Discworld
Our investigation into the chakram continues, as prop designer Roger Murray reveals how Xena's lethal weapon came to be in the show and gives us a step-by-step guide to its development from sketch to screen. Interview by Kate Barker.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 16
The chakrams Roger Murray makes may not have been used in ancient India - or even in ancient Greece, for that matter - but where they are used is probably the next best thing. As props designer for Xena: Warrior Princess, Murray has literally re-invented the wheel.
The chakram, which, as Murray points out, “is based on an historical object,” has gone by many names in the past, including chacarani, chakra (Sanskrit for 'wheel'), war-quoit and, of course, in the Xenaverse, as the humorous 'shamrock' and 'round killing thing'. But Murray simply calls it a prop, and in his domain (the Xena props department, that is), there are about 50 of them always in stock.
Yes, even the chakram has stunt doubles. But more on that later...
The idea of the chakram as Xena's trademark weapon came from Executive Producer Rob Tapert and Production Designer Rob Gillies. According to Gillies, it arose from the requirement for Xena to have a throwing weapon that would come back to her.
The chakram evolved by combining the circular shape of the ancient Indian weapon with the aerodynamic qualities of an ancient Australian Aboriginal weapon: the boomerang. “When we started looking at characters mythologically, we started drawing on what kinds of weapons they would have used,” Murray explains of the weapons evolution. “When you go back to different cultures, these weapons can be seen as quite generic objects - like a basic circle or whatever. So they come from fairly basic elements. In that respect, the chakram is really a very simple object.”
For the purposes of the show, the chakram eventually became a little more fantastic in terms of what it could do. “My idea was that it would be able to do a whole variety of things in flight and then return to Xena,” Murray says of his initial concept for the chakram. “That's part of the magic of how a boomerang works and the power of the chakram itself.”
In both the real world and the Xenaverse, the chakram is associated with mystical forces and ener-gies, and this has been more apparent in Xena episodes featuring and referring to the spiritual teachings of Xena's mentor, Lao Ma.
“I see the chakram as being influenced by an Asian mysticism which Xena ended up inheriting through her own spirituality,” Murray remarks. “It identifies that part of her, it’s encapsulated in her chakram. A sword, for example, is a lot more European and has more to do with the crusades whereas the chakram is something that bases Xena in Eastern philosophy.”
The influence of this philosophy is even stronger at the end of the fourth season, when the original chakram is broken in two in the episode Ides of March, perhaps symbolising the breaking of Xena as Caesar crucifies her and Gabrielle. In the fifth season episode Chakram, Xena has lost the dark side of her soul, and she is only healed when the broken chakram is fused with the chakram of light, forming a new and improved model, complete with the very Eastern yin yang symbol down the middle.
“It had to do with where they were leading the programme,” Murray explains of the decision to come up with a new version of the chakram. Again, it was Rob Gillies who came up with the initial seed, and Rob Tapert who laid down the story. “It comes back to that Eastern philosophy again: yin and yang; more China-orientated. Basically. it was part of the storyline of Xena having to come to grips with her duality.
“It’s simply symbolic representation,” Murray points out. “For instance, a sword will represent a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people without saying anything. A symbol’s exactly the same thing which is why we put symbols around us all the time. The yin-yang is something that is quite contrived, in a sense, but it's also something that's really well known and easily identified. The chakram isn’t just a weapon - it's ended up being a symbol for Xena's goals and journeys. It's really an incredibly simple concept.”
Immaculate Concepts
It may be an 'incredibly simple' concept, as far as Murray is concerned, but given the symbolic importance of Xena's chakram in the show as a whole, there must have been a lot of pressure on the props department to come up with the right look for Xena's deadly disc. “My job is to decipher what the producer and production designer want,” he says, “based on the story and their vision of it, and then make it into a physical element that can be used on set to help tell the story.
“As a props maker, you try and take the idea and visualise it,” Murray explains. “I take those elements that I already know about the programme itself and I put them into the object so that it reads as something that could be from that time. It also needs to look as if it could have actually been made then.
“So I look at base materials, as well as proportion, scale and that sort of thing. It's really the simple aspects of art. I incorporate all those things into what is only an idea, and then once that idea is approved by the producers, I turn it into a physical object that represents the idea.”
Pulling Out All The Props
So just how does one go about making a chakram - or several chakrams, for that matter?
“Firstly you have to make up a template,” Murray explains, “usually out of custom wood or urethane resin. Then we lathe it up and shape it. After we've shaped it, we put the design and pattern on it: all the grooves and etching and the holes that the paua [abalone] pieces go into. That's so that when we cast it up, all the elements are in the mould already, so that we don’t have to re-drill or recut each weapon that we make afresh.”
