Hurst At The Helm
Michael Hurst gives Xena Magazine readers an insight into what it takes to direct an episode of Xena or Hercules. Interview by Kate Barker.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 09
Over the course of his career, Michael Hurst has helmed 10 episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, a number of highly successful stage productions and, most recently, the feature film Jubilee. He also won the 1999 New Zealand Television Award for Best Director of a Comedy for his direction of the extremely hilarious season four Hercules episode ...And Fancy Free.
During some downtime on the Renaissance Pictures sets, Hurst gave readers of Xena: Warrior Princess Magazine an insight into the procedure for directing some of the shots. His descriptions made it clear that his directorial talents are never far away.
“Every shot requires setting-up time, so we go and we line it up,” says Hurst. “From that moment until when we shoot it, a lot of things happen.”
Just how many things happen depends, of course, on the particular scene. The one on which the actor/director is currently working - or was before this particular interviewer whisked him aside - is a village scene requiring a large number of extras, which means that there will be a lot of preparation before the main actors and guest stars come on to shoot their scenes.
“In this case it's a wide shot,” he explains, “so the extras have to be organised. At certain times they have to be right in frame, but it’s also important that they don't mask [stand in front of] the main actors. We have to line everyone up; we have a body double for Kevin [Sorbo, Hercules], who won’t arrive on set until later.
“Everybody has to be checked,” he continues. “The cameras have to be checked so that we can be kept in focus at all times, from being far away from the cameras to being close up. All of that happens with every shot.”
According to Hurst, it isn’t just a matter of knowing how long this process of setting up will take. One scene (or one shot) may take a few minutes from set-up to filming, while another might take two hours.
“The only time you don’t have to wait is if we're in a situation where we can cheat a little,” he reveals. “For example, when we’re shooting in one direction: we could shoot a single shot where somebody’s talking, and then all we’d do is change an element of the background, like a picture. Then we would put the other person on the same spot, but looking at the other side of the camera, and it would look as though we were shooting back the other way. Sometimes it's more complicated, sometimes it's less... sometimes we just have to wait.”
There are also differences in planning an exterior shot as opposed to an interior, inside a studio. In Hurst’s words, filming in an enclosed space is “a little more claustrophobic”, but at least it’s easier to control the conditions. Outside in the sun, things must still be done at a rapid rate, but what Hurst describes as “different energy” tends to make the atmosphere a little lighter, while light can occasionally be a problem, too.
One of the outdoor locations used by Pacific Renaissance is the area around Bethell's beach, near Auckland’s Waitakere ranges. Hurst has been involved in shooting episodes of Hercules and Xena in this area, both behind and in front of the camera. “Out on the beach, we’re on the line where the prevailing winds hit the mountains,” he explains, “and the convergence of weather patterns is going on right above us when we’re out there. It can be very changeable.”
It’s not just the beach, but potentially any outdoor set that may call for the director and crew to make judgements as to what the weather is likely to do. It can sometimes be a challenge, but it's nothing that can’t be overcome. “Sometimes, if it's a changeable day, you might do a shot - say it's the master shot of the scene - and say, ‘Well okay, I’ll commit to sunlight'. But then after that it could get cloudy so all the close-ups look different. which means you have to [artificially] light it a lot. It’s worse the other way around, when you commit to cloud and the sun comes out. Then you can really be in trouble, just trying to shade it.
“It’s a toughie, that one; if we have to compensate all the time, it’s a real trick. What we like is when it’s either sunny all day or cloudy all day. We’ll either wait for the clouds to arrive or wait for the clouds to clear.”
This particular village scene does seem to be taking more than a little time to set up. But when questioned about these delays, Hurst seems mildly amused. “We haven’t got delays; this is normal!”
It’s all part of the business, of course, and the cast and crew merely take it in their stride. For Hurst and other members of the Renaissance shows’ cast and crew, these sorts of challenges are all part of what makes the job interesting.
“When it goes,” Hurst insists from his perch on an unused piece of set, “man, it goes fast. We shoot a lot of material. It would take four times as long on a feature film. The cameras would be bigger, the set would be more elaborate, there’d be more elaborate moves of the camera... On a feature film, you’d expect to be shooting anything between 30 seconds and two minutes a day.”
At the time of this interview, Hurst was set to direct the feature film Jubilee (now on release in New Zealand), and estimated an ambitious shooting schedule of “about four minutes a day”. The day's aim for a typical episode of Xena or Hercules? According to Hurst, “five minutes for 15 seconds of screen time. That's a lot.”
“A lot” would be an understatement when it comes to describing the number of productions - both stage and screen - in which Hurst has been involved. His acting credentials are lengthy and varied, and his experience as a director is just as impressive. As an actor he has played in everything from melodrama (co-starring with his wife Jennifer Ward-Leland in the feature film Desperate Remedies), to Shakespeare (playing an ageing Macbeth while at the youthful age of 20), to the comedy of pantomime (where he played the classic character Widow Twanky, not only on stage but also in an hilarious episode of Hercules).
With some episodes of Hercules (and also stage productions such as Hamlet) in which he has featured as a character, Hurst has even had to direct himself. He has been kept busy throughout his career, and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
It's not always hard work, of course. Whether acting or directing, it seems Hurst can always find a way to inject a little quirky humour into his work. Take, for example, the time when he directed a Hercules episode that involved a close-up shot of a giant’s footprint. “We were filming the giant's footprint, and I said, ‘It's a pity we don’t have any roadkill’,” he remembers. “But up the road - quite dry and desiccated - was a flattened hedgehog. So somebody scooped it up and put it at the bottom of the footprint. So we filmed a big close up of that!
“Yes folks, it was a real, dead hedgehog - and we had to use it because I didn’t shoot any other footage...”