of that. The politics, the planning, everything.

David Read:
Left with freedom to create.

Mark Nicholson:
We just made stuff. But we would get blamed for things and not get credit for things all the time because of it.

David Read:
That’s the thing that frustrates me, Mark, is how fast would the end credits have to roll on each of these shows in order to get everyone’s name in the props department featured in it. There is no reason that all of the people who are up there working for Stargate shouldn’t have their name in the end credits for friggin’ Stargate. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand how you’re so below the line at a certain point that you don’t even get your name in the credits. You’re just a part of the department that made it.

Mark Nicholson:
Also, Stargate was a rare show where props was even a department, like building, as opposed to handling on set and stuff. But most of it’s contract work, and they don’t credit all those people all the time. But also, I’d be reading Joe’s blog because I would find information that I didn’t know all the time. But, “Oh, yeah, there was a crew photo yesterday. It’s up on the blog.”

David Read:
And you weren’t there.

Mark Nicholson:
We never even got told. That happened all the time. It was common.

David Read:
I know the feeling. I know it.

Mark Nicholson:
I saw it in the photos you had. I couldn’t find it the second time I was looking. But the Stargate Crew 10th Anniversary watch? With the little gate thing on it?

David Read:
Yeah, from Master Replicas.

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t get one because they ran out, because they’d sold too many to fans to actually give to the crew. Some people got them, and some of us didn’t, and it was just like, “What?”

David Read:
Did you get the Celebration of Ten Years book? Did you get that at least?

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
You didn’t get it.

Mark Nicholson:
That was it. That one thing was the crew gift that year, and I didn’t even get it.

David Read:
The Celebration of Ten Years book was the crew gift, or the …

Mark Nicholson:
No, no, no, the watch.

David Read:
… the watch was the crew gift?

Mark Nicholson:
I didn’t even know that there was a book.

David Read:
We had paperback versions. I’ll get you one. We had paperback versions that GateWorld exclusively sold for a number of years, and what I found–or number of years, like two years–and then what I found years and years later was that production made hardback versions internally.

Mark Nicholson:
No, we never saw those.

David Read:
I’ll get you one of them, a paperback.

Mark Nicholson:
No, for the watches, because they didn’t come at the time, they were like, “Well, they’re still making them.” So, they handed out a little slip of paper that was like, “Here’s your piece of paper. The crew gift is still coming.”

David Read:
And they ran out.

Mark Nicholson:
And I think in 2017 or so, I still had it, and I sent it to Joe, and I’m like, “Is this still good?”

David Read:
They’re hundreds of dollars on eBay now. That’s just… Ugh. OK.

Mark Nicholson:
I got most of the other crew gifts, and I think the– One of the Universe jackets was a really good rain jacket, but after about six or seven years, it started peeling apart.

David Read:
These things wear out. What’s interesting …

Mark Nicholson:
They do.

David Read:
… now is I’m seeing this for the first time. Your pattern for this box is the same as the other box, even though this only appeared in the Pegasus Galaxy. Look at that. No wonder you associated the two.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes, and it’s probably because I didn’t know to not associate them.

David Read:
Interesting. So, you thought that they were a matching– They’re both Ancient. It makes sense. And, look, you’ve got the– I’m just now noticing. Look at that.

Mark Nicholson:
And that probably says something, but I don’t remember what it says. Intrepid people watching this can probably go figure it out.

David Read:
Absolutely. Is there someone– No, that’s it.

Mark Nicholson:
I’ve been in the GateWorld forums. I’ve seen people try to translate this stuff before.

David Read:
The staircase, some of the weapons, the Atlantis main staircase. The side staircases was gobbledygook, but yeah. All right. There we go. There’s a better shot of the– Someone take a crack at that, please, and put it in the comments.

Mark Nicholson:
That looks solvable.

David Read:
And then you can see where each of the communication stone spots went. Ah, there we go. Four of them. I love the design that was made for Universe, where it was one of our most visible reverse engineered pieces of tech. And it has a little light box, you turn it on, and it fits five places for stones. And that’s what they had at Stargate Command, or excuse me, at the Pentagon.

