From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V5 #64 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Thursday, March 10 2005 Volume 05 : Number 064 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] More news from Woodhill.... [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Season 5 continued.... [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Another Xena Alumni gets TV Role [ Subject: [chakram-refugees] More news from Woodhill.... Where did I get up to in my investigations at Woodhill? Can't really remember. Well, I'll take up the tale by guesswork and if I repeat myself you'll have to forgive me. Or don't, see if I care I think I got as far as the trip I made when I forgot to take the map or my scans from episodes. The following weekend I went back rather better equipped and found that, yes, the little clearing on Cable Road just before the stream bridge is indeed the ambush scene from Endgame, where Xena ambushed Pompey's troops and rescued their Amazon captives. There's a main cable runs under the road - probably the submarine cable to Australia - with tall poles as cable markers, and a couple of poles are just at the end of the clearing. Umm, hope Xena was careful where she buried that stash of weapons or a few phone calls mighta got cut off :) In the shot where a Roman escapes on a horse, you can see a couple of tall skinny bushes in front of him, just where the cable marker poles should be, and (in real life) one of the poles still has some withered branches taped to the top of it. Looking the other way in this scene, you can see some scrubby trees with thin sloping trunks in the distance behind Xena - the same sort seen in the Alti-Gab fight in Them Bones. After showing photos of them around at work, the best suggestion anyone's come up with is that they're poplars (not all poplars are the tall straight trees found lining French roads in Van Gogh paintings). Anyway, 'poplars' is a far more succinct description than 'scraggly trees that aren't pines', so poplars they are. Anyway, these poplars grow along certain parts of the stream, and only along the stream, so seeing them in the background is a dead giveaway for any location. Further down the track, I confirmed that Cable Road was the scene of the runaway chariot in Key to the Kingdom - really rather obvious, but not a discovery that was going to thrill many people :) I also wanted to find the Gabs-vs-Alti fight from Them Bones and the fishing scene from Endgame. There were lots of hopeful spots along the stream for the fishing scene, none of which quite fitted, and I couldn't find the Alti fight at all. Eventually I went right downstream as far as I could and, rather unexpectedly, just where the stream reaches the back of the beach dunes it opens out into a pool and that was the spot. Okay, back there next week with more scans from eps. The Alti-Gabs fight had to be alongside the stream (because of all the poplars in the background), and it needed to be near the end of a clump of poplars. So I headed up the stream for a mile and a half, till the stream got well beyond forest and into farmland beyond the last poplars, without finding the spot. Heading back down the stream and down Cable Road past the 'ambush' scene, a couple of hundred yards further down the track, the forest opens out a little on the left, and I had a hunch (for no very good reason except wishful thinking) that I might be able to find the very first shot in Endgame, where the camera pans from side to side before coming on the body of Solari (?). There's one tree with a couple of branches at distinctive angles, but how to find it amongst sevral thousand trees, any of which might have been viewed from any direction? Well, at one stage in the shot, there are a couple of low ridges in the background which form a double-humped appearance, and sure enough the flat area of forest was bounded by a sand ridge separating it from the stream. So carefully lining up the humps in the ridge to give the same profile as seen in the scan, and wandering round hopefully for fifteen minutes, and bingo! - there was the tree! I also thought Gabby's deer hunt in Them Bones might have been around here, but I couldn't place anything for sure. On the north side of the 'road', there's a long narrow flat area edged by a steep ridge - most of this area has been cleared recently. I thought this might have been the Amazon Sin Trade camp but I couldn't quite make it fit. Carrying on, I eventually found the Alti-Gabs fight scene in the place I first looked at and dismissed, fifty yards from the car park at the forest gate! Just to confuse people like me, that fight scene had been cut together from separate shots in several different directions, not spatially consistent at all. Last weekend I went back again. On further reflection, and viewing scenes from Be Deviled, Sin Trade, and Them Bones I'd come to the conclusion that the cleared area just north of the track probably was the Amazon village after all. I'd also watched Coming Home, initially for the view of the forest destroyed by Ares, but I also noticed something interesting about the Amazon ambush at the start of that episode. So - starting at the start - that Amazon ambush in the pine woods - in the background (and blindingly obvious when you look for them) are poplars! In fact this was the same clump of poplars, only seen from the other side, as the ones in the Alti-Gabs fight. The camera crane could have sat on Cable Road and looked through thirty yards of pines to the fight scene with the poplars just behind. Heading north across Cable Road to the clearing the far side, it becomes obvious that this is indeed the ex-Amazon village. And, when Xena et al climbed a little hillock to look over the devastation, that was the exact same camera position as when Xena et al rode into the Amazon village at the start of Them Bones. Nice continuity! (I'm also amused at the fact that Xena and co really would have been in the right place to hear the sounds of the Amazon ambush at the start of Coming Home, as they did in the episode). Just to clinch the location, as the scene 'fades in' to Xena et al riding into the Amazon camp at the start of Them Bones, there's a multi-trunked pine tree in the foreground; this is still there on top of the hump, though somewhat battered by logging operations. (Judging from the perspective, the camera must have been on a crane parked beside Cable Road, looking right over the top of the hump). And in Coming Home, that very