Actor / Director Profile

David Winning was born in Calgary, Canada in 1961. He is a US/Canada Dual Citizen. At twenty-two, he directed his debut feature Storm (1987) with just $50,000. It was released theatrically by Cannon International in April 1988. Later distributed by Warner Home Video in 1989; selling over 20,000 cassettes. His second feature Killer Image (1992) starring Michael Ironside and veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh is available on Paramount Home Video and received its US Premiere as a Finalist at the 1992 Houston Film Festival.Writing and producing two early independent features led to an award-winning two decades as guest Director for Paramount Pictures Television, MGM, Cannell Films, Nickelodeon, Disney, Tribune and the Fox Network. His episodic work has garnered international awards including Twenty-Two First Place Golds/Platinums overall at the 1992-2008 Houston Film Festivals, the 1995 Gold Hugo and Two Silver Hugo's from the Chicago International Film Festival, and four national Gemini nominations for Best Director/Dramatic Series. In 2002 he received a National Award from the Director's Guild of Canada for Outstanding Achievement in Television Drama; nominated again for this award in 2006. His third feature, the Lance Henriksen thriller Profile for Murder (1996) debuted on HBO, followed by the release of the Kim Cattrall/Eric McCormack thriller Exception to the Rule (1997) for Artisan and Lion's Gate Films which won First Place Gold at the 1997 Houston Film Festival.He began directing network television at the age of twenty-seven for Paramount's series "Friday the 13th" (1987). Twenty years of episodic production has included in the past decade the Showtime/Disney western anthology "Dead Man's Gun" (1997), the USA Network Series "Matrix" (1993) with Carrie-Anne Moss, and the pilot and first six episodes of the UPN/FOX series "Breaker High" (1997) with Ryan Gosling. In the summer of 1996 he re-teamed with Michael Ironside and Frederic Forrest for the Universal military thriller One of Our Own (1997). His last theatrical release, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) for 20th Century Fox, was the 4th Highest selling Video in the U.S. in August 1997 (Billboard). Winning spent the fall of 1997 shooting in Scotland with Jason Connery on the Merlin (1998/I) (TV) project. Next he directed the Patrick Duffy/Pam Dawber thriller Don't Look Behind You (1999) (TV) which premiered to 2 million viewers on the Fox Family Channel. In recent years dividing time between features and episodic work on ABC's "Dinotopia" (2002/I) , filming for three months in Budapest, Pax's Angel series "Twice in a Lifetime" (1999) , Jack London's "Call of the Wild" (2000), and Gene Roddenberry's twin sci-fi series "Earth: Final Conflict" (1997) and "Andromeda" (2000) starring Kevin Sorbo. His "Stargate: Atlantis" (2004) Season One episode "Childhood's End" won 3 awards for Direction in 2005; New York, Houston and Chicago. More recently Winning directed Kevin Sorbo, Robert Englund, and Bruce Dern in several monster movies for the Sci Fi Channel and Hallmark Entertainment (RHI Films New York) as well as episodes of the new vampire series "Blood Ties" (2006).