Mark Nicholson:
I remember helping build that, ’cause I did a few bits and pieces for it.

David Read:
Wow. Here we go. Puddle jumper crystal right here, and then different crystals here.

Mark Nicholson:
But this is like three different kinds of crystals, and it’s why I wanted to bring it up, because your video where you were talking about some of the crystals was what got me into commenting and asking in the beginning of this relationship.

David Read:
There we go.

Mark Nicholson:
Because, again, part of, like, the year I joined was when we got the laser cutter and could make stuff that way. So, the first and third crystal were done on a router table, and then had printed graphics. Whereas the middle one is done laser cut. It’s a different way. But when you backlight it, all of that stuff glows in a way more interesting way. And they just went, “No, we’re doing this all the time now.”

David Read:
Of course, 100%, ’cause you can– They did the same thing– When they built the Daedalus, it’s one of the first versions that I can think of where they did that. They had the big, long acrylic boards, and they took a router and etched into it. But you’ve got this one here that’s so teeny tiny, and when you hit that with a light against it, the whole thing lights up like it’s active, and it’s just so cool. Because the stickers– I guess this one probably would light up because you’ve got the lighter colors to it, but this one isn’t gonna light up when light hits it. It’s just gonna cast a–

Mark Nicholson:
But the lighter colors also, they obscure if you’re behind on the other side, right? They turn dark. The shiny ones are shiny. And I remember some of those, like the ship consoles, because as much as when fans think about the ships, like the Prometheus and Daedalus and whichever, there was a Russian one as well.

David Read:
Yeah, Korolev, yep.

Mark Nicholson:
But I always think about it as a single set.

David Read:
For sure, yeah, the spaceship set, yeah.

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah, and it’s like sometimes we might put a new plaque on it or whatever. But I remember seeing, getting some of those boxes of chips and crystals and stuff, and we’d make new ones. But rebuilding some of them, I remember some of the large chip pieces that we were like, “Hey, build a new one of this, because we want to do it differently.” That was an example of the technology changing and people going, “No, no, this is cool. Let’s do more of it this way.”

David Read:
I had a huge argument, sidebar real quick, with my boss when we were selling the merch, the props and set pieces, because he wanted to call it the Daedalus set. And I’m like, this whole set was every Earth ship. “I think we need to call it the spaceship set, the human spaceship,” or whatever it was. And he’s like, “No, we’re calling it the Daedalus.” I’m like, “Alec, it’s not technically right. This wasn’t on the Daedalus. This was on the Hammond.” So, we compromised. I think the Hammond version of the spaceship set.

Mark Nicholson:
And the Prometheus was the first ship, so it should’ve been that.

David Read:
I agree as well, but Daedalus is what he most remembered, and so that’s what he wanted. He was the boss. But it didn’t change the fact that he was technically incorrect.

Mark Nicholson:
And yet …

David Read:
It’s one of those situations.

Mark Nicholson:
… you let go.

David Read:
No, I didn’t. I stood my ground and–

Mark Nicholson:
I know, but there’s a certain point at which you’re, sometimes you just let go and move on.

David Read:
Exactly. I’m not gonna change his mind. I’m gonna go ahead and do it. It never bothered him. He saw it, and he got it. But he was standing on the hill at that time, and I wasn’t going to push him off of it, so you’re right.

Mark Nicholson:
Again, one of the things about fans who care about this stuff, like, “No, we all really care about it in a way that we get into the weeds on things.”

David Read:
In that situation, had I listed it as the Daedalus, I would’ve been wrong. We would have gotten asked for refunds.

Mark Nicholson:
There are people who would care, and it matters to because there’s a level of caring that really passionate people care about these details. Like the Simpsons Itchy and Scratchy thing where it’s like, “Oh, he’s playing the bone xylophone. But he clicked on two different bones, but it plays the same note. I really hope someone got fired …”

David Read:
Is that a Simpsons joke?

