MGM: "The Frozen Set"

Spoilers … Spoilers … Spoilers … and Spoilers….

MGM’s Official Stargate website has added another exclusive behind-the-scenes video of the making of Brad Wright’s Stargate: Continuum. This time, they are featuring the use of the gimballed frozen cargo hold set of the Achilles.

Visit MGM’s main page and click on “Watch Exclusive Video Now!” to see portions of the movie set in the frozen ship in the Arctic.

In the March/April issue of the Official Magazine, production designer James Robbins explained how they used the boat’s cargo hold set (the gimballed one) to film two days’ worth of scenes and then froze the set. “So now we have to treat the interior of the cargo hold, all the crates—we froze the stage. Literally! We brought in massive air conditioning units, hooked them up to the overhead pipes on the stage and took the temperature down to minus three or four degrees! Once you’re in there you can see your breath—it wasn’t the 40 below that they are saying it was [in the Arctic], but it was cold enough to see breath, so it was totally believable.”

The video clip features Brad Wright, director Martin Wood, and actors Amanda Tapping and Cliff Simon as they talk about how the set was gimballed and frozen and how it was to work on it. In some scenes, there was actual ice being touched by the actors just like the characters had to do.

Tapping and Shanks thaw out in the Vancouver sun

During the filming of the frozen set scenes, Stargate Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi captured pictures of Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Ben Browder as they filmed and then attempted to thaw out between takes.

They were shooting a scene from Continuum on stage 2 which had been refrigerated for the occasion. While Michael and Amanda were outside thawing out, Martin was setting up his next shot which required Ben to make his way through the dark and frozen ship with only a flashlight to lead him. I had goosebumps and I could barely keep my teeth from chattering. It was that creepy. And cold.

Release dates for the movie (DVD and Blu-ray) are as follows:

  • July 29, 2008: North America
  • August 6, 2008: Australia
  • August 18, 2008: UK
  • September 10, 2008: France

If you know of other dates, please leave them in our comment section below, and we’ll update our list. Thanks.

[Thanks to Joseph Mallozzi and Andreas of Repro Images for the images used in this article.]