In the late 70’s, high school student David Winning wrote and directed a short Super 8 millimeter drama inspired by the lead character Babe in John Schlesingers MARATHON MAN 1976. Winning started making films in 1971 with a Kodak camera his father had given him on his 10th birthday. GAME OVER, a sciencefiction story about the last survivor of germ warfare, was shot on weekends in October and November 1977 on campus at the University of Calgary. Starring school friends Paul Brown and Scott Harley, the film became a special drama project and awarded the director five credits toward successful graduation at the end of the school year. Loaded with Kubrick tributes moody, and full of many empty hallway shots and layered with music from the Alan Parsons Project, Tangerine Dream and Manfred Mann; the film proved to be a labour of love with a complicated for the time optical sequence at the films conclusion constructed painstakingly by hand and taking nearly four months to complete.His first effort in 16mm with an actual crew was the short drama SEQUENCE 1980 shot on the Nakoda reserve near Cochrane, Alberta in the summer of 1979 and funded in part by a Canada Council Explorations Grant. The film starred longtime friend and collaborator Stan Edmonds as the fateful hero Rick in a DELIVERANCE 1972 inspired story of peril in the wilderness. Allen Desnoyers provided what the local paper called a spare and haunting piano score, probably as a tribute to John Carpenters stylized soundtrack from HALLOWEEN 1978 The film was later blown up to 35mm and Cannon International released it as a prefeature short in the United Kingdom.In 1983, based on the success of SEQUENCE, Winning, at 22, began work on his first feature effort; a similar expanded version of the earlier short. This time, again with the theme of peril in the woods, STORM began shooting in the forests near Bragg Creek, Alberta on August 22. With a cast of five, headed by David Palffy and Stan Kane and a crew of only four; including DP Tim Hollings, soundman Per Asplund, assistant director Michael Kevis, and makeup artist Stan Edmonds the group filmed the drama over four weeks and then retired to regroup and raise more money. The film was completed over the next three years total budget: $72,000 CDN and inspired attention and some rave reviews at festivals in 1986. The infamous Cannon Group screened the film in Milan, Italy and agreed to distribute it once more footage had been produced to add to the films length of only 79 minutes. In January 1987, 23 additional minutes were filmed under the working title STORMAID. The debut feature was released by Cannon International in April 1988 and by Warner Home Video in 1989; selling over 20,000 cassettes. The film launched many careers and received several rave reviews; among them from Jay Scott, Globe & Mail, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times as well as Hollywood Reporter, Toronto Star and CNN.

Website: http://www.davidwinning.com/