Mark Nicholson:
.”.. for that blunder.”

David Read:
OK, it wasn’t a joke in the show. A fan did it.

Mark Nicholson:
No, it was a fan in the show making …

David Read:
OK. That’s right, the commentary.

Mark Nicholson:
… a comment on the cartoon. It’s a kids cartoon show, man. So, there are the people who are really passionate, and there are the people who are, like, “It’s a kids cartoon show, man.” This is an adult cartoon show. It’s a sci-fi show. No, it’s make-believe.” For me, I can think about some of the names of the ships, but I never even got to stand in this place. So, I don’t even– It’s just a ship set.

David Read:
There was a, I can’t remember if it was one or two pieces over the course of the two years that I got notes on back saying that something was mismarked. And it was something that hadn’t– I couldn’t remember exact– but I didn’t have full rein over that particular item, and it just went out. So, we had to give someone their money or give them a discount or something.

Mark Nicholson:
You’re buying it based on its perceived value for this item. And people might care about the Daedalus more than they do about the Prometheus, and they’re going to bid on it that way. The other thing about those chips though that I’m remembering? The laser-cut chips were way cheaper to make. The amount of work and time that goes into them was so much lower that–

David Read:
Because of how they were spat out, or because the stickers didn’t have to be designed and applied and cut and everything else?

Mark Nicholson:
All of that is time, money, and work, and it all translates into cost.

David Read:
Makes sense.

Mark Nicholson:
So, hey, USB to–

David Read:
I think it’s a USB adapter to whatever technology. I’m trying to remember.

Mark Nicholson:
I made a bunch of these, and it gets lost on me which ones are which.

David Read:
I used to know as well.

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know what that is at the bottom, that shiny bit.

David Read:
It’s adhesive of some sort. Looks like glue.

Mark Nicholson:
It shouldn’t even need to be there.

David Read:
I’m assuming that this acrylic was attached to this piece somehow.

Mark Nicholson:
Just those screws through the middle.

David Read:
Huh. What is it doing there? Again, it’s got an …

Mark Nicholson:
I don’t know.

David Read:
… alien in it. Interesting. That looks like an ethernet port.

Mark Nicholson:
Maybe. That’s just heat shrink on a bunch of stuff.

David Read:
Wow. Look at the detail. That is so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
Here’s some more of them. I don’t remember what these ones are from. I made so many of them, it just blurs.

David Read:
I used to know what each one went to, and I don’t anymore. Like data pads. There’s a bunch of these in Janus’s briefcase. Not the same sticker though. Or it may be, but that one’s still all completed.

Mark Nicholson:
Those ones have beveled edges. That’s a bunch of extra work that went into that one. I think those ones look like the ones in the side of the BFG.

David Read:
Yes.

Mark Nicholson:
But I’m thinking Atlantis Season Three and Four …

David Read:
Same size.

Mark Nicholson:
… is when I think those kind of ones came, and I know I made that in the first year, and I don’t remember what it was for. I don’t think I made more of them. But those ones looked really unique, and it was, “OK, it’s gonna make a cool-looking chip. That one’s busy.”

David Read:
Exactly. The only one that I can remember distinctly different was one that you guys had made for the Ori Super Gate. Because one is none, you made the original and a backup. And it was great big, because the Super Gate panel when Sam is on the side of it is great big, and we put those in the live auction. But those were the only ones that were really monstrous and unique that I didn’t set aside for eBay. Here we go, your favorite prop.

Mark Nicholson:
Baby monitor.

David Read:
Baby monitor. And on top, little Genii, even that looks like it’s been adapted for– Has this been adapted for something else as well?

Mark Nicholson:
No, no. Those are the two halves of a baby monitor shoved together.

David Read:
This piece here is a baby monitor too?

Mark Nicholson:
I think so.

David Read:
It could be.

Mark Nicholson:
Or it might be a mold or something.

David Read:
This has got a volume control here.

