Known for Stargate Origins, Virtual Morality and the dystopian sci-fi short Manifest Mind, producer/director Mercedes Bryce Morgan brings a fresh uniqueness to her films, espousing magical realism, underdogs, and anti-heroes. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Morgan directed and produced the interactive web series, Virtual Morality, which went viral with more than 15 million views, winning the Caucus Award for “Best New Media”.
She also directed a series for Adaptive (Project Greenlight), New Form Digital, and Eko. Her work is characterized by strong female characters that challenge the status quo. In Stargate Origins, she explores the prequel to Stargate, one of the most successful iconic sci-fi shows ever developed for television. In this interview, Morgan reveals what drew her to the popular franchise and her vision in bringing the Stargate backstory to millions of fans worldwide.
You’ve written and directed a number of films, some in the fantasy genre. What drew you to this project?
Mercedes Bryce Morgan: I really like sci-fi. Stargate Origins is just another chance for me to delve into a world that’s already been created and add even more to it. Sometimes I get really bored with realism, so I like upping things, taking the same promotional through lines that we see and adding other things to this new world and giving it that new level.
Can you talk about what inspired the look and feel of this period piece?
MBM: Stargate Origins is not only sci-fi but a period piece in a different country. What inspired me was to look at a character and see how the world fills around them. Instead of saying this would look cool or this is awesome, I look at the Langford’s personalities. This is what their environment looks like. What’s awesome about Stargate is that it combines the two things we like most: mythology and sci-fi, meshing the futuristic with old Egypt.
How did you bring yourself up to speed on the entire Stargate franchise?
MBM: It’s a lot of content. It’s impossible for me to go back and watch all of it. But I don’t think that’s necessary. I think I need to know what people know about it and its universe. We’re creating something new. We’re not trying to create SG-1 all over again. That’s already been done. We’re drawing on the world and we’re adding our own things to it. So I watched Stargate enough to know what it is, what it embodies, and this is what we’re going to do to make it different.
You mentioned the challenges like the format and how it’s going to be broken up into 10-minute episodes.
MBM: It’s not really a challenge because I come from a digital world. So I’m used to having everything be very short and concise, to capture an audience in a certain amount of time. You only have a certain amount of time to tell a story and get a character arc. So that’s what I’m used to, and that’s what I feel people watch now. People have shorter attention spans and tend to watch everything online. So I think it’s great that Stargate is being updated for 2017.
What’s it like knowing that you’re continuing this cultural phenomenon of Stargate, the longest running sci-fi series in the history of U.S. television? No pressure, right?
MBM: No pressure (laughs). It’s amazing and really cool but it’s kind of scary because there’s so much expectation. But that’s what makes it so awesome is that there’s this built-in audience who are really excited. All these people have reached out to me with all these ideas and they really want it to be great. So what makes it scary is also what makes it so wonderful.
The Stargate universe has a lot of incredible female characters in it. How does this younger version with Catherine carry on that legacy?
MBM: What I really like about Catherine is what everyone’s talking about right now. Making her a real woman, someone who takes charge of herself and is able to listen to other people. She’s allowed to be scared sometimes, allowed to be feminine and sexual. We’re trying to create a real well-rounded woman, which is what I like about developing Catherine.
What challenges do you face in shooting in the desert?
MBM: The first time we shot in the desert, it was 115 degrees. We were out of the car for an hour and it felt like 10 hours. So you’re walking through it and it feels like burning hot snowdrift. You get sand in your shoes and your foot’s burning. It felt like we were dying. When we came back again, it wasn’t so hot but we were blasted by a sandstorm. It felt like sandpaper rubbing all over you.
The third time we came back, we walked out and we thought, my god, it’s not hot anymore and there’s no wind. But there were dune buggies everywhere, with tire track and footprints surrounding us. In the original Stargate, they tried to cover these footprints and tracks by blasting them with a jet engine. But that didn’t work. Then they tried giant fans and that didn’t work. So they finally got 50 PAs to sweep over the footprints. But we made it work, shooting in different directions and video effecting it all out. You never know what’s going to happen so you just work it out.
Since we do go to Abydos, do you have something you can look into?
MBM: Abydos is something that’s already been established, but we’re seeing a different part of the planet than we’ve seen in the past. So we were able to explore new parts of that world we haven’t seen before. In prep, we created a map of Abydos to show the places we’ve already seen and where geographically we can fit in.
How did you strike a balance between people who know the Stargate universe and those who will be watching Stargate Origins as a TV show?
MBM: I brought Matt on the project because he interviewed all these people who knew Stargate really well. Matt is our Stargate expert, so everything we do is passed through him.
In shooting, did you make any special accommodations for the fact that these episodes could be viewed on tiny iPhone screens?
MBM: When shooting something like this, we have extreme wide shots, but everything gets tighter. So for a medium shot to be really effective, you have to use an extreme close up. When viewing a tiny screen, it’s a lot more impactful. It’s also more impactful to show people waking side to side and not toward or away from you. It just shows more movement when people walk left to right. It’s little things like that. Basically, in the U.S., people view shows more on their laptop than their phones. In places like China, everyone watches on their digital phones.
Catherine and her father are the heart of the story. Can talk a little bit about their journey and how it evolves?
MBM: People are already familiar with Catherine and her father. In the movie, you see him as this 80-year old man. I think they just re-cast the movie. We cast him as younger because Connor is a wonderful actor and everyone knows about him. There’s this wonderful dynamic. They work together not just as father and daughter but as friends. Like when Catherine has a guy over, her father doesn’t get upset or overreact.
Does Catherine become very tech oriented? Her father is an archeologist, so the burden to figure out the Stargate seems to fall entirely on her.
MBM: In a 1939 sense, yes. She does have to figure out how to do things. She’s very smart, coming from a background of working with her father for 10 years. She knows how to use a gun. She’s been around formulas so she knows how to navigate around those things.
