Part One
The Chakram Newsletter: Issue 13
“It Was A Dark And Rainy Night”
It begins with rain, open windows and a wooden table. It begins with a dark night, a long day and scattered food. It begins with quiet people, small smiles and pockets of laughter. It begins with a man saying, “My name is Eric and I'm a producer.” Another chimes in, “My name is Michael and I'm the director.” Around the table go the introductions, “I'm Renee, I play Gabrielle” and “I'm Lucy, I play X-ena girl.” That’s not a typo - listen to what Lucy says on the tape.
It's Thursday, May 18, 2000, and I've arrived in New Zealand to film the making of a sixth season episode called “Who’s Gurkhan.” They will start filming on Monday and tonight is the read through.
Eight days earlier, a Heads of Department (HOD) meeting was held. This meeting gives the director a chance to give his/her vision of how the episode will look and feel and is the opportunity for inter-departmental communication, the figuring out of particular physical requirements of the episode and problem-solving. Usually present are the producer, co-producer, director, 1st assistant director, director of photography, production designer, art director, production manager, special effects, visual effects, stunt co-ordinator, costume designer, make-up supervisor, extras casting director, safety, among others.
Tonight the read through takes place in a conference room at Pacific Renaissance Studios. We arrive at 6:15 PM to find pizza, tea and coffee being laid out on the table. The first and second assistant directors arrive followed by the actors playing the four main harem wives. Over the next fifteen minutes, the rest of the participants come in - the producers; script supervisor; William Gregory Lee who will be playing Virgil; Michael Hurst, the director; and Rob Tapert, Lucy and Renee.
While the HOD dealt with mechanically how the show would be done, this meeting deals with character and motivation. The script is read scene by scene. Rob reads Adrienne “Eve” Wilkinson's lines because she's still on set filming this week's episode.
Michael is a very verbal participant. He's also very physical. As Renee is reading her lines for a scene with one of the harem wives, Michael stands up and acts out the sights and sounds of Xena being beaten in the dungeon. These two scenes will overlap and Michael's pantomime contrasts the quiet desperation of Gabrielle unable to locate her friend with Xena's torture.
In another scene, Gabrielle has a fight with one of the harem wives and Michael gets up and demonstrates how Gabrielle will wipe the floor with this poor girl, how she will charge through the harem with total abandon and demolish the place. His antics have Renee laughing with glee.
Eric announces at the beginning that the actors are free to read their lines full-out in character or in their normal voice. Rob is having a good time playing Eve and gives a good-natured pout as he has to give up his lines to Adrienne when she arrives about 20 minutes into the read through. Michael plays the evil Gurkhan with great gusto.
The Hollywood stereotype is that actors are forever counting their lines. But before ten minutes goes by, Lucy gives one of Xena's lines to Eve. Why? Because it makes sense to the scene. Renee makes a similar gesture further into the script.
At one point, Gabrielle reads from the script, referring to her niece, Sarah, “She and Lila (Gabrielle's sister) are the only family I have left.” At the end of this, Renee says, “What about Xena?” And Rob replies, “I think we’re talking blood kin, here.” Both have a valid point. On the one hand you have the blood connection of fact. On the other, the five-year friendship and love the audience has seen grow between Xena and Gabrielle. What is the real meaning of family on Xena?
There is a moment when Eve says, “Nothing is worse than Gurkhan.” This guy beheads people for the fun of it, but Lucy remarks they have been battling celestial evil, been to Hell and back. The idea is to balance the true fear a man like Gurkhan needs to inspire in Gabrielle in this episode with her past experiences. Michael decides to explore the unspoken threat version of the scene by deleting some of the dialogue.
Laughter over the exigency of filming erupts when Michael tells them the thriving village of Poteidaia will consist of ten extras. But creative camerawork and the addition of two children and a horse will create the proper illusion.
My fascination with the session was being able to watch Lucy, Renee and Michael delve into the motivation of the characters and situations. To hear Lucy’s thoughts on Xena’s mother/daughter relationship with Eve. Renee's feeling out of the revulsion Gabrielle deals with when she decides to deliberately murder Gurkhan. And listening to Michael was a lesson in how motivation of a character ties in with their physical placement in a scene. It's not just “where” an actor is, but “why” they are there.
An hour and a half later, the last line read, into the night they go - heading home.
“Life In The Sewing Pool”
Friday was spent visiting the wardrobe and prop departments and conducting an interview with Rob Gillies (Production Designer).
My first impression of the wardrobe department was that it was a strangely familiar combination of home and work. There were women sewing costumes by hand, ironing material, large washing machines used for dyeing and banks of sewing machines. Most of the costumes for “Gurkhan” had been completed and were already in the wardrobe trucks ready for filming on Monday. But six copies of Xena's slave costume were being worked on - needed for the different stages of the dungeon scene. Material for the costume of one of the harem wives was being hand-painted.