Mark Nicholson:
And again, this was not even something I made. This was something that came back for repair and repaint a couple times. And it was like, “What is– Oh, it’s a baby monitor.” It works.

David Read:
It does.

Mark Nicholson:
By the time this happened, I was already familiar with the lady’s razor that is the communicator in Phantom Menace story that is the prominent one: we just reuse stuff. It’s cheaper.

David Read:
If it looks good on screen, and it’s …

Mark Nicholson:
That’s enough.

David Read:
… obscure enough. I mean, you don’t want everyone to– If everyone’s going to recognize it, then you’ve probably got a problem. But, I mean, if 9 out of 10 audience members aren’t going to, somewhere in that neighborhood, why not? All right. Harmony’s necklace and stunt necklace.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m glad you remembered what this is ’cause when I first saw it I was like, “Did I make this?”

David Read:
She held this to activate her powers.

Mark Nicholson:
And then half an hour later, I’m like, “No. No, I did make that.”

David Read:
There were several of these.

Mark Nicholson:
But I never painted it. So, the frame is made of a black material. And the inside was all clear to me, so I cut all those pieces out. And then I think somebody else assembled and glued them, and painted them. And so, what parts of it I built and what actually went out, completely different things.

David Read:
Wow. And the stunt version of that.

Mark Nicholson:
Ooh, that’s made out of foam.

David Read:
It sure is.

Mark Nicholson:
Ah. See, and again, I’m sitting here going, “I barely remember this.”

David Read:
Yep. Awesome! This is a Replicator drone. It is a homing device that was used in, I believe, this was “This Mortal Coil.”

Mark Nicholson:
Yes.

David Read:
Exceptionally cool device. We’d pop the thing open, put batteries in them, and then light it up and shoot it. So, many cool things that you guys made. The battery recorder for …

Mark Nicholson:
No, that one looked cool. I’m remembering a name …

David Read:
… Odyssey, this.

Mark Nicholson:
… I won’t repeat for the name of the episode that we used internally. Because it was frustrating. But no, that prop was cool. I don’t think I built much on it. I think I did a few bits and edges of things. But seeing it built over there was, “That thing looks cool. It’s gonna be neat.”

David Read:
Mark, we have about 50 more images to go. Should we have you back next year for those and get to fan questions instead?

Mark Nicholson:
That sounds pretty reasonable after what is two and a half hours.

David Read:
This has been fascinating. But at some point, it goes into human rights violations. And I’ve got a ton of questions here, so let me try and get through a few of those, OK? Thank you …

Mark Nicholson:
Also–

David Read:
… for being so knowledgeable about all of this. Yes.

Mark Nicholson:
An aside, my username on YouTube is Confracto. I’m already in the chat a bit. I will be paying attention to the comments. If your question doesn’t get asked here, ask questions. I’ll see some of them.

David Read:
This video, where it is right now in the livestream, is gonna be discontinued after I re-upload this, ’cause it’s gonna take a while ’cause it’s gonna be a big file. So, don’t do it then. But when it gets reissued, if you’re watching it a couple of days later, if you’re watching it on the 26th of October or forward and you’re not in Australia, yes, put it in the comments below for that video, and Mark is gonna be keeping his ear to the ground for about a week. All right. Let me see here. Matthewrevilla: “Does anyone know about the map on the table in the Kelowna bunker from ‘Homecoming’?” Ooh, that’s specific. That’s Season Seven of SG-1. That’s before Mark’s time.

Mark Nicholson:
It is, but I would hazard to guess, if anyone’s done their job right, it should be a map of Kelowna from interior British Columbia.

David Read:
Ah, that makes sense.

Mark Nicholson:
This is a city in our province here. So, I’ve been there a couple times. It’s a nice place. Go look for maps of Kelowna, because that might just be Kelowna.

David Read:
Might just be it. Jeremy Heiner: “Your website features a lot of models from the MechWarrior universe. Can you tell us a bit about that?”

