Welcome And Guest Introduction

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Stafford Corner Podcast, a Staffordarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Stafford. Today I'm joined by a director whose career is almost impossible to put into one category. David Winning has spent more than four decades behind the camera, directing everything from science fiction to horror to family television and hallmark romances. David, thank you so much for joining us today.

David Winning 0:45

Thanks, Greg. Great to be with you. Thanks for asking me.

Super 8 Childhood In Calgary

Greg Staffa 0:48

So you have one of those stories that sound like a lot of your kind of generation, where you grew up with a Super 8 camera and just a love for filmmaking. Tell us a little bit about your childhood.

David Winning 1:01

Yeah, well, I grew up in uh I'm Canadian, which makes me insufferably polite, which is kind of good. Grew up in Calgary, Alberta. Uh on my 10th birthday, my dad had the foresight to get me a movie camera, which replaced the ventriloquist dummy from last year's present. I just kind of went off to the races making movies when I was uh in my you know early teens. Got my friends together in the backyard and we'd put together uh big Hollywood epics in our brains, and we had all sorts of fun. And by the time I got to be 15, 16, I thought, geez, I'm I'm having so much fun with this hobby. I wonder if there's some way to turn this into a career. But, you know, I'm in the prairies in Canada, I'm as far as possible from Hollywood. So I had to use a little bit of strategy, strategizing and brain power to figure out how to uh actually develop a career.

Greg Staffa 1:49

And there there seems to be something about your generation, our generation. There's a lot of stories of Adam Goldberg, who created the Goldberg TV show, uh, also grew up, you know, with a Super 8 camera and just kind of learning how to direct new film like that. There's the the Luke George Lucas's of you know the world that grew up making, you know, movies on a limited budget and stuff like that. What was something about that generation that really had that creative kind of drive?

David Winning 2:20

I was just so desperate to get away from the nine to five. I just couldn't see myself doing any kind of sort of so-called normal career. Not that I'm disparaging normal careers, because thank God there are people doing those. But um, I just really wanted to do something different. And when I got the Super 8 camera when I was a kid, I was really into special effects. That's all I wanted to do. And I figured, oh, I'm gonna get into uh science fiction or something. I'm just gonna do special effects. That'll be my job. And then gradually, as you get a little older, you start telling stories and you think, well, maybe I have some, maybe I have some skill with narrative. I just, you know, I I was kind of planning in my twenties to go to uh film school. So my dad and I had kind of this plan worked out. I was working as a a bouncer and a ticket taker and all sorts of odd jobs trying to raise money to go to uh USC or UCLA or something like that. And I had a sort of a brainstorm and way back in the early 80s, I thought, wait a minute, why don't I take all this money that I've been collecting, go out and buy film stock, like an idiot, of course. You're very naive when you're when you're a kid, so and that gives you kind of a superpower. And I I literally did that. I went out and bought film stock, gathered more of my friends back together, and we went out in the summer of uh 1983, way back when, and I shot on a kind of a three to one ratio uh my first my first feature film, which is called Storm. Funnily enough, it's actually being re-released next year, 40th anniversary, which is fun.

Making Storm The First Feature

Greg Staffa 3:44

Now, have you gone back and made any kind of adjustments to it or is it still the original film?

David Winning 3:50

Storm had kind of a long story because it it we came out originally in '85, and uh I was trying to sell it everywhere in the Canon Film Group, if you remember them from the 80s, who used to do all the Chuck Norris and Stillone movies. They saw a cut of it at one of the international festivals and they said, Yeah, fine, we'll buy this. And I'm, you know, I was like 26 and and like had very green and had no idea how to do any kind of business stuff. And so I said, Oh, great, I'd finally sold this movie, I could pay some of my bills. And then they found out it was only uh 81 minutes long, so they said, forget it, deal's off. So I scrambled and uh I I talked to the Canon folks directly and I said, you know, can you advance me 50 grand from this fairly large amount of money they were going to give me to release the movie? And they said, sure. So I got 50 grand from them and I went back out in 1987, gathered all the actors back, and we went and shot an additional 20 minutes. So the change that I would make to Storm, I did years ago. I made I brought it up to feature length so it could actually be released, which was great. So we brought it up to uh 102 minutes, and there I was at 2627 with my very first feature film. And I thought this is either going to be the biggest disaster in the world or I'm gonna put the first uh pin in my career marker, which uh fortunately for me it it did fairly well. And uh I went on and started directing television in Canada.

Greg Staffa 5:13

And was there any, I mean, looking back now at it, was there any takeaways or lessons learned that were instrumental in the way you approach things going forward?

David Winning 5:23

Well, as I said, I think when you're you have to be naive when you're a kid, because you if you saw the mountain of obstacle in front of you trying to get a feature film made, you would just give up. So I kind of went into it blindly. I think, you know, the advice I would give, I used to have a little sign on my typewriter when I was ha, you know, clacking out the script back in way, way back when, and it said, ignore ignore dream killers. Because I just I didn't want to deal with anybody saying, Oh, you can't do this, because there's uh infinite amount of people that will tell you you can't do something. So so we just uh we got it together and just we made it, and it took um, you know, I thought it was going to be done like that year, but it took about four or five years. So I basically spent four or five years of my twenties, which coincidentally is what a film course is. So I basically created my own uh film course.

Greg Staffa 6:09

What did your family think about this? Your dad was instrumental in giving you your your first Super Eight. Were they supportive?

