All The World’s A Stage: Just Deserts
For the fifth episode of Xena's sixth season, Legacy, we find ourselves in the African desert, where Gabrielle faces her impending death, and Xena is tasked with uniting two warring groups of nomads. Our set reporter Kate Barker brings us an exclusive report on filming this show.
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 14
“This is a tension-filled story,” says director Chris Martin-Jones of Xena's sixth season episode Legacy. “There are some very high stakes.”
This may be slightly understating things in terms of the plot, given that in Legacy, Gabrielle mistakenly kills the son of a tribal leader, and decides to accept the traditional punishment of death.
Naturally, Xena tries to protect Gabrielle by implying that the nearby Roman army is responsible for the killing. But Gabrielle is plagued by her conscience and confesses in front of the leaders of the tribe.
The setting for Legacy is the North African desert, where Xena must unite two tribes of nomads in defence against the coming Romans. This task becomes more difficult when Gabrielle resigns herself to the punishment for her crime. In keeping with the tribes’ desert justice, she is buried neck-down in the sand to await a very nasty execution.
Just as Renee O’Connor was really pulled underwater for the pit scene in The Haunting of Amphipolis, in Legacy the actress really does get buried in the sand. Well, sort of. Most of the desert scenes were shot in sand dunes at a beach north of Auckland, and it was here that O’Connor was literally buried from the neck down. Of course, the experience was made much more bearable for O’Connor with the help of a few simple tricks of the trades.
“We made a box with a hole in its lid,” Martin-Jones explains. “Then we dug a hole in the sand, put the box in, sat Renee in the box and covered the lid over with sand. It looked very effective, with her head poking out of it through the sand!”
The script then called for several tribesmen on horseback to gallop towards Gabrielle with rubber mallets, racing to knock off her head. What a wonderful way to spend the day!
Although Legacy is Martin-Jones’ first time directing on Xena, he seems to be aware that, for O’Connor, scenes like this are all in a day’s work. “She gets put in all these incredible situations,” he observes. “She was probably in the box in the sand for about an hour. We had people running up between takes giving her drinks, and she was great about it. She’s a real trooper.
“Actually, she was very comfortable sitting on a chair in the box,” Martin-Jones adds. “From what I’ve seen of Xena, Renee has to do things like this all the time. She was great.”
O’Connor herself seems to have found humour in the situation too, even though she does admit to finding it a little cold. After all, it’s getting into winter in the southern hemisphere and being buried in the sand - even with a box providing some protection - must get just a little chilly. Judging by her immediate response to being asked what it was like being buried in the sand (“It was wonderful!”), it’s clear that O’Connor was enjoying the circumstances much more than her character would. “A bunch of men on horseback are going to try to bop Gabrielle’s head around,” she says of the scene. “It’s like a sport; they’re going to play polo, and basically Gabrielle’s head is the ball!
“It’s quite comical to see someone’s head in the middle of all that sand. What a wonderful image!” O’Connor says this with a grin. So we know it can’t have been all that bad. “I’ve had a great experience being out there in a different location,” she enthuses. “It was quite a different feel. The sand dunes just went for miles.”
And the motivation of Gabrielle and company in Legacy? “We’re starting an arc," O’Connor reveals, “where Gabrielle is trying to decide whether she can trust her own instincts in battle. It’s about whether she kills or disables people. I think it covers about four episodes.
“Legacy is an epic adventure,” she goes on. “We’re travelling to Africa, where we meet formidable characters. Xena’s mission is to unite these two tribes of nomads, and Gabrielle’s just having a bit of an internal struggle of her own. Xena can’t actually help Gabrielle redeem herself, but she’s being the best friend and trying to be supportive.”
The script of Legacy is also indicative of the show’s return to more relationship-based episodes, and was written by fan fiction writer Melissa Good. Director Martin-Jones became aware of Good’s prolific experience in writing media-inspired stories by delving into the many Xena fan sites on the Internet. “Melissa was very keen to do a story about the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle,” he says, “and I think that’s at the heart of the script. -
“It’s also about how Gabrielle has grown over the course of things, realising how she’s changed since she met Xena, about her growth as a character. Here, Gabrielle’s life is at stake and Xena’s desperately trying to find a way to get her out of it. So it’s a drama; it’s a story about the two of them.
“Some of the individual scenes might have changed a little bit, but in terms of Xena and Gabrielle's relationship, there’s a lot of heart in this episode. That certainly is still the same.”
SIDEBAR: Starlight Express
Director of photography Waka Attewell reveals the camera tricks he used to create stunning desert scenery in Legacy. Interview by Kate Barker.
The lavish interior of a desert nomad tent under the sparkle of starlight... It's a setting that sounds almost magical. But part of the real magic lies in producing - and in this case capturing - the visual style required to accurately portray the beauty of the scene.
This tent is really a small, three-walled set in the centre of one of the many Pacific Renaissance studios, being filmed in the bright and sunny mid-morning. With the help of lights, camera angles and director of photography Waka Attewell, however, the illusion is easy to create.
“We're in the desert,” says Attewell of the overall setting of Legacy, “so we've gone for a white-sand-blue-sky look.” Referring to the current scene of the desert tent at night, Attewell goes on, “This is one of two scenes in this episode that are by candlelight. For this scene, I'm using paper lanterns to simulate candlelight, so everything's on a flicker.”
It certainly makes for a dramatic look. Inside the tent, the intricately decorated set dressings - rugs, pillows, wall tapestries - are highlighted even more by the flickering light effects that Attewell and the lighting team have created.
Only a few minutes ago the tent was being used to film a scene that appears later on in the episode and is set in broad daylight. The transformation from day to night took mere minutes' adjustment to set and lighting. Such is the speed and familiarity of the crew with what is required. According to Attewell, night scenes take a little more time than day scenes to light effectively. This particular night scene, for example, has taken a little longer than average. “We've already established the low ceilings of these tents on location,” he explains, “so we've had to match that. We've also just introduced this big ball with two bulbs in it, and we're about to see what that looks like in a minute. It's a little bit fiddly. Compared to a normal night scene with main lights, this would take about half as much time again to light.”
As mentioned previously, as is usual on shooting schedules, these scenes are being filmed out of order. For instance, if a particular set is required for several scenes spread out during an episode, those scenes will usually be shot together to maximise time and resources. Attewell is used to the way this is done. “These sorts of scenes tend to have the same shape,” he says of the scenes of groups of tents in Legacy. “For example, you can predict from the script what's going to be a close-up and what's not. The Xena episodes have some wide shots to give a bit of geography, but mostly they tend to be medium shots and close-ups.”
Because of the need to control the elements needed for a shot, most night scenes are filmed indoors. However, to produce the expanse of a night sky like the one in Legacy, a little extra help may be required. “We've had a couple of night scenes where we've been quite conscious of the big sky in the desert,” says Attewell, “so they're bringing computer-generated stars in for all the wide shots.”