It's not a short job, by any means. “The original template took me about eight hours to actually make,” Murray recalls. “It takes about three hours to make the mould, but this was over a period of about a day and a half, because it takes the silicon quite a while to dry.
“From the original, we take a silicon rubber mould and produce copies of the chakram in at least three different types of urethane foam: hard, medium and soft. All of these will have a piece of sprung steel inside them to hold them together and give them enough weight.
“There will be copies that will have rigs inside them so we can run them down strings for flying effects. There are aluminium copies that are sand-casted, which we then polish and paint up. We have copies made out of resin or another urethane that is really hard, like fibreglass, which they use on the stunt rigs. Those ones are used for things like chest wounds where Xena will throw it at somebody, it hits them in the chest and stays there... or it goes into the wall and stays there.”
It sounds rather painful, but luckily neither the actors nor the stunt doubles actually get these things stuck in their chests. However, a hard metal chakram would obviously do a fair amount of damage if it did hit you, hence the need for several versions of the same weapon.
“There are five or six different materials we’ll make the chakram out of,” Murray expands. “Hard foam, soft foam, medium foam, resin ones for rigs and special effects like when sparks fly off it, and the aluminium ones for close-ups. We have a stock of them, because the soft ones will get broken or wear out. Hard foam ones and aluminium ones will get repainted and recycled for further use. On set, both units have two aluminium chakrams, two hard foam chakrams, two soft foam chakrams and a stunt chakram ready to use at all times.”
As if that weren’t enough, there are new chakrams being made practically all the time. “A hard foam chakram usually lasts about four or five episodes,” says Murray, “whereas a soft foam one might only last two episodes, depending on what the action is like. The soft foam ones - which are made for throwing without damaging the set or hurting anyone - don't last as long. They start to deteriorate more quickly, but they are a lot safer. That means we have to make a lot more soft weapons than hard ones.”
In fact, the harder chakram props can last a number of years. “We've still got aluminium chakrams from the first series,” Murray reveals. “We also make fewer aluminium ones because they're only used for establishing shots; they're never thrown.”
Talking about the various strengths of these objects, Murray emphasises the need for safety when it comes to practical use. “A soft chakram - a foam one - is made not to hurt anyone. They all are, in fact, but there is quite a weight to the aluminium ones.” Murray explains that on set, the heavier metal chakrams - as with all the weapons used on Xena - are handled by experienced professionals only, and never used in a potentially dangerous situation. “Don't try this at home,” warns Murray, and he knows what he's talking about.
Round Effects
Of course, many of the chakram's fantastic effects aren't exactly achievable in the real world. For starters, in just one scene featuring the weapon, several different chakrams might actually be used in the various shots.
“There'll be an aluminium one for establishing the first shot,” explains Murray, “which is probably a close-up of Xena holding it. There'll be a soft one for her throwing it off-screen. Then there'll be a hard foam one on a rig against a blue screen, to show it spinning.”
This blue screen shot will require some computer-generated imagery, but that gets done later on in post-production. “There'll be a soft copy that will hit the guy's head and bounce off, for example, and then we'll go back to the hard one for it careering off somewhere else, and finally a resin one will be used for a panning shot, going into a wall or doing whatever else we want it to do.”
With all those copies of the one weapon, it seems the chakram has more stunt doubles thanXena herself!
The different shots aren't always filmed in order, either, especially if there are visual effects to be added later. “We shoot it in different components,” Murray continues. “Second unit will maybe shoot an actual chakram on a rig, spinning against a blue screen. Main unit will do the establishing shot with Lucy; depending on how it's scheduled - it might be a tight mid-shot of a double throwing it instead. It’s very fragmented; it depends on the sequence.”
Okay, so it can be thrown and it can hit things. But exactly how much of the action is actually possible? According to Murray, a lot of the shots are achieved physically. However, the convenience of technology has certainly added to the advancement of the chakram's abilities.
“The CGI component is something that has become more of a staple in the fourth and fifth seasons,” Murray admits. “Earlier on, a lot of the shots would actually be physical main and second unit shots, often on rigs, on a wire, spinning off and hitting a guy in the head and going off - that kind of thing. Nowadays it might just be a plain shot with a CGI element.”
Ah, the many and varied talents of the chakram. Like Xena, it has many skills. But there is one thing that a chakram can't do - at least not outside the Xenaverse. “It won't return,” says Murray with a smile. “I can tell you that for sure!”