The Martin WooHoodStock Thread

[Devilish Me]

Martin Wood about Shooting Continuum - that's what you get when you google Martin Wood brown day

Edit: Also, this:

[Devilish Me]

And this pic I got when I googled Martin Wood's leg! I wonder why, maybe because you can't see his leg?



Also, I got this Jumbel's vid

Edit: When you click on the link it's actually the second link on the left...

Edit2: I meant on the right...

[Devilish Me]

Weeeeeeeeee! Brown! I like it!

[Devilish Me]

(((huggles Woohooos)))

[Jumble]

Martin Wood about Shooting Continuum - that's what you get when you google Martin Wood brown day

That link is just giving me a blank page

But it did put me in mind of this:

And this pic I got when I googled Martin Wood's leg! I wonder why, maybe because you can't see his leg?

http://i430.photobucket.com/albums/q...ctuary78-1.jpg

Where Martin is, that's where I sat to have my lunch! Not that I actually ate anything - I was too nervous

[Devilish Me]

Aaaanddd Happy Brown day!




There is a music group called Martin's circus!

[Devilish Me]

That link is just giving me a blank page

But it did put me in mind of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkOOdExzqfY&list=FLKMBBU_A5mQaDCqw2k0y5gg&index=35&feature=plpp_video

Weird... I just tried it and it worked... At least something good came out of the blank page!

Where Martin is, that's where I sat to have my lunch! Not that I actually ate anything - I was too nervous

*huggles* And *huggles Martin*
Who needs food anyways!

[Devilish Me]

On that page you can't open there's a Martin pic and there's a sentence right beneath it:

See he does look like that in RL!

What do they mean???

[Devilish Me]

Here's the entire thing!

Spoiler:

Martin Wood has been directing Stargate for more than a decade - with forty six StargateG1 episodes behind him, and thirty Stargate: Atlantis episodes under the belt, he was the natural 'go to' guy for the creator and writer of Stargate, Brad Wright, when it came to choosing the director for Stargate's first standalone feature, Continuum.

His career includes working on Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict, Jeremiah, and the new SCI FI series, Sanctuary, starring Stargate's Amanda Tapping, where he is also producing and writing. We spoke to him about directing Stargate Continuum - and he had a heck of a time!



Brad Wright, Martin Wood and Robert Cooper. And an F-15.


ARCTIC ADVENTURES
Brad Wright - I believe you know him?
Yeah. For twelve years.

In a word, how would you sum him up?
Genius.

He was telling us about how you have a framed picture on your desk now, as a memento from the production of Continuum.
Here's what happened. I have a single picture that I took that shows a film crew standing on the polar ice cap and a nuclear submarine that's come through the polar ice cap and a helicopter flying over the top and four snowmobiles in the background. When you look at that you realise that as a television director, you generally get none of those things. To be in that place at that time to have all those things - that was outstanding. It was one of those things where you stop and oh man, I'm on top of the world both literally and figuratively. It was the most amazing day and there were seven of them up there.

People have asked me what it was like shooting up there - it was the best filmmaking I've ever been able to make in terms of combating everything that's against you and making it work for you.



Martin Wood tells Ben Browder and Michael Shanks (in glasses) what to do.


People aren't used to shooting at 50 below Fahrenheit! Did you have to special things for the cameras?
For the cameras - we had to build an exterior skin for them with a bunch of those chemical heaters - you know those ones you shake up? It kept the camera working at a temperature that they would work at. Most of these cameras work up to about minus 10. Minus 50 is unbelievably harsh.

Every piece of equipment we had had heaters on it - the chemical heaters, some had battery heaters, others had charcoal heaters to always keep them warm.

The one piece that we didn't warm up - broke - that was a tripod. When we were tightening it up it just snapped.

NOT JUST A DOUBLE EPISODE
What were the challenges in making a feature rather than another double episode?
The challenge was making it look like a feature on a television schedule. It was one of those things that you realise there's not that much more money than what we had on some of those big two-parters that we did. But that money didn't buy us a lot of extra days - in fact, we shot it in less time that the Atlantis pilot. And we had to make it look bigger.

When I read the script - there's a point where your eyebrows have to stop going up because that's the highest point of your eyebrows.The thing about this movie, Brad Wright took everything that was the best about Stargate and put it into one movie. When he brought it too me and said 'here, this is what our movie is going to be', I needed six times the distance that I normally cover with my eyebrows.

Because it was such an amazing piece of Stargate action that I had to do, I wanted more time, I didn't have it, I had to make it big in the time I had, but Brad Wright was there on set every day. And I'd finish something and say 'this is what I want to do, but I don't have time to do it'. And he'd say 'don't worry about it! That's all we need'. He knew exactly where it was all going for the final edit.

It's a dream come true to have him sitting beside me saying 'don't shoot any more coverage, you've got it'. Normally you protect yourself by shooting a whole lot of coverage so the person who's ultimately putting it together (Brad) has enough to do so. In this case, he did, so that was a big plus for me.



No acting required on this sound stage! It's frickin' freezin'!


TIME FOR REFLECTION
One of the big pluses for the fans, despite the huge action scenes, are the character moments. But it's a difficult balancing act with the action and deliberately slowing the pace.
Origianlly in the script, Brad had much bigger scenes written than what you actually see now. Robert Cooper convinced Brad to cut down a lot of that. Knowing what was in there, I think a lot of fans would have enjoyed it, but also, I think a lot of them would have thought it was a bridge too far. What we saw was our a team not being a team, not being the characters that we know. So when Carter goes shopping, someone recognises her and she says no, no I'm not Samantha Carter. It was a bigger beat for her.