David Winning 6:16

Did they they see the creativity that was coming from me, or was this just I'm I I'm not sure what they what they thought I was doing, but you know, I had loving parents and they just kind of wanted me to be happy. So they supported it. They supported me along the way. My dad was uh PhD chemical engineer, and my mom was uh dietitian, and my brother was a social worker, and along comes me, this kid who's got a movie camera and he wants to make movies and go to Hollywood. And they just said, you know, go for it. And uh it was it was it was a great environment to grow up in. I really had a lot of support. And you know, my dad uh helped me out with financially with with Storm and then and then we kept track of all the money and I paid them all back uh when it was when it was finally sold, and so I felt like I'd I felt like I'd come full circle with it, which was great. But I mean they were incredibly supportive.

Is Filmmaking Easier Now

Greg Staffa 7:04

Now your story seems reminiscent of a lot of like we mentioned before, a lot of directors from like the 70s to early 80s. Is this kind of story that uh is yours, is it something that you think can happen again these days? Is it much harder to get into directing? I mean, to be able to talk to a studio and get your film you know adjusted that can't be easy these days.

David Winning 7:27

Yeah, I sort of have always felt like it's easier now than it was when I was starting out because we didn't, you know, we had film and processing and lab costs and you know tons of equipment. And nowadays the you know, the HD and the the the DV quality and uh stuff, the equipment is so much better. And I th I just think, how could it not be easier now to go out and make uh you know an actual I mean people are making movies with their iPhones, as you know now, which is something that was uh I mean we didn't even have cell phones in the 80s, so you know I couldn't even have have imagined that. But I th I think I like to think it's easier for anybody to who's got a good idea that wants to try to get a career going just to go out and do it. I mean, you just have to really put blinders on and just you know, kind of march forward and just figure, you know, one step at a time and eventually you'll get to a finished product that you can be proud of, and then hopefully that leads to other things. I mean, my my career has been very strange. You know, you look back on it now and you think, wow, this guy's worked all this time. I've done, you know, I've done like almost 50 features now, and I worked on uh like 29 different television series, but I never had any kind of plan when I started that. I just kind of went from one thing to another and you know, I hoped that each job would elevate you along the along the way. And and so, you know, I just I would like to think it's easier for now, now for people to get started.

Greg Staffa 8:46

You say that so casually, like, oh, I've done this many feature films and this many episodes, and you said that there wasn't really a thought process to it. Did it come easy to you? Because it almost sounds, well, yeah, I just kind of happened and I fell into place. Was there, you know, what kind of hardships did you face, or was it all kind of just fell into place, kind of not accidentally, because you obviously earned it, but just there was a rhythm to it that worked for you.

David Winning 9:12

I I think I learned how to stell tell I learned how to tell stories very early, and uh that helped me, you know, survive in the jobs. And and and it really does it really is that one thing leads to another. When I finished Storm, I ended up in the director's guild in Canada, and they they produced this little book uh with all you know pictures of the directors and their credits and stuff. And um Friday the 13th, the TV series, if you remember that, back from the 90s was was shooting in Toronto, and uh director fell out for whatever reason, and the producer was flipping through the book, and he said, Winning sounds positive. Hire him. You know, and they had no idea they were bringing in a 25-year-old kid from Alberta to shoot their uh TV series, but um so I kind of hung on for Dear Life with a crew of 150 people when I'd only really been before that, used to working with maybe 15 or 20 friends. And uh it was kind of like ordeal by fire, but I I knew how to tell stories visually, so I I just survived. And you know, it's a very bumpy career. There's a lot of people that um started out in the 80s and 90s that aren't in the film business anymore because um it isn't always easy sailing. You know, there's been year-long, two-year-long periods where you just don't get any phone calls and nothing happens. But looking back on it, it seems like I'm always working, and that's not really the truth. I've just been I've been very lucky and I've and I've worked in, you know, all genres. I've done a ton of science fiction, ton of kids series for Nickelodeon, and um, you know, I did the Van Helsing series for Sci-Fi Channel, which was a ton of fun, vampire series. And then as you probably know, I've been the last eight or nine years in uh Hallmark Channel land making wonderful Christmas movies for uh folks to enjoy at Christmas, which I love to do. It's all about it's all about entertainment, it's all about um finding ways to bring people into emotional stories and make people cry and laugh and surprise. And you know, there's no real I don't find there's any real difference between science fiction and monster movies and kids shows and Christmas movies. It's just entertainment. You just have to find a way to pull people into a storyline.

Greg Staffa 11:13

You

Surviving TV And Genre Hopping

Greg Staffa 11:14

just ruined my next question, so thank you for that. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna ask, you know, how because you've done like the science fiction, you've done the romance holiday, you know, hallmark movies. What is your thought process for if you get two scripts, one's a science fiction, one's a hallmark, how are you going through and kind of looking at which one you want to take, or is it just the writing?