same tree features in the foreground of the shot of them climbing the hill to view the devastation. How's that for continuity?! Back a little further up the track, I made another try to find the spot of Gabs' deer hunt. In the course of panning rapidly round the forest, the camera stops momentarily looking down an avenue between lines of trees, two of which have long branches pointing up diagonally from their trunks - slightly unusual in a forest where most trees have had their lower branches trimmed. And eventually I managed to find the pair. Too bad this shot doesn't have Gabs in it. I wandered round for quite a while holding scans of Gabs with distinctive trees behind her, but couldn't place any of them. Which doesn't mean they aren't there, it's just very difficult to find a tree in a forest. (Imagines conversation with curious onlooker): Onlooker: Watcha doin' there, mate? Me: Looking for a tree. (Onlooker gets a curious expression on his face, as if he's not sure whether he's met a real loony or I'm just taking the piss) O: Why, have you lost one? M: No, not as such. O: Errr, plenty of trees around here mate, take your pick. M: Well, it's one particular tree I'm looking for. O: Can't you remember where you left it? M: Oh, I've never seen it before, that's why I'm looking. I think it's somewhere in this forest. O: You _think_ .....? (Decides to humour the lunatic). Never mind. How will you know when you find it? M: I've got a photo of it. O: A photo of a tree. Okay, and when you find it, what then? M: I'll take another photo of it. O: Oh. (Enlightenment dawns) You're doing this for a bet, right? M: (Considers the merits of trying to explain about Amazons and their forest and decides to take the easy way out): Yep, that's right. O: (Relieved to have found a rational way out of the conversation): Oh well, good luck. (Exits hastily). And that's as far as I've got. Oh, yes, I've just gone and added a Woodhill page to the NewXenaland site. The URL is http://cr.qc1.net/nx/woodhill/woodhill.html. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:08:48 +1300 From: cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Season 5 continued.... I've just been viewing Purity and Back in the Bottle. Much maligned eps, but I think they look great. Visually, they're gorgeous. Of the two, I prefer Purity, mostly because of Marie Matiko who is excellent as the twin sisters. She managed to make them look sufficiently different that I didn't realise till I saw the credits that the same actor played both. And she has, like Lucy and Hudson, a most expressive voice - check out the moment at the end of Purity when she says "At least I'll have you to keep me company". She was also pretty good at the fight scenes, from the look of it. It's a pity she was so woefully under-used in Back in the Bottle. The end of Purity had one of those images I remember as outstanding in the series. The sort you could print and hang on the wall. It's just after that most spectacular explosion in the arms dump (the FX guys must have enjoyed themselves using lots of strontium (?) salts to produce those crimson-violet flames)... then Xena and Kao H'sin appear through the heat haze in their gorgeous coats, walking side by side out of the flames - a striking picture. I think I can see why some subtexters (that is, Xena-Gab subtexters) were disconcerted by the episode... Xena and Kao H'sin certainly seemed to have a rapport, and Kao H'sin had some of the lines that on other occasions might have been uttered by Gabby. Myself, I liked the change. Something ironical I've noticed about the Season 5 DVD set - Succession and Amphipolis Under Siege didn't even rate interviews, yet the chacky scene from Succession is used to introduce all the interviews for the season, and the Xena-Ilainis fight from AUS to introduce all the video commentaries. Is that weird or what? Talking of the commentaries, Lucy was her usual irreverent self doing the commentary with Renee on Seeds of Faith. She pointed out how the scenes at the end with angel Callisto and angel Eli looked just like religious picture postcards (specifically, I guess, Catholic religious postcards). Lucy and Renee were impressed with the acting from Tim particularly, but less so with the rather saccharine scenes, I think. As for the idea of Callisto becoming Xena's child, Lucy said it probably looked like a good idea on paper, but on screen it was just a bit yucky. Just about the feeling I got, too. They also commented on Peter Rowley's uniquely evil hat. I believe some Xenafan once had a 'bad hats' site, if so then Peter Rowley's hat would surely win by a mile, with the rest of the competition stragglin g in the distance. I had never imagined any hat could look so - evil, that's the only word for it. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:29:39 +0000 From: Subject: [chakram-refugees] Another Xena Alumni gets TV Role Just saw that Charles Mesure is either doing a pilot or has been cast in a show for FOX. He will play a priest teamed with an investigator who investigate religious phenomenon. It will be a staring role. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:05:53 -0800 From: "Xena Torres" Subject: RE: [chakram-refugees] Another Xena Alumni gets TV Role Did you catch the title? BATTLE ON XENA! Xena Torres: Warrior Writer http://www.geocities.com/bitchofrome "And most importantly, I've learned that the heart can betray, but the sword never lies." - Eve "Heart of Darkness" >Just saw that Charles Mesure is either doing a pilot or has been cast in a >show for FOX. He will play a priest teamed with an investigator who >investigate religious phenomenon. It will be a staring role. > >CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:47:05 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Another Xena Alumni gets TV Role Hi, CherylA reported: >Just saw that Charles Mesure is either doing a pilot or has been cast in a >show for FOX. He will play a priest teamed with an investigator who >investigate religious phenomenon. It will be a staring role. They're remaking _Miracles_ already?! (Why yes, I am still bitter that that show was DOA, why do you ask?? :P) =============================================== Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth =============================================== hear at the HOMe House Concert Series http://hom.smoe.org =============================================== ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V5 #64 *************************************