I learned that day that Gabrielle was going to have a new costume for the sixth season. I flashed on the costumes fans make to wear to our Hercules/Xena conventions and thought they would appreciate an up close and personal tour of Gabrielle's new outfit. So they set up two mannequins - one with Gabrielle's fifth season costume and one for the new one. I had Fred, my cameraman, film the outfit from every different angle not knowing Renee was going to give us a detailed tour of the new one a few days later while she was actually wearing it. But having both season's outfits side by side gave me a good opportunity to see the differences and similarities. Mannequins not having any legs, we didn't see the boots, but Renee took care of that later.
One side of the huge workroom contained the machines to manufacture the costumes. The other side was filled with racks of finished items used by the extras; stored for use in future episodes should the need arrive. Hollywood studios have years of existing costumes that new movies and television shows have access to. But Xena started with an empty room and everything was made from scratch. While they do as much recycling as possible, the costumes for Lucy and Renee are made for each show. The racks of clothing were divided up into sections and some of the labeling gave me a chuckle: gloves, cowls and codpieces; Men - togas and robes; Men's skirts; Amazon outfits; babies.
I noticed the ingenuity of economizing space when I saw hangers with sheets of cloth, paper or cardboard that had heaps of earrings, necklaces, bracelets, etc. pinned to them. Easy to see and reach and definitely space-saving. The accessories are pinned onto the costumes also to keep everything for the one outfit together in one place to make it easy to find everything when/if the costume is used again.
You can see in the video an example of the meticulous care they take in making the costumes. The number one harem wife, Sonata, wears a costume made of bits of shell outlined in gold beads and it is all sewn on by hand. The material the beads and shell pieces were being sewn onto was a stiff, facsimile snakeskin that was not at all easy to pierce. At one point, I saw the seamstress using a pair of pliers to pull the needle through.
We then ran into a woman repairing Xena's armor. I gather that over time the copper begins to change its shape or the leather bits start to wear down. She had a “hero” breastplate made out of copper with a leather backing that would be worn by Lucy as well as a stunt version of the same equipment made entirely out of rubber. Lucy's needed to be broken down completely with the leather taken off the back and replaced and the copper reshaped and painted.
Next came the racks of Xena and Gabrielle costumes. It looked like they had every costume Lucy and Renee had ever worn. I pulled out Xena's Indian shirt and fake fur coat from “Adventures In The Sin Trade,” Gabrielle’s wedding dress from “Married With Fishsticks” and her Amazon Queen outfit. There was Lucy's Melinda Pappas Jacket and skirt and Gabrielle's archangel costume and her coat from “Animal Attraction” which I would have bought in a minute if I'd seen it in a store. My main impression of their costumes is that so many of them are really heavy; the biggest surprise being Gabrielle's go-go outfit from “Lyre, Lyre.” It is completely made of strings of beads and my arms got tired just holding it up for the camera.
The prop department is what you might imagine - yards and yards of shelves, twice my height, filled with every imaginable prop that has ever been used on the show. One of the oddest sights was a clothes rack filled with rubber bodies in various states of decay. I even found the head Xena raised defiantly in “The Debt.” You remember, one of the dead she wanted to put to work.
Although Planet Xena/Gabrielle - Joxer's Tavern - had been taken apart, some of the props used to decorate it had been ferreted out for us. They included a Xena whip - probably donated by Minya - and Xena's wanted poster from “It Takes One To Know One.”
“Pack Your Bags”
You can't watch Xena without marveling at the production values of the show and when I heard Rob Gillies, the Production Designer, was free for an interview, I hightailed it over to his office. The first question I asked him was, “What did you do when Rob Tapert told you the show was going to do an episode in North Africa?” A mischievous twinkle appeared in his eye and he replied, “Packed my bag.” Although no trip to foreign shores was actually planned, the Art Department did their best to create the illusion.
Rob showed us some of the books he used for the sets of “Who's Gurkhan,” including Orientalism in Art which is a book of Victorian paintings. It was dotted with post-its on pages that contained items that had caught his eye - “knife and sheath style,” “carpet and instruments.” There was one labeled “fan” and when I finally saw the harem bedroom set, there was a fan inspired by the one in the painting lying on the couch.
He opened a travel book of Morocco that gave them a feel for interior architecture and color schemes for the Turkish bath and main room.
A graphic novel called Veils was a reference used by Rob and Waka Attewell, the Director of Photography, in deciding how they would light the actors and let the spill illuminate the rest of the room with diffused light.
After immersing himself in images and a feel for what they wanted the sets to look like, Rob set to work turning out about 50 drawings in two days that were then copied and given to everyone involved in the episode - producers, director, builders, painters, set dressers, cameraman, construction manager, prop department. Anyone who could provide input or would need to be working on the sets receives a set of these drawings. For example, this will tell the camera crew what the space will be like for setting up lights, cameras and dolly tracks.
They were also going to be shooting on their boat during this episode. Rob showed me Polaroids taken of the ship that he actually sketched directly on with a magic marker to show how the boat needed to be changed to accommodate this particular story.
Every step of the way Rob stressed the collaborative nature of his work. Everyone is encouraged to take the initial sketches and ideas and elaborate on them when they do their part of the job.
It wasn't until after my interview with Rob that I actually saw the three sets that made up Gurkhan's inner world and walking into the building that housed them was a step across time and space. Filled with colors, textures, lights, smoke, costumed people - it was a work of art come to life.