David Winning 11:37

Well, Greg, you get a bit mercenary in your old age, you know, and you take the one that pays more, of course. But um, I mean, I like I like anything. I I have never I think, you know, the secret of my success, if there is one, is that I've never said no to anything. I've always said, you know, I I was shooting uh I was on a uh night shoot, uh shooting a vampire series, Van Helsing, which I mentioned, and we were throwing people off the roof with uh nooses around their neck, and my agent called and said, Hey, do you want to do a Christmas movie for Hallmark about puppies? And I thought, uh, yeah, that'd be a nice change. You know, you just never know, you never know where you're gonna end up in the business. So I uh I just have I've kind of jumped at all the opportunities that I've got because you never know what you're gonna miss if you say no to something. So I've just that's how I've kind of steered the career. I've just uh I kind of blow with the wind, which is fun because you get to do a lot of different cool stuff when you get to meet lots of great crews and work with tons of different people.

Greg Staffa 12:33

And is your directing approach the same when whether it's throwing people off the roof with nooses to directing puppies? Are you the same kind of director or is there a different kind of mentality that goes into it?

David Winning 12:45

I I think what you're always doing when you're a director is you're trying to imitate the things that you loved when you were a kid. So if you're doing science fiction, you're going back to like 70s Star Trek. And if you're doing uh if you're doing Christmas movies, it's all like the Waltons from the 70s. It's all stuff that I grew up with. And you just kind of watch the different styles and absorb the the pace and the and the way the stories are told. But essentially it's all the same thing.

Greg Staffa 13:10

Now, you directed a Stargate Elementis, and you had one particular episode, Childhood's End, that got you three directing awards. Was there anything special about that episode, or did you see something unique and different that really stood out, or is it just part of the game of being director?

David Winning 13:28

Sometimes it just resonates with people. I th I think again, it's it's just you're going back to what you things that you loved as a as a kid, and I think that uh that episode had a lot of um Logan's Run in it. It was about uh this society that got to the age of 30 and had to kind of commit suicide because they they couldn't get any older. And um, I kept thinking of, you know, the carousel sequence and Logan's Run and stuff. So you're always borrowing from everything that's sort of in your lexicon of filmographies from your childhood and the TV series that you loved. In in the Stargate case, I'd been working on uh I've done a couple of Gene Roddenberry series, but I'd been uh one of the house directors on Kevin Sorbo's series, Andromeda, and Stargate, of course, was shooting at the same time, the different variations of Stargate. And so we we're always trying to get on to new series and things, and I finally was lucky enough to get in and do one of those episodes. I only got to do one for lots of political reasons, but uh, had a great time on the show, and I've and I got so many, I got so much work out of this one episode of Stargate Atlantis that I did. I was really proud of it. And as you mentioned, it won some awards, which was great. But it was it was lots of fun. Yeah, it was uh the thing with when you're directing television, you're also you're always trying to put your mark on something and try to look a little bit different, but at the same time you have to you don't have to you don't want to screw up the canon of the series, so you have to uh, you know, pay attention to the Bible and of the show and make sure you're following the the the character uh and plot lines and things that have been already established. But at the same time, you want to be a little bit different so that they they notice your episodes and hopefully bring you back. One of the things I'm most proud of is I've got a lot of multiples on the TV series I've worked on, which basically means the producer just liked you and they brought you back for, you know, more than one, which is great.

Greg Staffa 15:12

What is it that you try to do to kind of find that that spark and energy that that 22-year-old in you had uh while doing this?

David Winning 15:21

I'm I'm not sure, Greg. I I think I've just never lost that. You know, I always say the day I go on set and I'm not excited like a 10-year-old or 20-year-old kid, I'm just gonna quit because it's a really hard job. And unless you can muster the energy and uh the you know, the the drive to keep going and because basically you're a cheerleader when you're directing, so you're always inspiring the crew and trying to keep everybody upbeat and stuff. And I always like to, when I'm directing, it's just a style I've always had is I like to create a party atmosphere and have everybody have tons of fun and be relaxed, you know, and we have a lot of laughs making movies. Even the scary movies and the heavy dramas, you know, you try to have a lot of fun making the movies because selfishly I always want the actors to be comfortable and feel like they can play around and uh because they end up giving you the best work and then I end up looking better. So, you know, I'm the one that ends up eating the stress for breakfast, as I say.

Critics Subjectivity And Fixing Scripts

Greg Staffa 16:12

Speaking of stress, one of the things that you have to deal with is critics. Is there something about directing that you wish critics could understand more about what goes into what you do? Like if you can't pull aside a critic and say, hey, we talk, I just want to let you know this is what's going on.

David Winning 16:31

I don't think, you know, it's I always say when you you know when you're an audience and you're watching something and nobody issues you a pamphlet in the theater and says, look, this this movie was really hard to make, so could you appreciate it? I just don't think it I don't think it I don't think it works like that. I mean, entertainment either works for somebody or it doesn't. And uh when you're when you're a critic, obviously something didn't work for you. I mean, years back, you uh uh you probably know uh Peter Bogdanovich was a was a film critic for many years, and people always said, Well, why don't you go out and make a movie if you think it's so good? So of course he went out and made uh Last Picture Show, which I think won a bunch of Oscars, and uh he became quite a good director and he gave up being a film critic. So there you go, Greg. That's your future.

Greg Staffa 17:12

I'm happy doing what I'm doing for right now. But it's just always interesting because I mean I feel bad and it because I I'm fortunate enough where I don't review stuff if I didn't kind of enjoy it, which I know doesn't push me as much. But also I don't understand the need to I mean because there's hundreds of people that are involved in a film or uh, you know, a TV episode, and to to trash their work without having any kind of context sometimes gets frustrating for me personally. And so I try not to find all ways to negative, but I think we inherently try to do that. And so it's always interesting talking to these directors because no one does a film or an episode saying, This is gonna suck. I know it's gonna suck, but we're gonna do it anyway. And when the critics say it sucks, they'll be right.

David Winning 17:58

And so when I started directing television, as I mentioned, I was doing Paramount's uh Friday the 13th, the TV series, the syndicated series from the early 90s. And this episode that I mentioned, they brought me down on because the director had uh fallen out and they gave me the worst episode of the season. It was terrible, and they thought, just you know, give this kid the script. It's not gonna, it's gonna be horrible. And so the challenge then, and there I was 26 trying to make an impression, was I was gonna make it the best episode of the season. And it was about killer bees, and it uh ended up winning the Canadian version of the being well nominated for the Canadian version of the Emmys that year. And then the second year, I went back to Friday the 13th, and both episodes I did got nominated for these Emmys, which was which was fun. I mean, you just you're always I always feel like when you're a director, I always feel like you never know if the show or the episode or the movie you're doing is gonna end up being somebody's favorite episode ever. And so I always kind of have that person in in the back of my mind when I'm making a show that everything you do is, you know, you're always trying to make everything as good as you can. You're always trying to elevate the storyline and make the performances as great as you can. But that's your job. Your job is is for that fan who's gonna, who's gonna years from now say, oh, that was my favorite episode of, you know, Star Trek or whatever series you worked on, or and that kind of thing. I mean, that's really important to me because I am that kid, you know, watching those shows back when I was 10 and 12 and the prairies of Canada, thinking there was no way I was ever gonna get near Hollywood.

Greg Staffa 19:30

I think you made a good point in talking about, you know, the story that you thought was gonna be awful, because so much of storytelling is subjective. You know, you may not find this scary or you may not find this intimidating, but to others out there, they might be terrified of bees. And so an episode surrounding bees might be a horrific thing where it might not bother other people, but I think storytelling is so unique and prospective that you know you you put something out there and hoping that you find that right audience and then it's marketed to the right audience that makes it in the end successful. That a script that didn't seem exciting or thrilling, if it finds the right audience that connects with them, the story, then anything is possible.

David Winning 20:14

Yeah, absolutely. No, I agree. And I think it took me a while when I started my career to realize that I could actually, you know, I mean, AM directing it, but I can also steer the writing and I can change the writing and I can adjust things. Like you read a script and you think, wow, this one scene's really bad. I wish I could change it. Well, it took me a while to realize you can change it. You're the director. And with producers, they honestly don't care if you can fix something if it doesn't cost them anything. It's like, well, how much is that gonna cost? Nothing. We're just gonna shift a couple things here and take a character out and add some lines in here and stuff. You know, you do it with with respect to the writer because I respect writers. Hopefully you work in collaboration with them. But there's always that probably the most exciting part of my job is that there's always ways to improve things. And, you know, why else am I there?

Greg Staffa 21:00

Yeah. One of the things I find interesting, and this is a case study that I think others should focus on more, was the movie Justice League, where they came out with Justice League and released it, but then they came out with the Snyder cut. And yes, they they filmed a couple of additional scenes, but they re-edited it and they changed, and so the scenes that were already in there were re-edited and it totally changed the story.

David Winning 21:27

Yeah.

Greg Staffa 21:27

And I think as an audience, we don't fully grasp how important the right editing, the right the way the story is told, how much of that can change the look of a movie. And they're two completely different movies that has a majority of the same scenes in it, just with a different edit and a different kind of vision. And I think that's something that filmmakers, I would hope, kind of go back to and look at as an example of how much the way you put something together and then present it can can it change and impact the story.

David Winning 22:00

Totally. And the thing, the other thing too is, you know, it takes just as much hard work and time and money to make a great movie as it takes to make a bad movie. I mean, it's a it's a very hard job. And I think sometimes you just have to pray for the kismet to happen, the right scripts, the right actors, the right directors, the right uh just the right environment for a really great movie to happen, which is what you're always trying for, or a great episode of a show. You know, you just do your best. I mean, I'm really I don't I don't consider I mean this may sound pretentious, but I don't really see like I don't see a lot of duds in my filmography. I'm really proud of all the shows I did. I worked just as hard on, you know, uh a Van Helsing episode as I did years ago on a Sweet Valley High episode, or or uh I I I did the original Breaker High series with Ryan Gosling when he was 16, which was tons of fun. But you know, you you just try to make everything I I look back on these shows and I sometimes see them in reruns, and I'm still proud of what I did and the directions and the choices that we all made because it's a collaborative effort. It's not just me. I mean, the crews just make directors look great, you know. I mean, uh, I've had such an I've had such good luck with such amazing crews in my career.

Streaming Theaters And Movie Economics

Greg Staffa 23:11

Now, when you're directing, Matt Damon had an interesting conversation uh or an interesting interview. He talked about how what he would do a film like The Bourne Films, and those would be major, you know, Hollywood blockbusters, but that would allow him to do smaller independent films that may not get as much attention, but things like VHS and DVD would help promote that and give that kind of movie a longer life and then become financially successful. With the change now where everything seems to be going on streaming, VHS and DVDs are almost no longer existent. Are you worried about the future of movies and their sustainability if they're not, you know, a Marvel movie or whatnot where they aren't going to get that audience and there isn't anything kind of following them to kind of make up that financial gap?

