Aug 30 2008
The guys and girls over at Cheyenne Mountain and Firesky have released a new Stargate Worlds promotion video which shows actual in-game footage.
Watch the latest Stargate Worlds Promo Video
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Stargate Atlantis actor David Hewlett recently conducted an interview with cinemaspy, during the interview he discusses the challanges he has faced during his 5 years on the hit Sci Fi show, and much more.
Here is an excerpt of the interview:
David Hewlett is the de facto veteran of the Stargate Atlantis team. He’s not only got more credits than his ensemble castmates, but his character of Rodney McKay appeared regularly on Stargate SG-1.
On Atlantis the character of McKay has expanded beyond being a comic foil or trickster-obstacle. He has become less annoying and more sympathetic, less pathetic and more flawed, an understandable transition if audiences were expected to sympathize with him as a main character. The fact that Hewlett, also a veteran of the Canadian film and television scene, gets to play McKay as a Canadian brainiac is something he derives a winking pleasure from.
At Vancouver’s Bridge Studios in May, Hewlett sat down with a group of journalists to talk about the pleasures and pitfalls of being a costar on Stargate Atlantis and what it’s like to work with his sister, Kate Hewlett, who plays Rodney McKay’s sister, Jeanie Miller.
CinemaSpy: What does it mean to play McKay as a Canadian?
David Hewlett: It’s fun, for a change, to do some damage to people’s opinions of Canadians. Every time you see Canadians on television they’re always the sweetest, nicest, not terribly bright people. They are often mounties who, by accident, rescue people. It’s nice to play the genius astrophysicist who’s actually a complete asshole as well. I think I’m doing some permanent damage to the image of Canadians, and I think it’s always fun to mix it up a bit. Especially now that I’m actually living in the States.
Question: Even though a lot of genre shows are shot here and the actors may all be Canadians, very seldom do they actually play them as Canadians.
David Hewlett: It is pretty rare. I think the Canadian film and television scene, a large part is about pretending not to be Canada. I remember them coming in to Toronto and trying to mess it up so it looked more like New York and they’d go away and come back and someone had cleaned up overnight. It is all about pretending to be somewhere else. Changing the road signs, and I had my Canadian accent sort of knocked out of me from the beginning because, god forbid you say “about” the wrong way. ‘Cause the Americans are on you. I can’t even say it wrong, now. But it’s kind of funny, especially in a sci-fi show, to actually get to be Canadian. But what’s nice about Atlantis, though, is that it’s an international team, so you get a little. . . . And that is so Canadian. Canada is, what do they say, American is the melting pot, Canada is the cultural mosaic. That’s very much what Atlantis has become.
You can read the full interview here
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Stargate Atlantis has been nominated for four trophies in the 23rd Annual Gemini Awards.
The press release from the website reads as
Toronto, ON (August 26, 2008) – The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is pleased to announce the nominations for the 23rd Annual Gemini Awards, recognizing the year’s best in Canadian English-language television. The Gemini Awards Broadcast Gala will be presented in Toronto, ON at the John Bassett Theatre on Friday, November 28, 2008. Canwest Broadcasting joins the Academy in celebrating this year’s exceptional achievements, airing the Gemini Awards Broadcast Gala on E! Network and Showcase at 9 pm ET.
“This was a banner year for Canadian television,” said Sara Morton, CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. “The nominees announced today truly exemplify the depth and breadth of our country’s talent, both in front of and behind the camera. Featuring newcomers and returning favourites, this year’s field of nominees has engaged and entertained audiences in Canada and beyond.”
Stargate Atlantis has been nominated in the following categories for season four
Best Writing in a Dramatic Series: Alan McCullough for “Tabula Rasa”
Best Achievement in Make-Up: Todd Masters, Leah Ehman for “The Last Man”
Best Visual Effects: Mark Savela, Marco Checa Garcia, Sebastian Greece, Shannon Gurney, Paul Hegg, Brandon Hines, Jesus Lavin, Nikolas Slotiuk, Toby Taplin, Ray Van Steenwyk for “Adrift”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role: Jewel Staite for “Missing”
You can access the full awards nominations here
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The Official Stargate SG1/Atlantis Magazine: How did you feel last season about McKay developing a relationship that led to a marriage proposal?