Mark Nicholson:
Yeah. There’s a bunch of my work. These are video games I worked on. MechWarrior Online, I worked on that for five or six years. MechWarrior 5 as well, which was, some of the development time overlapped. ‘Cause video games was what I wanted to be doing and trained in when I got a job at a video game studio in Vancouver out of school, and then that project got canceled. And I needed work.

David Read:
As they often do.

Mark Nicholson:
And the people doing Stargate props were trying to do some of the 3D scanning stuff that they were experimenting with, and they were like, “We need someone who can scan things, or help us with this.” They contacted the school I worked at, and I got a job.

David Read:
You’re the guy.

Mark Nicholson:
I spent time building film props, and loved it, but wanted to go back to doing video games. And it took a little longer to get there, but I’ve been doing it for a bit more than 10 years now straight.

David Read:
There we go. The drone. That is so cool.

Mark Nicholson:
There are other places where you can find interviews with me about my MechWarrior and BattleTech stuff.

David Read:
Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. All right. Let’s see here. Kathiescall: “How much control over prop design did you have?”

Mark Nicholson:
Sometimes this, sometimes this, sometimes–

David Read:
“I’m gonna use this material.” Yeah.

Mark Nicholson:
Sometimes we would get a paper napkin sketch. Sometimes we would get a …

David Read:
Destiny.

Mark Nicholson:
… very detailed drawing.

David Read:
Destiny was finished on a paper napkin. The ultimate shape, “It’s like this.”

Mark Nicholson:
So, it depends. And it would change all the time, and it’d be like, there was one where our lead was asking for the concept for this thing, because we needed to build it, and we couldn’t get it, and we couldn’t get it, I don’t know why. It was already up on Joe’s blog. So, I grabbed it off there, gave it to him, and he’s like, “Can you print that for me?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” And so he walked into the office the next day, and I’m like, “Here, can I have the real one? ‘Cause I’ve already got this out in public.” And it was like, “Oh, come on.” And I don’t even know what was going on, but there was an aspect of this is secret, but also isn’t; that sometimes would happen. And again, Joe’s the showrunner. He can do whatever he likes. He’s the boss.

David Read:
For sure. No, that’s the thing. I cannot tell you how many times production told me that GateWorld was used as a resource for X, Y, or Z.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, I used it all the time.

David Read:
I don’t know how many circumstances it was before an episode was released, but in some circumstances, yes, when it was finished, but it hadn’t been released yet, because we had gotten some information from some of our interviews, and they went back and said, “I said something. What was it? I can’t remember what it was,” and it was the key to that. And they went and read their own interview, and it’s like, “That’s it!” And then they went and they did it. It’s like they had planned on doing something. I can’t remember who it was. But that kind of thing happened all the time, the snake eating its own tail.

Mark Nicholson:
But no, big shout-out to GateWorld.net, sarna.net, the BattleTech and MechWarrior wiki. I have some friends who have been working on that project for a long time. No, these are invaluable resources. The project I work on now has a wiki because it is part of a larger universe, and we use it all the time. You can’t keep track of all this stuff internally and also keep making things. You would never have time to do it. And even GateWorld, I’d be going back for screenshots of old props to repair them or figure out what the old version of this was and see how it played. And because I was the kind of person who cares about it and would do this kind of digging, I would be like, “Oh, yeah. Mark’s gonna go do all the checking and find stuff.” So, that became a thing I just did all the time. And it continues to be a thing I do.

David Read:
How often would it be a circumstance where– Was there ever a, I guess this may have been an issue earlier on until you figured out where your lane exactly was to stay in, but one of the things that I was kind of surprised at in being on set that later I was like, “I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me before” is I wanted to do something, and I was told by publicity, “No, you can’t do that. We have someone here to do that for you.” And I’m like, “OK.” There are people who are there to do just that. Even for people who are not involved strictly in production but who are on the premises. And if you do that instead of them, you may be thinking you’re helping someone else out, but you’re actually taking their job from them. They have a function there and that is to do that job.