David Winning 24:03

I mean, I think there's always gonna be blockbusters, you know, starting with uh, I guess for me in the 70s with Jaws, there's always gonna be some movie that does breakthrough business, like even the low budget films or well, low-ish budget films like uh Backrooms and uh Obsession, the two horror films that did really well this year. I think those movies are always gonna find an audience, but I think on the good side, there's just so many more channels and so many more streaming services that it gives the opportunity for so many more filmmakers to come up and and try their best to uh kind of get on that train.

Greg Staffa 24:37

And you don't see that as watering down some of the the stories or I think there's always gonna be crap.

David Winning 24:44

And there's always gonna be really great shiny diamonds that come out of the come out of the entertainment business. You never and that's what's fun to find. That's why people love to to uh you know, search through the indie film festivals and the sun dances and try to find the the next um surprise hit.

Greg Staffa 25:02

Interesting. I've done South by Southwest for seven years and not the last year or two, but I've always enjoyed doing that because you see the films that most people won't know about or or realize, but there's some really good ones out there and some great storytellers that I would hope they gets more of a better chance to to go into features, but there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect there from jumping from short films or like the the film festival circuit to the feature films, but hopefully with streaming that kind of expands a little bit.

David Winning 25:37

Yeah. Well, I always feel like I think the film, the theater film business is coming back. It seems like it's coming back. And I think, you know, people are people are I mean, COVID obviously affected everything in the world, but I think people always need that there's a need to be in the dark with a bunch of strangers watching some entertainment and having sort of a group visceral reaction to to a story and to entertainment. I just think that's always going to be there in some form. I mean, we're all guilty of just streaming and binge watching shows by ourselves with on the couch, but I mean, I kind of miss the days of going out to the movie theaters. And like I said, I think it's I think it's coming back. It feels like it's slowly starting to pick up. Problem is people don't want to pay $30 to see crap. You know, they don't want to it it has to be worth worth the while. So either the prices drop, which probably won't happen, or the movies just need to get better to bring the theaters back.

Greg Staffa 26:29

Well, I also think some of it is the studios no longer really have the films back, it seems, to some extent, because nowadays, I mean it used to be a movie would come on the theaters and it was six, seven months before it came out on DVD or VHS, and now it's a matter of weeks.

David Winning 26:47

Day and day almost, yeah.

Greg Staffa 26:48

Why would I pay $30 if I can wait for for you know 30 days and watch it on my 5200 screen? Yeah. And do that.

David Winning 26:58

Well, but it's like, you know, build a better mousetrap or sell a McDonald's burger and don't raise the price to beyond $2. That's you just have to get a mass following of people coming after you wanting to see your your movie. And I'm I've I'd love to try and explore. I mean, if I was starting over again, I I guess I would probably try to I probably would have tried to release Storm on YouTube or something, because the the the uh potentials for making money on your own, as uh the guy who did Back Rooms discovered is uh enormous. I mean, um that I you know I would have been trying to re I wouldn't have been I wouldn't have been chasing studios to release the movie. I would just would have gone to YouTube or something, started my own channel.

Greg Staffa 27:38

Also, with backrooms, they really they were they made it more of an event. Not just going to see a movie, but they the theater, some of the theaters, not all of them, but some of the theaters set it up to be like an environment. And there was certain things that they were doing to kind of make it not just going to a movie, but you were going to an event type thing where it was almost interactive. And I think that's one of the things that they're looking at. You know, studios are always looking for a creative way to to do that. They had that walking movie where they had people on treadmills to, you know, in order to see the movie, you had to walk.

David Winning 28:16

That's a good way to get exercise. I love that. Keep the movie going. But you started off I often I often thought I'd I'd be much healthier if I had my uh cycle bike attached to Netflix or something.

Greg Staffa 28:26

There you go. In order to keep it running, you know, keep watching it, you had to keep pedaling.

David Winning 28:30

Exactly.

Keeping Up With New Tech

Greg Staffa 28:32

Now you started out with the Super 8 camera and that work back in those days. How do you keep up with technology? I mean, nowadays we have things like the volume and things, you know, everything is digital. And how is that easy as a director to kind of keep up with the latest technology? Is that something that you're always kind of constantly learning? How as a director, how does that work?

David Winning 28:53

I think I do what everybody does. I try to learn on YouTube. I mean, that's what I'm always trying to do. I I haven't had the chance yet to work in volume screens. There's a couple projects out there that are planning to go that way, and we're designing it to use volume screens. I think that's a fascinating technology that's just uh, I mean, it's just it's just in even in its infancy, but it's just so brilliant to be able to take a crew of people into a studio and create basically any environment in the world. You know, you can be you can be at the bottom of the ocean or you could be at the top of Mount Everest and much easier shooting conditions too, because you don't have to uh brave the elements. And I and I think, you know, in the old days you thought, well, that's never gonna work. It's always gonna look like those bad mats behind, you know, car shots where the where you can tell that it's they're not moving and it's just some fake backgrounds moving and stuff. I mean, it's just so beyond that now with uh with the technology that they're doing. So I'm hoping to I'm hoping to increase my learning curve and figure that stuff out too. I haven't had the, as I mentioned, I haven't had the chance to deal with it directly, but I've but certainly been watching a lot of back making of trying to figure it out.

Greg Staffa 29:53

Well, plus it gives I mean, as opposed to like a green screen, it gives the actors something to interact with, which is just amazing because it's real time.

