The road to directing for Michael Robison went through years of editing. Now the busy Vancouver-based director – credits include episodes of Andromeda, Tracker, Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, First Wave and The Outer Limits – has garnered a nomination for best direction in a dramatic series for an Outer Limits episode, ‘Revival,’ starring Gary Busey. His current project is Mysterious Ways for PAX TV and NBC in the U.S.

The Outer Limits has ‘a subtle, below-the-surface level of suspense,’ a mood he’s learned to create by working on such series as The Hitchhiker, Tales from the Crypt and Poltergeist: The Legacy. ‘I have almost felt like I was the prince of darkness, where, for a long time, I had shown an aptitude for dark, suspenseful [and] thriller material,’ Robison says.

Fresh out of film studies at B.C.’s Simon Fraser University in the late 1970s, Robison started directing ski action-adventure documentaries, primarily for promotional films for ski areas in the West, as well as freelancing as an assistant editor on features.

Robison’s editing skills caught the attention of director Phillip Noyce while Robison was editing on The Hitchhiker in the mid-’80s. Noyce advised him to stick with editing if he wanted to eventually direct. ‘You need to know what the shot is to tell the story,’ says Robison. ‘Taking that advice worked out really well.’

He landed his first shot at directing a drama in 1987, on season two of 21 Jump Street, for which he’d been on board as an editor.

While he has not worked as an editor for about six years, he says his editing background is still one of his strongest assets. ‘And I’ve been able to transform that from a technical understanding to more of a storytelling understanding.’

One directing element he had to learn was working with actors. ‘My communication with actors has reached a point where they’re really responsive to my comments and suggestions,’ he says. ‘When I came from editing, I didn’t even know how to talk to actors.’

Another strength he brings to his work is an ‘overview’ perspective, since his abilities include directing, editing, producing and writing.

He’s also been moving more into developing his own projects over the last two years. In development are features The Last Shot, a romantic comedy by Kim Barker, and The Cleaners, a mob story by Michael Giampa, as well as a one-hour TV series. The Last Shot has the support of Telefilm Canada and B.C. Film. Don McKellar is on board as script consultant, Raymond Massey as producer and Coreen Mayrs for casting. Cast attachments are in negotiations in L.A.

The Cleaners, which Robison describes as ‘dark, sort of black humor, very similar to Pulp Fiction,’ is supported by The Harold Greenberg Fund.

His next episodic TV project is new series Jeremiah for MGM.