Mark Nicholson:
It’s union work, man. Everyone has, there’s a lot of people who fought long and hard for a lot of certain roles. I can remember arguments about teamsters going, “No, you can’t move that toolbox. It’s got wheels on it.” There’s still– That was more of a joke, and it was a silly one, but no. I remember we built a box for a camera just so it would stop making sounds, so the onset photographer could take pictures without making noise.

David Read:
I saw them use it.

Mark Nicholson:
The practice of making those was common. It was, someone got a new camera, we needed to make a new box.

David Read:
This onset photographer, she would– I was there when they did the shots for “Irresistible,” and she showed me the box that you guys had made so that she was able to, while there’s a take going, take the pictures while they were filming a take. It was really cool. I didn’t know you guys did that. That’s awesome. Let me see here. DanBen: “How many buttons were on a Zat gun?” Working buttons for the pneumatic ones, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure for the servo ones, it was just the same button that opened and closed it, didn’t it?

Mark Nicholson:
Wasn’t there one for raising and lowering and one for firing? I’m not sure though.

David Read:
That’s a good point. There must have been one for firing as well because the front of it would [click] as Michael Shanks calls it.

Mark Nicholson:
The answer is I don’t know.

David Read:
OK. Interesting.

Mark Nicholson:
I know there’s at least one. But there might be two.

David Read:
The physical prop itself I think has four. One moment. We were both wrong. It has three. I never noticed this detail.

Mark Nicholson:
Exciting. I always find the buttons on there to be very– They don’t look very integrated into the rest of the design. They look like something that got added on in a mold.

David Read:
So, open, close, and fire, I’m guessing.

Mark Nicholson:
I always look at it and I go, “This doesn’t feel like fun design.”

David Read:
It wasn’t fun in its creation, I can tell you that right now. Christopher Judge told us very recently that Jonathan Glassner called him up to the office and said, “Name this.” And Chris was like, “What? You’re the writers.” And Jonathan said, “Yeah, but you’re the alien.” So, Chris said, “Zat’ni’katel?” And Jonathan wrote it into the last episode of Season One.

Mark Nicholson:
My online handle, Confracto, is, “Hey Mark, quick, what’s the weirdest word you can think of?” And that popped out of my head …

David Read:
To make up.

Mark Nicholson:
… and I went, OK, cool.

David Read:
Confracto.

Mark Nicholson:
I’m gonna go– We were looking at websites at the time in 2000, 2001, in high school, and it was, I’m gonna go grab that website now.

David Read:
That’s a domain that won’t be taken.

Mark Nicholson:
That’s gonna be my thing.

David Read:
Absolutely. Good for you. Let me see here. Cristina Graziella: “What was the most difficult challenge during Stargate filming?” But you were never present for filming?

Mark Nicholson:
I was never on set for filming. In five years, I went down to the Bridge studio five times. And most of it was to the office to pick up a crew gift or something. I was there for the 200th anniversary celebration when they had them all there and they were doing an interview and they had cake for everyone. I got to go for that. But otherwise it was, no. That celebration was the only time I actually got to go into the SGC and look at the real Gate, when it was there still, and walk through that set. And I was there for like 15 minutes. That was it.

David Read:
All right. Lockwatcher also asked, “I have one of the foam molded drawer covers from Stargate Atlantis’ “Inferno” episode. Were you involved in making these foam molded drawer covers?” That was Season Two, and I …

Mark Nicholson:
No.

David Read:
… don’t think– Lockwatcher, are you still on? “Aurora,” it was from “Aurora” first, if we’re thinking about the same thing. Atlantis door. Let me have a look here if I can pull this up.

Mark Nicholson:
Because Season Two was before my time. So, even if I was making more of them for something else– Wait, wasn’t the Aurora the ship of the people who come later? Wasn’t that Season Four?

David Read:
“Aurora” was Season Two.

Mark Nicholson:
OK. Never mind.

David Read:
Then they have the Orion, and then they’ve got the Travelers who have stolen one. So, this, this was–

Mark Nicholson:
I think the door cover might have been the picture just below there.