David Winning 30:01

Exactly. And and the cool part about it is that they build partial sets so that the actors have something to work with and yet, and then the rest of it is just uh digital on giant screens.

Why Hallmark Comfort Stories Work

Greg Staffa 30:12

Now, working in a Hallmark film, as a guy, you kind of roll your eyes and go, they all kind of seem the same. What is it about Hallmark films that you simply seem to love? Because you've directed so many of them, you don't find it repetitive? Where is it the story is each unique?

David Winning 30:30

Part of the challenge is to fight that formula when you can. And that's what one of the things I found really exciting. I mean, when I started out, I just uh I just thought, you know, am I the right person to do this? I mean, I'm I'm slitting throats on uh Van Helsing. Why am I here directing puppies? But uh I love it. I I I think it's uh like I said, it's all entertainment. It's all it's any way you can pull people into a storyline. And I think Hallmark got sort of a bad rap at the beginning because people said, you know, their storylines are all the same and they're all very similar. And that's true. There is a lot of similarity to it. But I mean, there's nothing wrong with uh even nowadays, having heroes and having hope in stories and just finding, you know, different and unique and kind of varied ways to tell the same stories. I mean, you know, there's only like seven stories, as they say, in the world, you know, the the love story's been around forever. And uh, you know, spoiler alert, most Hallmark movies, most I should say, all Hallmark movies are going to have very happy endings. But I think people know that going in. I mean, um, you know, 85 million people watched the Hallmark movies last year. So it's obviously some uh need that is being filled. And um, and for me, as I mentioned earlier, when I was growing up, the Waltons was this great series. And it was the kind of that kind of, you know, the home fires and being at home and cozy and safe. Um, Hallmark's always offered uh Safe Harbor. Interesting.

Spotting Talent And Casting Power

Greg Staffa 31:57

Now, when you direct something like you directed a young Ryan Gosling, did you see something in him, or is he just another actor at the time? Are you as a director? You're juggling so much stuff. Do you have time to really notice a young talent like that and say, wow, that's gonna be something special someday?

David Winning 32:16

Yeah, Ryan I noticed, and also Tyler Levine, both the two of them on Breaker High, fans of Breaker High, I'll know what I mean, but the the two buddies on that show, you you knew Ryan was going places. I mean, he was just so quick-witted and so funny. We used to shoot, we'd call it the the uh the Ryan and Tyler take. We'd do a third take of all the scenes where they just we just let them go off and ad lib and more times than not. That's the uh that's the scene that ended up airing because they just were incredible. All the kids were just so creative. But um, you know, I used to I used Ryan used to say to me, uh, I'm not going to set until the director carries me. So I literally had to carry him to set on my back when he was 16 a couple times. Kind of funny. But um yeah, you knew he was going places. I didn't know he was going to become this, you know, serious dramatic actor. But um, as you've seen also recently with uh Barbie and some of the stuff he's done, he's got an incredible sense of humor.

Greg Staffa 33:09

Would you ever like to work? I mean, I'm sure the answer is yes, but I have to ask, you know, would you jump at the chance to work with him again and see what's going on? Of course. The young talent that he's become now?

David Winning 33:20

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Of course I would. Who would who would say no to that? I mean, part of the, you know, I think the earliest lesson I learned in the film business is trying to get my I did my first feature Storm, and then it took me four years, even after all these rave reviews, took me four years to get the second film off the ground. And I was trying everything I could, trying to raise money everywhere. And and uh somebody read the script and they said, Have you have you sent it to uh Michael Ironside, who folks will know is a Canadian character actor who's great, he's been in a ton of ton of movies. And I I said no. So we sent it off to Michael Ironside. He read it, loved it, and three weeks later we were fully funded after like a four-year search. So I realized pretty early on that the you know, the film business is driven by actors and driven by cast. And it makes sense because you know, people go people go to the theater to see uh, you know, a Tom Cruise movie or a Harrison Ford movie, or please give me a younger reference. Um, but that's that's what the business is driven by.

Greg Staffa 34:19

As a critic, it's amazed me. I mean, yes, it's driven by actors and stuff like that, but I don't think people realize how much Hollywood talks to each other. Because I started back in 2012, you know, I would write how a certain writer would I would really like the writing that that writer did. Well, that writer then becomes a head writer of a show, then he becomes a showrunner of a show, and Hollywood talks to each other. And so it's not always a matter of what you know, but sometimes who you know in Hollywood. And uh Hollywood has a way to communicate with each other that uh sometimes surprises me.

David Winning 34:55

Yeah. No, it's absolutely true. And it's so it's so important the relationships that you develop from series to series and movies to movies, just to, you know, keep building the relationship. So and as I mentioned, it's tricky too, because a lot of people leave the business. I mean, so much uh, you know, I would I used when I got to I moved to Los Angeles in the 90s to direct Sweet Valley High, and I ended up doing the Power Rangers feature for 20th Century Fox. And I the lesson I learned in LA, you know, pounding the pavement and trying to get jobs and work and meet different production companies is that the executives are all changing over every six months. So it's kind of it's kind of tricky to find your bearings because you'll just get some fan at a certain studio who loves your work, and then six months later, he's not there anymore.

