Stargate Atlantis - Stargate Planet - Director David Winning Interview

From Stargate Planet:

http://stargate-planet.de/stargate.html

GERMAN

http://www.stargate-sg1-planet.de/archiv/winning2008-de.html

ENGLISH

http://www.stargate-sg1-planet.de/archiv/winning2008-eng.html

A brief excerpt:



Interview with David Winning

Stargate-Planet, May 2008

David Winning was a director of Stargate Atlantis' first season episodes. We're grateful that he's willing to answer a few career related questions for our German website visitors.



S-P.de: Your Atlantis episode "Childhood's End" won three awards for "Best direction". What do think does make this episode and your direction special?

DW: "Childhood's End ultimately is a story about compassion and understanding. Sheppard and his team crashland on a planet where the inhabitants are all children; no one lives past the age of 25. Our heroes soon learn the disturbing reason. The series presents some interesting dilemmas and political choices for the fans; how much interference is too much in a new culture -- and what is the real purpose of the SG teams exploration. I loved working with the kids obviously, that was a major fun part of the show. Cleo and Casta played by Jessica Amlee and Sam Charles were both amazing and pretty experienced for their age. But I think the most challenging part was just creating this whole forest village that the kids lived in. With amazing support from a great effects team (to add the actual treehouses) and also the art direction and set decoration was incredible. That village went on forever; just wish we'd had the time to shoot it completely and show it off. Perhaps the movie version. I think it's always fun to be in on the ground floor of a series because everyone was finding their way. Childhood was such an early episode for Atlantis, that it was fascinating watching the characters being formed by a talented cast. I really liked playing with the tension in the group as Aries starts to get more manic and defensive. There developed sort of an evil quality to the villagers amidst the innocence of youth. Episode trivia: Three scenes were removed; both just for time. I tend to overshoot stuff so quite often because of the confines of episodic some material will have to go. I'm remembering one scene involved Teyla questioning a pregnant villager about the origins of the sacrifice – just a short scene that I liked but it got trimmed. Also the team's arrival in the forest village was a long steadicam tracking shot through the winding path of the village and showing all the kids coming out of hiding to greet the group. Sad to see this go as it really showed off the expanse of the encampment. In the present cut the group just arrives at the shrine as the rope ladder is thrown down. Also a short argument scene between Keras and Aries in the treehouse, just before they confer with the team about their decision."

**snippage**

Photos from "Childhoods End" courtesy of GateWorld