David Hewlett: It was neat. That episode was so funny because I came onto the set and was like, “Look, here’s the deal. You have a beautiful botanist on a little tropical paradise on Atlantis and what do I do? Panic? C’mon!” That’s what they are so good at doing with McKay. They put him in situations where anyone else would either enjoy themselves or excel. It’s like Moonlighting. You don’t want those things to work out where there is no tension any more. McKay single is a much more dangerous and entertaining character than when he was comfortable in a relationship. I’m hoping it will be revisited because it was such a final thing for her, and I don’t think McKay has figured it out.
What’s it like working with your real life sister, Kate, as your onscreen sister, Jeannie Miller?
It’s funny. One of the notes we got from Martin Wood when we first worked together was, “Don’t forget you guys are brother and sister.” I was like, “But we are brother and sister!” What’s funny is, we’re horrible to each other, as our characters and in real life. I have teased her mercilessly since the moment she was born, and she gives it back in spades. The instant I realized my little sister was probably going to be my arch-adversary was when I had quit high school. The family was at home upset about it, and my father was very angry. We came down for the first breakfast after I told them I wasn’t going back, and we were sitting there in silence with everyone eating their cereal. My little sister, who at that time was probably nine years old, starts singing, “Beauty school drop out, go back to high school.”
Looking back, how did you prepare for McKay as a much older person in the season finale, The Last Man?
It’s generally the best thing to play, because by the end of the season you’re so tired you feel 1000 years old anyway. Basically, I allowed myself to move slower and complain more. That was actually a funny Lorne moment with Kavan and me as old men, because we are just the crabbiest suckers on set. The two of us as old men was like shooting Grumpy Old Men in space. It was just fun because as you get older you get to play all the little aches and pains out. I think I was born to be old.
With Amanda Tapping around a little less, and Robert Picardo coming in, it’s a lot of transition. How have the changes been?
It’s a bittersweet thing. Change is always nice on a show. It gives you something nice to play. Amanda is the reason I’m here. If she hadn’t given me the freedom that she gave me to play McKay the way I did way back in Stargate SG-1… I owe her a lot. Selfishly, I just really enjoy working with her. One of my favorite episodes last year was Trio with the two female icons of sci-fi, as far as I’m concerned, and me. I was like, “I want more of these in a box!” From a character standpoint, it’s fun to mix that stuff up, but I’m hoping we will see some more of Amanda.
Read the full interview in the 100-page special edition of The Official Stargate SG1/Atlantis Magazine – on sale now!
News article courtesy of the official Stargate Website
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“The Shrine” is one of the most emotionally powerful episodes of Stargate Atlantis to date, as viewers witness McKay’s tragic mental demise. Written by Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis co-creator Brad Wright, the episode heralds the former show-runner’s welcome return to scripting the show.
Director Andy Mikita laughingly admits that the prospect of directing Wright’s return to the writing roster was somewhat daunting. Though the pair has worked together for years, there’s just something about directing a script written by one of the show’s creators.
“I have to confess I didn’t go into it quite as relaxed and comfortable as I usually would,” he chuckles. “I felt a little bit of extra pressure. And I don’t know why. It’s silly, because Brad is such a relaxed, collaborative fellow and his scripts are absolutely wonderful. This one, of course, drew an awful lot of attention because it was such a great script and there is so much for all the actors, especially David Hewlett.”
In the event, Mikita and Wright spent a substantial amount of time discussing the episode before production even began.
“We spoke at length about the show even before he had released the script, he had given me an indication of what the story was and what some of the components were going to be,” explains the director. “We prepped very closely together, which for me was wonderful, primarily because he wrote the script and had some very clear ideas as to what he would like to see and how that could be articulated.”
It was immediately clear that the success of the episode would hinge on how McKay’s degeneration would occur. This obviously put a lot of expectation on David Hewlett, and Mikita, along with Wright, spent a lot of time determining how to approach the key ‘video log’ scenes.
“The biggest thing was the tracking of McKay and the degree of illness that he was suffering from throughout the episode from the video logs that we were doing,” Mikita explains. “We talked to David Hewlett in advance, all three of us sat down in his trailer and discussed it quite extensively, and came to an agreement in terms of the tone of his performance and the different levels that he had to get to.”
