Fourteen features, 22 Series, Over 100 TV credits. David is mainly known for his work on Gene Roddenberry’s “Andromeda,” MGM’s “Stargate: Atlantis,” ABC’s “Dinotopia” and the HBO thriller “Exception to The Rule,” starring Kim Cattrall, Sean Young and Eric McCormack.
A proven and prolific director of 13 feature films and many television series in virtually all genres, with over 100 screen credits – he was a dreamer kid from the Canadian prairies, making films at the age of 10 with a Super 8 camera in hometown Calgary, Canada. At age 18, he got a grant to make his first 16-millimeter drama Sequence, and expanded the plotline into his first feature film Storm, produced on a shoestring in the summer of 1983 and filmed in the forests and hills of Alberta.
At 27, he landed directing gigs on the Canadian-produced “Friday the 13th: The Series” for Paramount Pictures; for this television debut he received three Canadian Emmy Award nominations. His second feature followed in 1992 with “Killer Image,” a plot-twisting photographic mystery-thriller starring Michael Ironside and veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh.
Throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, he directed more movies and episodes of over 20 series from kid’s shows to westerns to science-fiction. M. Night Shyamalan has cited Winning’s episode of Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Dream Girl,” as the inspiration for The Sixth Sense.
His episodic work has received international awards including 24 first places at the Houston Film Festival, a Gold Hugo and two Silver Hugos in Chicago, and Four national Gemini nominations for Best Director/Dramatic Series. He has received over 60 international awards. In 2002 he received a National award from the Director’s Guild for outstanding achievement in television drama.
In 1997, he directed the hit sequel Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie for 20th Century Fox – and it was the fourth highest selling video in August that summer. He directs in many countries: Scotland, Hungary, Canada and is soon to be working in India and Thailand.
He has directed many international stars including: Daniel Baldwin, Patrick Duffy, Peter Strauss, William Devane, Peta Wilson, Markie Post, Lance Henriksen, Frederic Forrest, Jason Connery, Carl Weathers, Margot Kidder, Michael Sarrazin, Bruce Boxleitner, Lesley Ann Warren, Martin Mull and of course, The Power Rangers and many more. Most recently, in one year Winning directed Kevin Sorbo, Robert Englund and Bruce Dern in a Trilogy of monster movies for the US SYFY Channel and Hallmark Entertainment – RHI Films New York – as well as episodes of the vampire series “Blood Ties” for Lifetime TV.
He directed episodes of the cool new series “Todd and the Book of Pure Evil,” a rock ‘n roll, comedy-horror series for Space Channel – and also supervised and directed the far north adventure series “Yuknoic!,” which debuted in 2011 in New York’s Times Square. Also currently directing an episode of the supernatural crime drama “Lost Girl” for Showcase and the SYFY Channel – and a Rob Lowe Christmas movie for Hallmark, shooting in New Orleans in 2012.
Rex Sikes’ Movie Beat chats with director David Winning.
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