Greg Staffa 35:38

Now, you had mentioned before that early on you were kind of naive and you didn't know the things that you should be scared of or things that you should be nervous about. You just kind of jumped in and fully kind of believed in yourself. As a director these days, is there any kind of project that kind of intimidates you? I mean, you've done the Hallmark stuff, you've done the Van Helsing stuff. Is there a genre you're where you're like, I don't know if that's me, or is it just you've done enough where you realize that it's just a matter of finding that story in there to bring it out?

Thrillers Comedy And Camera Style

David Winning 36:11

Well, I'm developing at the moment, I've got 14 projects on my website of films that we're developing with various folks all over the world, thrillers and family movies. And I think the reason I got into the film business was when I was 15, I saw Marathon Man, as you'll as you may remember, the uh thriller from the 70s with Dustin Hoffman and Lawrence Olivier and the famous dentist drill sequence. And I was so pulled and pulled into the screen by this movie that I thought maybe that's what I want to do. I want to do thrillers. So I always kind of gravitate back to to thrillers. I'm always trying to re remake Marathon Man and the great thrillers I kind of grew up with loving. Because I think um I don't know, I just the the best kind of entertainment has kind of a mixture of thrills and laughs and tears and uh you're trying to do a you're trying to do a bit of everything.

Greg Staffa 37:03

And then along those same lines, you know, going from like a Van Helsing to a Hallmark, is there one that's as a director is harder for you? Not necessarily as like the the technology or the story, but just getting everything to fall in the right places. Is there anyone that's that's tougher for you, or are they both kind of have their own challenges?

David Winning 37:21

Aaron Powell I'm trying to think of I think I've pretty much I'm trying to think of a genre that I haven't tackled yet. I mean, I as I said, it's it's the challenge that keeps me going. I just like I like being I would love to be thrown in the deep end on some genre that I haven't done if I could find one, because I love that challenge of trying to find your way in and trying to find your bearings to tell the best version of a story. But it's true, you know, entertainment really is just it's all the same. It's all entertainment. It's all it's all trying to find ways to make stories meaningful to people when they watch it so you can so you can tap into their bloodstream and and um you know bring them into a story and and and that's one of the reasons I use moving cameras so much. I'm a big fan of Steady Cam because I like to treat the camera as a third character. So that the the third character is the audience and you're pulling them along. So very rarely do my films kind of sit in static shots. I love to just I love to play the roller coaster of pulling people into a storyline.

Greg Staffa 38:18

Now, not that you need it, but let's say Steven Spielberg came to you and says, I love your work. I want to give you Steven Spielberg type backing to do a project. You've done all kinds of genres, but is there a particular story that you would love to be able to tell?

David Winning 38:35

Well, I like I like, I mean, I I I guess I s as I mentioned, I like thrillers. I think thrillers are probably my that's that's in my bloodstream. Um I love science fiction, obviously from an early age grew up with that. And I really love comedy. You know, comedy is one of the hardest things to do properly. I've done a lot of comedy and I've loved it. And comedy shows actually tend to be a little harder sets to be on, surprisingly enough. The the laughs happen in the thrillers and the horror movies, but comedy's a serious business. And I have a lot of respect for comedy, and and to do it well, I think, is uh is a real skill. So I would really like to try and tackle that. I've done a lot of comedic, I mean, I've tons of comedic stuff, mostly kids shows. I've done four or five uh series for Nickelodeon that are always lighthearted and stuff, but but the thing is with um you know, you're always trying to inject humor into anything. So the Hallmark movies that I've done, I tend to try to make a little lighter and a little funnier when I can. And, you know, the network loves it. I mean, if it works for the story, they're all for it.

Career Picks And Favorite Projects

Greg Staffa 39:36

Now, back in the day, there used to be things like blockbusters, and blockbusters would have their shelves of employee recommends. And if there was a David Winning blockbuster that had his work, whether it's TV or films that he has created or directed or whatnot, what would be kind of the wall of top five David Winning blockbuster employee recommends up there?

David Winning 40:01

Way to put me on the spot. I've mentioned it a bunch of times in this interview. I was a kid in the candy store making Van Helsing, the vampire series for uh it's on it's still on Netflix, so you can catch it if you haven't seen it. It's it was a great series. It ran five years, and I did I was on four of the seasons. I think I didn't do the first season. But that was a ton of fun. I'd recommend that. I did a movie years ago with uh Kim Cottrell and Eric McCormick and uh Sean Young and William Devane called Exception to the Rule, which is hard to find, but it was one of my first thrillers, very much like Marathon Man, we were talking about people thrown into horrible situations and having to fight for their lives. It was a ton of fun. It was about uh diamond thieves. And I'm really proud of the uh science fiction I've done, Stargate Atlantis, um, the Andromeda series. And I even go back to Gene Roddenberry's Earth Final Conflict, if anybody remembers that. I did uh two seasons on that series, and that was a ton of fun, and I I learned a lot on that show. And then uh, well, I I I'm kind of fond of the Power Rangers movie, believe it or not. I uh it was my first theatrical movie, 19 came out in 1997, the the second uh the second sequel or the first sequel. There's another sequel now, but mine was uh Turbo, a Power Rangers movie. And to be in charge of a 20th Century Fox huge 20 plus million dollar feature was just a blast. I was like 35 years old and kind of thrown in the deep end, but I just had a ton of fun in that movie. It got, you know, critical, uh critically bashed. It's got good reviews, bad reviews, but uh I had a great, I had a great time on that. And I'm famous if you're you know seven years old and you're a huge Power Rangers fan. It was it was it was great to be in that in that um organization for the six months of my life it took to make the movie. And I'm really proud of the Hallmark movies. So if anybody sees my name on the Hallmark movie, there's they're you know, they're all good, but I'm really proud of the ones I've done. I just finished my 26th last year. I got into the uh Curious Caterer mystery series, which was a blast. And um the people are just great to work with, and I think the products are are fun and it's you know, you're trying you're always trying to create something that's gonna outlive you, that's gonna move people, and uh and it's gonna be around years after you're gone and hopefully just replaying forever.