David Read:
Which one?

Mark Nicholson:
I’m not sure.

David Read:
There it is. Yes.

Mark Nicholson:
That. No.

David Read:
These were made for Atlantis episode “Aurora” first. It’s ’cause here they are here and here. And it literally-

Mark Nicholson:
Had nothing to do with that.

David Read:
This literally says, “Pull to open.”

Mark Nicholson:
That sounds about right.

David Read:
Turned that, and it was a plant-on. That’s all it was, a foam plant-on. Lockwatcher, that was in “Aurora” first, and then they used it again in “Inferno.” LeadFarmer, good question: “How many of Ronon’s guns were made?” I imagine at least six.

Mark Nicholson:
I never got to see them all at the same time to know.

David Read:
There was a hero, there was one hero. There may have been two of them, if the other one, Jason Momoa or someone got that one. Propworx acquired one, and it went for a private sale. And it was beautiful, and it was heavy. And then we had six or seven duplicates. A couple of them were stunt rubber, but none of them lit. Except for the butt of the gun, the power cell. Two or three of them did light, and you just unscrewed them when– The thing that I never understood was, Ronon’s a runner. When is he gonna have a chance to stop and recharge those? But they were really cool pieces. And then the Travelers got them, so you guys in Atlantis Season Four were able to reuse that prop, and also given an explanation as to where that technology came from.

Mark Nicholson:
And if you look at all the pictures of the stunt ones have all my glue job repairing the rope going around the handle over and over again.

David Read:
Oh, really? Let me pull this-

Mark Nicholson:
Because that would go all the time. I was repairing it constantly.

David Read:
That makes a lot of sense, ’cause they got a lot of– Hang on folks, let me pull this up here. We didn’t get to that, but I will show these because it is a part of the topic right now. And then we’re pretty much done after this.

Mark Nicholson:
I think we should wrap up.

David Read:
Sorry about this, buddy. OK, here we go real quick. There. This is a stunt one. I’m pretty sure.

Mark Nicholson:
Yes, it is.

David Read:
And this is supposed to be Wraith hair.

Mark Nicholson:
If you look at the very top, you can see that the lines aren’t straight, because it’s rubber as opposed to metal.

David Read:
Got it, and then there’s a Traveler one.

Mark Nicholson:
Which also looks like a cast one.

David Read:
Very cool. Permanently in the deactivated position. I think that’s what we have from everybody here. Mark, thank you for going above and beyond. Three hours, man. I am so sorry. I had no idea that it was going to be this interesting. Not that you weren’t gonna be interesting, but that we were gonna cover so much ground. It means a lot to have you.

Mark Nicholson:
I picked a small list of pictures, because I was like, “These are all things I know I can talk about.”

David Read:
Absolutely.

Mark Nicholson:
And for people, I’ll still be in the comments later this week. I know how much fun this is for you guys to ask for things, so I’ll pay attention.

David Read:
I’ll send you the link to the new one when it gets reuploaded, the one where you’re not muted through about three minutes of it.

Mark Nicholson:
Oh, man. Sorry about that, everyone.

David Read:
Apologies, guys. My tools backfire on me. Thank you so much for coming on, and I’ll be speaking with you soon, OK?

Mark Nicholson:
Yup. Another time. Later.

David Read:
I’m gonna go ahead and wrap up the show on this side. Be well, sir. That is Mark Nicholson, prop builder for Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe, as well as the Ark of Truth and Continuum. My name is David Read. You’re watching The Stargate Oral History Project. My tremendous thanks to my whole team for pulling this episode off. Jeremy and Antony, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj, and Jakub, you guys make this easy week in and week out. And my webmaster, Frederick Marcoux over at ConceptsWeb, and Matt “Eagle SG,” who created the Ori warship opening in this episode. Hope you enjoyed that. We’ve got four shows coming at you tomorrow. Three of them on Dial the Gate and one over at Wormhole X-Tremists. My name is David Read. I appreciate you tuning in, and I’ll see you on the other side.