“Who’s That Impersonating My Face?”
There are Wet Days and Dry Days. My first day on the set of Xena for the filming of “Who's Gurkhan,” was supposed to be a Dry Day and the plan was to go out on the boat. However, the weather did not cooperate and the seas were rough. But nothing is left for chance in Hollywood, or New Zealand, and along with the schedule I had received for a day of filming on the boat was a schedule for a day of filming on land. So land it was.
We arrived at 6:45 AM at the makeup trailers. Lucy was already there as her call was for 6:30. It was dark, it was foggy, it was very, very quiet. If a New Zealand bird doesn’t have to get up for an early morning makeup call, he stays in bed. We humans, on the other hand, had business to do and an episode to begin. Lucy's first scene of the morning was one that takes place after she dances for Gurkhan, so she needed to have her dance body makeup and eyes put on.
Lucy picked up a photo of a woman in the dance eye makeup who looked a lot like herself and asked Jane O'Kane, the Makeup Supervisor, “Who is this woman?” Jane replied, “She was a bring-in.” Jane first designed the eye makeup that would be used. Then, she tried it out on someone whose facial structure was similar to Lucy's. They usually try it out on Cindy, Lucy's body double, but she wasn't available so they used a “bring-in.” This refers to someone who is unoccupied at the moment and looks like they might be useful so you “bring them in.” A Polaroid is then taken and shown to the producer and director for approval.
The radio was on and Lucy was bobbing to the music. At this point, Vanessa, her makeup artist, was doing her eyes and hair while Jane and Linda, another makeup artist, were putting body decorations on her feet.
The eye makeup was composed of four colors and it was interesting to see Vanessa use the back of her hand as a palette. She had put quantities of the colors on her hand and dipped her brush into them as needed.
As this episode takes place in North Africa, Jane had used traditional North African body decoration as a basis for the designs they would be applying to Lucy's hands, feet and stomach for the dance sequence when Xena is trying to seduce Gurkhan.
Before they could start applying the designs, they had to turn Lucy's red toes back to flesh color again. When I peered over Jane's shoulders to see what they were doing, Lucy told me the red toes were left over from the previous episode. And, at one point, when Jane was telling Lucy how many days on which they would need to repeat this make-up, Lucy offered to wear the makeup home to help save time. I don't know if they decided to take her up on her offer.
The designs started with rubber stamps that were pressed into black ink pads and then applied to Lucy's feet. It was amusing to see plastic containers filled with stamps labeled Xena feet, hands and stomach. Then Jane and Linda used marking pens to fill in any missing lines. The attention to detail was typical of what I had noticed in every aspect of production. The camera wouldn't be zooming in on these parts of Xena's body, but the fullness of detail would add to the visual impact of the scene.
I remember Lucy mentioning in an interview that she hated the body wash Xena wore because it turned the grout in her shower orange. I wondered what this stuff was going to look like going down the drain!
At 7:15, Renee arrived. As she wasn’t wearing any body art, she could sleep in a smidgen longer that day. She was going to be filming a scene wearing her dance outfit and that included having her hair braided into corn rows. She joined Lucy in the two-seated side of the makeup trailer with breakfast in hand - a bowl of porridge. Her first, I gathered. An attempt to add more protein to her diet.
She offered some to Lucy, but received nothing but laughter at the offer. When Renee held the bowl up to the camera, I understood the hilarity. And anyone who’s eaten really thick porridge will know what I mean. It did have raisins in it, however, which I would have happily picked out and eaten if I'd been offered any. Renee finished off the whole bowl while we were there. I doubt she needed lunch after that stick-to-your-ribs breakfast. There was a lot of laughter among the women as they swapped weekend stories.
Meanwhile, Barbie, Renee’s makeup artist, was working on putting the corn rows into her hair. As you know, Renee’s hair is very short now and this task was not without some difficulty. Renee teased Barbie by jumping when she put in the bobby pins as if she'd been stabbed. But the finished result was beautiful. When I saw Renee later in the full dance outfit, draped in jewelry on her body and hair, she looked stunning. In fact, Lucy and Renee got to wear a variety of absolutely gorgeous outfits in this episode.
Lucy was still having her hands and feet done by Jane and Linda, while Vanessa had moved on to putting the extensions in her hair. As has been mentioned before, they used to weave them in individually. but switched to snapping on full layers to save time. Small braids are done on each side of her head at three different levels and each layer is attached to the braids at both ends. I'm not sure if I've explained that correctly, but if you watch the video, you'll see what I mean. Very efficient, does the job and saves lots of time in the morning and evening. And, as so many things in the filming process are labor-intensive, anything you can do to save time is very much appreciated by everyone involved in the show.
Shortly before Lucy was ready to leave to go on set, Michael Hurst, the director of this episode, came into the trailer to talk over the upcoming scene. He worked out with Lucy how it was going to be played and off she went.
Now that Renee’s hair was completed, Barbie set to work putting on her makeup while Renee studied her lines. It became very quiet and peaceful in the trailer and, when I noticed her eyes closed in concentration, I signaled the cameraman and we left.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE