Fighting The God Fight
As the end of Xena’s fifth season looms ever nearer, Looking Death in the Eye throws our heroes into conflict with a number of gods of all shapes and sizes. Kate Barker reports on the filming of this battle-filled episode.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 09
Summing up the theme of Looking Death in the Eye takes just three short words - and who better to deliver them than Xena herself? “Major god action,” says Lucy Lawless from the set, and she’s not wrong. This episode boasts the appearance of eight - count 'em, eight - fully-fledged deities - rather a large chunk of the Olympian pantheon.
Most of the immortals in Looking Death in the Eye are regulars of Xena, or have been seen or referred to before. Here we see Ares (Kevin Smith), God of War; Hades (Stephen Lovatt), God of the Underworld; Hephaesus (Jason Hoyle), God of Blacksmithing and Fire; Celesta (Theresa Healey), Goddess of Death; and Athena (Paris Jefferson), Goddess of Wisdom, Weaving and War. Also present are the three Fates: Clotho (Samantha Adriaanse), Lachesis (Chlow Jordan) and Atropos (Elizabeth Prendergrast), who are ultimately responsible for determining the length of every mortal’s life. It’s an impressive line-up, but then these are no mere mortals they’re dealing with. The gods are up against Xena and Gabrielle... oh, and Joxer.
The episode begins with an elderly Joxer telling his children about Xena and their great ‘battle’ against the gods to protect Xena’s daughter, Eve. After that, we are taken into the action... and what’s more, Xena is fighting with a baby on her back. The fur-lined caboose (which Lawless enthusiastically describes as “flash, eh?”) even has a hook on the side for Xena’s sword scabbard... not to mention that most of the time, the carrier also contains a baby. Granted, for most of the fight scenes, the ‘baby’ Xena must contend with is in fact a rubber prop (as one of the crew points out, “the stunt babies aren’t real”)... but with or without gods to face, this is still no easy task...
To make sense of Lawless’ part in these fight scenes, we need to start a little further back in the episode. In a forest clearing, there is a face-off between Xena and Hades (the god is later joined by Athena and her army of silver-corseted archers, last seen in Amphipolis Under Siege). Watching the initial conflict between Xena and Hades is Gabrielle, crouching in the trees a few feet away.
For reactions that will later be edited into the Xena/Hades skirmish, Renee O'Connor is filmed in a continuous shot, overlooking the supposed action. In actual fact, the fight itself is nowhere to be seen; O’Connor must time her reactions from the cues of episode director Garth Maxwell. Off-camera, Maxwell is feeding O’Connor instructions as to what Gabrielle is supposed to be seeing of the fight.
Once Gabrielle’s reaction shots are completed, it’s time for Xena's part in the same sequence. Now, it's not always the easiest thing in the world to do a back flip and end up perched in a tree, even if you’re a Warrior Princess - or, for that matter, a Warrior Princess’s body double. Instead, creative use of a camera positioned low to the ground, plus having the body double stand on the back of a truck, effectively simulates the height needed for the shot. In essence, these are ‘foot’ shots - involving Xena landing, balancing and positioning herself for further fancy moves - and the double only needs to be seen from the waist down, in order for the camera crew to know where to position Lawless when it comes to actually filming the scene. As far as setting up for the filmed shot is concerned, those muscular limbs belong to the real Xena.
The resemblance between the different Xenas on set is of course vital. Here, it's easily illustrated by the fact that if one turns from the rehearsed action ever so briefly and then focuses back on the scene, it takes no more than a minute to realise that there’s something slightly different about that body double. They're filming the same moves, but this time it’s the ‘real’ Xena on the truck; Lawless is back in the action again.
As before, the script calls for Xena to land gracefully from one of her flips and catch her chakram as it flies back from an attack on Hades. In reality, the chakram is thrown into shot by a crew member off-camera, and this piece of action is shot several times as the positioning of Lawless and the chakram is adjusted. “I wonder if the chakram should come in more from the front,” muses Maxwell as he reviews one of the previous takes on the camera monitor. “It’s supposed to be bouncing in off Hades’ helmet…”
After a few minutes, Maxwell is satisfied. Now it's on to the next shot, where Xena throws the chakram and prepares to launch into another flip.
Those not immediately required for filming take time to relax in the summer sun. Stretched out in the long grass are some of the extras in Athena's army, dressed in their striking silver bodices but wearing slightly incongruous towelling robes and sunglasses over the top. They are forced to move a little further away from the main action when Anna Gundeson (First Assistant Director) warns them about the upcoming shot. “Everybody be aware,” Gundeson informs all present, “that there's a chakram being thrown in this scene. Nobody knows exactly where it’s going to land…”
Of course, the crew do in fact have a fairly good idea of the weapon's trajectory; they have erected a large protective screen, which stops the chakram harmlessly when Lawless flings it out of shot.
A few minutes later, it's time for some fancy sword work between Xena and the goddess Athena, played by Paris Jefferson. Between takes, Lawless gives a quick run-down on Jefferson and her character, whose serious involvement began in the episode Amphipolis Under Siege. “The character’s really developing,” Lawless says of Athena. “Paris is really good - we’ve had her over the last couple of episodes - she’s really making the character her own and it’s really quite neat to watch. Athena has got a slightly arrogant air, which Paris doesn’t have, but which is very useful when dealing with Xena.” One might imagine that a dash of arrogance is to be expected, considering that Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom, War and Weaving. Of course, in this episode, as Lawless points out with a grin, “she doesn’t focus on the weaving very much…”
Weaving aside, dealing with so many gods in a series - let alone a single episode - can be a big deal. It can also be a lot of fun, especially for Renee O’Connor, who enjoys any episode where the gods are featured. “This episode is dramatic,” she confirms. “We've had so many gods introduced at one time! There’s always an element of fantasy with the gods that I find really exciting - they all have such strong personalities and characters - and they’re funny! I guess it is quite serious in a way, but there are scenes that are comically dynamic. All that sibling rivalry... it’s very incestuous and very funny. There are great actors playing the gods on this show - I love it when they get together!”
Babies, battles and fighting the gods... it’s all in a day’s work for a Warrior Princess... and for the crew responsible for filming the tale. Here on the third location of the day, the pressure is on to cram in every last second of quality shooting available.
The crew on Looking Death in the Eye is very efficient and they’re bound to reach their aim for today's working schedule. Their goal: to get five minutes, 25 seconds of usable film by the end of the day.