I think it was nice to get the taste that we did, but anyway, everything changes so quickly when the Alkesh shows up - we're back to the people that we know. I really liked that. The beats are so well thought out.

When you shoot a TV show, you don't have the opportunity to massage the writing in a way that we did here. A lot of the time you'll get on set and realise 'oh oh' this isn't going to work and you'll tap dance around it or wink at it, or just try to divert the audience's attention. In this case, all the pitfalls are thought out beforehand.

Are there any cut or deleted scenes on the DVD?
There were some things we cut out because we went a little bit long, but pretty much everything we shot ended up in the movie. This is the first time in my career where I made a movie that looked like I thought it was supposed to be.

Was there something special that you were trying to achieve when you worked on Continuum?
I was trying to show the audience what Stargate should look like. Stargate should be big. Stargate should be bold. Stargate to me has never really left being a feature film, but it's often so difficult to shoot like that in episodic form. When you don't have the 44 minute TV 'hour' time constraint upon you, you can make things that you never thought you could make before. I wanted Continuum to be bigger and closer to a regular feature. It looks like it and sounds like it. It sounds big, it looks big, the effects are big - it's a big show.

THE SPECIAL EFFECTS
The effects are huge. Did they take longer than usual?
At the time we were working, our special effects house was working on Ark of Truth, and they didn't really turn to us until after The Ark of Truth was released. So they didn't have that much time. We had more time to plan it, but to produce it, no.

Were you happy with the results? - the F15 sequence seems spectacular.
The biggest compliment we got was Rob Cooper looking over our shoulder and saying 'so what, you shot a bunch of F15's!' It's the best compliment you can get when you build them from scratch! We were dragging them around on the ground in a big circle, and for about twenty percent of the circle we had to stop because there'd be a hangar in shot. The sky changes, we'd shoot Amanda in the morning and then shoot Ben when the sun's going down. Dragging this plane around, it was hysterical!



See, he does look like that in real life!


A PERSONAL JOURNEY
How do you feel now that it's all over?
I got to rehearse for this movie for 11 years. It's been a learning process for me on Stargate.

Have the actors learned? Are they still the same big babies?
No, they never started with attitude and they never ended with attitude. They made it fun to go to work every day. Stargate was fun to go to work everyday. You don't stay on a show if people are like that if that happens. You look at, for example, the 200th episode, where we show you the crew who have been that have been there for ten years - there are 79 people out of an 85 person crew who've been there from the very beginning. That doesn't happen! The reason is that everyone loves the show and loves coming to work. The actors are fun to be on set with, and when they're not, you make fun of them till they stop being dorks!

Do you have a dog?
I did have one when I started the show!

It seems everyone who works on the show must present a dog upon entering the studio. They're everywhere!
Yeah! I had this huge Basset hound but he got really old and crotchety to the point where he'd stop production so I had to stop bringing him.

Not that dissimilar to RDA then?
Right!

Was there a moment during the shooting that surprised you when you were thrilled at?
When we finished the montage and Brad and Ryan had put it together and I sat and watched it I was verklempt. I sat there and thought 'wow - this really, really works'. As a director my favourite time was that moment. But my favourite scene was the scene in the hangar with Beau. It's such a beautiful and wonderful moment in the film. It shouldn't be, but it is. It's amazing.

Do you and Robert Cooper have an ongoing bet as to which film will be the most successful?
Oh no. Hands down it's going to be this one! Robert was saddled with having to finish the show. If there was money on the table, both of us would agree that Continuum will do it. Continuum is more fun, because Ark of Truth had a number of issues it had to deal with and those constraints weren't on Continuum.



All the way with RDA! Stargate icon Richard Dean Anderson copes with the pressure in his own inimitable way.


Is there something that you recognise in yourself that has changed by working on ten years of Stargate?
Yeah, I've gone backwards! I haven't grown up, I've grown younger. I look at all my friends who have corporate jobs and go 'man, you look old' I look in a mirror and go ' I don't!' - because I'm having so much fun. To get to play like this - it's a lot of work, it's a huge amount of work and your family suffers because you spend so much time away, but quite honestly - it keeps you young. You can't be serious about it, it's a TV show. You're serious about the work, and about trying to outdo yourself, but it's just like having a five year old boy - you've just got to keep running with him.

Can you tell us about Sanctuary?
Well we've just finished shooting the first four hours, and I really think it's something special. I don't think the world's ready for what we're doing here. I wouldn't have moved to Sanctuary if it wasn't for Amanda and the great concept.

[Jumble]

On that page you can't open there's a Martin pic and there's a sentence right beneath it:
http://www.scifitv.com.au/Content/Bl...artinWood4.JPG
See he does look like that in RL!

What do they mean???

I managed to get it to open in Firefox - IE is playing up lately

I think they mean Teal'c

[Devilish Me]

I managed to get it to open in Firefox - IE is playing up lately

I think they mean Teal'c [/color]

I thought it had something to do with the tool

[Jumble]

I thought it had something to do with the tool

Either that, or the face he's pulling - he's know for that after all

[Devilish Me]

Either that, or the face he's pulling - he's know for that after all

Ohhh! I have such a great pic for that for Red Day *giggles*

I meant the face... not the other thing.

[Nolamom]

Brown Day - Happiness!

[Jumble]

Ohhh! I have such a great pic for that for Red Day *giggles*

I meant the face... not the other thing.

What other thing?

Oh.......



Time I went to bed