(narrator) When creative forces behind Stargate SG-1...
..adapted the hit movie to television,...
..they created endless possibilities for new adventures.
lt's certainly not Emerald City.
(narrator) One person responsible for dreaming up new worlds and settings...
..is Production Designer Richard Hudolin.
When l started the project it was, uh... October, mid-October of '96.
And l got a call from Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright.
They were gonna start filming in January, but there was this set -
..the silo set with the Stargate and the complex and all of that -
..which was its own design entity.
So they hired me to do that.
We had a complete set of drawings. We had 1 5 construction-type people...
..to analyse the set and come back in January and start building it.
Because we had six weeks to... to build...
..the main set and everything we shot for the television movie version of Stargate.
This is just incredible.
There are traditions to maintain. One is the Stargate.
We try to match the silo and the military complex cos that's the heart of the show.
You're always starting from, or coming to, there.
That's the house, or the home, for the Stargate crew.
At one time l started a set of drawings where the silo has three floors,...
..instead of the two that it has.
But we scaled it down and figured out what we'd be shooting,...
..what we needed, and how to get the best look out of it.
Sir!
Uh, the key elements obviously are the Stargate itself and how that functions.
And, uh,...
..l flew to LA and l gathered some of the material from the movie... as reference.
l brought it back here, and our model makers worked from
..some of the pieces l brought back. l actually integrated...
..some of the set pieces that l got from Los Angeles...
..into the... into the pilot.
(narrator) ln addition to sets in the movie,...
..Richard designed a medical facility, which can turn into - among other things -
..Daniel Jackson's laboratory.
There's also a multipurpose room,...
..used for crew's quarters and... whatever may be needed.
Plus, a second portable Stargate was built for use on location.
Because of its size, this gate requires six workers and a full day of setup.
To accomplish the creative demands of scripts,...
..an art department works closely with decorators, props and construction crew.
We have to be three to four weeks at least ahead of the shooting crew.
And sometimes l walk by and somebody will say ''What are we doing tomorrow?''
And l don't have a clue because...
..my art director's looking after the day-to-day things,...
..as well as working ahead with me.
(O'Neill) Love what they've done with the place.
l'm one of the first to get a script. l say...
..''This is how l see it - this much interior, that much exterior.''
''This could be in that, that should be...'' You do a budget as well,...
..because everybody's interested in what it all costs.
And from that you, uh,...
..you determine with the producers...
what it will be - an' with the visual effects guys an' with the model guys.
Sometimes it's better, faster and cheaper to do a visual effect...
..than to build something. And we design everything that you see.
The art department designs the graphics that you see on a screen.
We design the worlds that somebody may point to, or the matte work.
lt's a real collaborative effort. lt's not one person saying it has to be this way.
And it's the only way to survive,...
..because there's a lot of talented people around.
Someone's been reading Martha Stewart.
(narrator) How does Richard and his team envision new ideas every week?
Some of it's research. Some of it's just imagination. Some of it is, uh...
Uh... well, you read the script and, like l say, you get to talk to talented people.
You talk to the writers and producers, and they're all...
Everybody has their take on what the world should be.
But they look for you to say, ''Do me a drawing of what it is.''
Until it's on a piece of paper, it's in your imagination. And sometimes it's just...
..it's part of the design process, where...
..if you let yourself kind of go clear in your mind,...
..you can let things come to you. lt's how it works with me, anyway.
We're not on a planet, are we?
That is correct. lt appears we are aboard a Goa'uld transport vessel.
l get lots of research, l have everybody in the art department -
..who are all fabulous and take off in their own direction sometimes -
..and sometimes we just talk about it and ideas pop out of nowhere.
You could fit every pyramid on Earth inside and still have room to spare.
l wonder how far down that is.
l had a problem: one of the Nox people goes like this and the world appears.
We didn't quite know what this world was gonna be.
We struggled for about a week with it,...
..and l went home and l was reading a book on stained glass.
And the combination of the Nox people and what l was reading that night,...
..that's how we put that together. Stained glass turns into another world.
lt's not a stained glass world - that's just an element of it.
So you find clues in the strangest places.
(narrator) Sometimes luck can change locations overnight.
For the episode ''Small Victories'', the story was to be set on a fishing trawler.
Until the producers got access to a real Russian submarine,...
..brought to Vancouver from Vladivostok.
lnstead, they shot two days on the sub, and built a replica of its interior.
You'd better blow this thing.
Normally, a television series... you've got offices and police cars and...
There are standard things that you have to do if you are in this world.
We don't do offices, we do worlds.
lt's all... it's really spectacular because it's so different.
lt's a big effort every week.
(Carter) This is well over 1 000m high.
And as pyramids go, that's... big?
Well, the show and the stories themselves are really good. They're exciting scripts.
So you always start with the story, and... and the acting and the actors are great.
Richard Dean Anderson has got his own following.
And he's a great guy to be around. He brings a special sparkle to O'Neill.
Which rubs off on us...
..because every time l go to a set, he comes up and says ''That looks great!''
- What do you think? - lt's cool. Kinda like Vegas.
Hopefully what you see around him and the worlds he's in...
..is everybody's imagination, showing you things that you've never seen before.
ln a very nice, professional way.