Writing Developing And Mentoring Others

Greg Staffa 42:13

Do you have any interest in writing, you know, a film series of your own or TV show?

David Winning 42:19

Yeah, well, if people want to go to my website, davidwinning.com, I've got a development page on there, and they can see the kind of things I've been actually working on the last uh five or six years. I've got 14 projects in the works at various stages, and uh that and I was looking at it today and I thought that kind of gives a cross section of what my interests are. It's some family stuff, some thrillers. There's a we're trying to do the we're trying to do the ultimate Bigfoot movie, because I don't think Bigfoot has ever been done right. And uh we have a concept that's really fascinating that we're trying to get going.

Greg Staffa 42:48

Better than Harry and the Henderson.

David Winning 42:51

Well, come on. I mean, that's Spielberg. I can't bash Spielberg, especially if he said, like you said, he might be calling me up to give me an offer. I mean, that'd be great. That's true. No, I'm just I'm I'm I'm proud of everything I've done. I hope I get a lot more challenges ahead in the future and uh I hope to just keep going. I just never want to lose that spark you had when you're a kid. You know, I still I s I mean it's a very hard job, you know, working 12, 14 hour days. But if you love the movies and you think, like I mentioned to you, this is going to be somebody's favorite movie ever, that's who you owe it to. Well said.

Greg Staffa 43:22

And that's I think that's the fun thing about Hollywood. I was at South by Southwest uh two years ago. Two years ago. And Ethan Hawke had a documentary, and it's easy to dismiss documentaries, you know, just you know, they're not my type of thing or whatnot. And it was quiet. The movie wasn't gonna start for an hour, so no one had really gathered yet. But I was there early, and Ethan Hawk, who is um, you know, a megastar, pulled up with his wife, and he took a picture of his name in front of the marquee. So he's standing on the street in front of and it really made me really. Realize that you know, if you love movies or film, it doesn't matter what it is. You know, here's Ethan Hawk doing all kinds of blockbusters, and yeah, he directed this documentary, but this documentary, no offense to him, isn't gonna do blockbuster numbers. But yet it was equally important to him, and he had a love for it. And while we some of us might dismiss documentaries, this was a passionate thing for him. And he was equally as proud standing in front of the marquee with his name and the the film or the documentary title in front of him than a major blockbuster. And I just thought that served as a a great reminder that it isn't about just the blockbusters. It's loving the story. And to see him have that appreciation really kind of reminded me that that's what it's really about.

David Winning 44:49

No, that's a great story. And and you really have to, you really uh you know, you have to love what you do, and you have to, if you're in the film business, you really have to love it because it's not easy. But I mean, I feel like in my old age, as I'm uh, you know, not winding down, but my my career's done really well, and I've been really lucky, really, really lucky to get the opportunities that I have. And I think my job now is to just try and offer inspiration for people. So, I mean, and I really feel like if I can do it, anybody can do it, because I literally was this kid from the prairies with no way to get to Hollywood and no, you know, I I was trying to get I was trying to imagine getting one movie done, let alone almost 50 that I've done now. But um, that's a lot of years. It takes a lot of years to get that many. I'm trying to inspire people and I do a lot of mentoring and talk to actors, uh, classes and things just because it's my job to try to bring, you know, to give back to people because I've had a very successful career and I've been so lucky, and I think to try to inspire people to be as excited about the potential of what possibly they could do, you know, the sky's the limit.

Identity Passion And Final Advice

Greg Staffa 45:54

Wow. Now, one last question, and I appreciate you coming on. Uh, this is something I ask all my guests, but you know, so much of your stuff is tied to, you know, David Winning of Van Helsing, David Winning of Stargate. But when you get up in the morning, you go into the bathroom, splash the wire in your face, and look in the mirror, who is it that you see?

David Winning 46:14

Oh, I'm just a kid from the prairies making movies with a super aid camera. I swear. I'm I'm I I can I can connect back to the childhood so easily. And I think that's one of the fortunate things for me. I think some people have lost the dreams of childhood and they just uh, you know, they they're kind of driftless in in life and they don't they don't ever sort of take a sh they think, oh, I could never do the dream, you know, everybody, oh well I I had this dream, but you know, it was just a dream. I couldn't do that, so I became a whatever in life. I think you only get one shot, and uh obviously I had a lot of support early on, but um I think you have to find your passion, whether it's movies or dancing or writing books or teaching kids or you know, anything. You have to find your passion and you have to nourish it and uh and let it grow and you know, see what can happen. Wow.

Greg Staffa 47:02

Well, David Winning, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a true delight talking to you, and I look forward to seeing what uh future projects you have in store.

David Winning 47:10

Thanks, Greg. I appreciate it. Please send everybody to my website, www.davidwinning.com, and I'm available on Instagram and Facebook, and I'm very easy to find.