Michael Rymer

Michael Rymer on the Galactica CiC set. (From Miniseries DVD; Credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

Michael Rymer (born 1963) is a film director and writer. He is noted for setting the tone and direction for the entire re-imagined series in terms of how the show looks on film, namely due to his direction of both the Miniseries and various episodes for the series itself.

Biography

Rymer was born in Melbourne, Australia, but completed his studies in film at the University of Southern California, where his abilities in writing, producing and directing short films earned him the Warner Communications Scholarship for Directing in 1987. Following this, he wrote two plays, Darkness at Noon and Ensenada before he returned to Australia to work on a number of films, initially as a production co-ordinator and as a writer. He made his directorial debut in 1995's "Angel Baby", which premiered at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, and won a total of seven Australian Film Institute Awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Rymer also won the Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, and the Writers' Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay.

In 1997, he returned to the United States, where he wrote and directed "Allie and Me", following it up with two directorial stints with "In Too Deep" (1999) and the less-than-stellar "Purfume" (2001), described as an improvisational film.

In 2002 he helmed "Queen of the Damned", the sequel to 1994's "Interview with the Vampire" before taking the director's chair for the pilot episode of UPN's television series, "Haunted". From here he moved onto the 2003 Battlestar Galactica production.

Rymer and BSG

A self-confessed science-fiction fan, Rymer was not given to watching the original series, and didn't make a point of viewing it when he took the assignment, noting:

"The thing that pulled me in was the script. I had just had a very intense year working on my first big - budget studio film, which was Queen of the Damned, and after that I told my agent and manager, 'I just want to do a character piece, with people talking in rooms. I don't want to do anything with special effects or big set - pieces.' So the next script I get is Battlestar Galactica [the Miniseries], and I just said to them, 'What are you thinking?' But they told me to read it, I agreed and I just couldn't put the script down. I loved the characters and the realism of the piece, and I just said, 'OK, once more unto the breach!'"

Such was his enthusiasm for the new series that he worked closely with writer / producer Ronald D. Moore and Emile Smith of Zoic Studios on pre-visualisation for the Miniseries, setting out much of what has become the show's visual and vital style.

Given his intimate involvment with the mini, Rymer was a natural choice to helm the opening episode of the first season, 33, and to handle both parts of the season's climactic episode, "Kobol's Last Gleaming" Part I and Part II, as well as the season 2 opening episodes Scattered and Valley of Darkness, and other episodes of season 2 (Pegasus, Resurrection Ship, Part I and Epiphanies)

Director credits for "Battlestar Galactica"

• Miniseries
• Season 1:
  • Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I
  • Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II
• Season 2:
  • Scattered
  • Valley of Darkness
  • Pegasus
  • Resurrection Ship, Part I
  • Resurrection Ship, Part II
  • Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I
  • Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II
• Season 3:
  • Collaborators
  • Hero
  • The Eye of Jupiter
  • Rapture

See also: Episodes directed by Michael Rymer

Writer credits for "Battlestar Galactica"

• Season 2:
  • Resurrection Ship, Part I
  • Resurrection Ship, Part II

See also: Episodes written by Michael Rymer

External Links

Michael Rymer at the Internet Movie Database

• Discussing the Miniseries