Because of the emotional nature of these scenes, it was decided that extra time was needed to prepare before filming. A television schedule doesn’t always allow for long rehearsals, but this time one was deemed necessary. In the end, though, the rehearsal day turned into something more.
“We ended up shooting it in prep – we were going to have a rehearsal day with David, and it turned out we had time to actually shoot it,” says Mikita. “So everything that turned up on the show for the video logs, we were able to film very quickly one afternoon and what started out as a rehearsal day actually ended up being the material that we used in the show. It helped everyone to get that done ahead of time, because it just gave everybody a good sense of the tracking of his illness. And it took a curse off the shooting schedule, because after we had it in the can it didn’t fall into our regular schedule, so that was terrific.”
Going into the day as just a rehearsal also helped get the balance right for each of the difficult scenes. Mikita and Hewlett, with Wright also in attendance, could discuss just what degree of disability was required during the progression of McKay’s illness.
“We shot those with Brad there, sitting right behind the camera. We just had a very small crew – we did it really guerrilla style, and collectively we were able to decide what was too much and what was too little. When we shot it we did it basically in continuity. So we started with him as himself and took baby steps to get him where it needed to go. We played with it a little bit, and were afforded the time to do that because we set up our own little mini unit – there was nothing else going on that day so we had the whole afternoon to play with. But it just proved that David was really on track with it right off the bat. And then Brad’s presence there was great in terms of confidence levels, and making sure we were all on the same page.”
It wasn’t only David Hewlett that had some heavy emotional scenes to contend with. Kate Hewlett returns to Atlantis as McKay’s sister, Jeannie, forced to bid her once-genius brother a painful goodbye. These scenes were very different to episodes that she had filmed for the series before – there was certainly no humour to be had from her brother’s mental demise.
“It all presented itself quite naturally,” Mikita recalls of the scene in which Jeannie first talks to her brother. “In fact, the sequence where Jeannie went to visit the hospital room where McKay is being held was quite something. When we did our very first blocking rehearsal, she burst into tears at exactly the appropriate point, which was wonderful ¬– but I think she had a tough time getting back to that level. It was very emotional for her, especially because they’re real life brother and sister as well. But we kept things pretty intimate, and they’re both such wonderful actors that it didn’t really require much on my part,” he observes, with a self-deprecating laugh. “I was sitting back and watching it happen for the most part, and I can’t take very much credit at all for that.”
The emotion of the episode was not the only challenging aspect of the story from Mikita’s point of view. The script also called for the Stargate – and the lead cast – to be submerged in water. Since dipping the entire gate in a pool deep enough to cover it almost completely would be too costly an exercise, Mikita and his director of photography, Jim Menard, had to come up with an alternative way to make the scene work.
“A lot of time was spent in pre-production with that one,” the director admits. “There were some financial restrictions placed upon us, and there was only so much we could do. So we had our one big hero visual effects shot, which was the end of that scene. Then we actually built a section of the Stargate in the studio, and used fish tanks to submerge the cameras and put some atmosphere in the air with rear-screen projections. We had some wind blowing and the actors were soaking wet – we had to wet them all down, which was great fun,” he chuckles, “we all took great pleasure in doing that over and over again! But yeah, that was a tricky one, we had to test that pretty extensively in pre production to make sure it was going to work, doing so many practical elements instead of it all being visual effects. Another sequence that’s worthy of note,” Mikita adds, “is the Sheppard-McKay scene with the two of them sitting on the end of the pier. It was a great scene and all the backgrounds were done with visual effects, we didn’t do any of them practically. But it’s just a great scene, both Joe and David are really just tremendous. I think it’s one of my, if not the favourite scene, of the episode.”
Overall, Mikita feels that “The Shrine” is, from his perspective, a resounding success, and hopes that viewers will feel the same.
“It’s an episode that I have a feeling will be met with some mixed reviews,” the director muses. “I have a feeling that some people may love it and for some people it may not be their cup of tea. It’s not a huge action episode as we’re used to seeing– it’s much more of a performance piece. But it’s really quite something. It’s a wonderful script, and some of the performances are amongst the best we’ve had on the show. So hopefully people will enjoy it.”
News article courtesy of the official Stargate Website
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