"Xena, Warrior Princess"

October 01, 1999
Web posted at: 1:32 p.m. EDT (1732 GMT)

From Dennis Michael
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

HOLLYWOOD (CNN) -- Any student of Shakespeare could have told "Xena, Warrior Princess" fans what was going to happen to Julius Caesar in last season's cliffhanger episode, "The Ides of March."

The surprise was what happened to Xena (Lucy Lawless) and her sidekick, Gabrielle (played by Reneé O'Connor). They were crucified by the Romans. People dying and coming back are fairly common in the "Xena" universe, but coming back from a season-ending crucifixion called for something more than just a shower scene in the fall.

So this week's fifth-season premiere, "Fallen Angel," sets something of a record for hour-long television shows, thanks to 270 special-effect shots in which Xena carries on the good fight in the afterlife.

"Xena" is written and shot in New Zealand, but the special effects are made at Flat Earth Productions Inc. in Burbank, California. When the Flat Earth crew saw the "Fallen Angel" script, says 3-D effects supervisor Mark Tamny, there was "shock at first. And then you start to come up with a plan to figure out how you're actually going to achieve all the shots -- how it's all going to come together."

The special-effects crew gets involved in every part of a production of this kind, from piecing together real elements to embellishing the truth with realistic-looking fakes.

In one shot, they might start off with Lawless as an archdemon, shot against a blue screen. That's part of the "chroma key" process that allows the development of composite images used in television in many weather forecasts and in film for special effects.

And what effects -- behind Lawless goes a painted background: some digital rocky pillars, a squadron of flying digital demons, and after a few hundred hours of work, magic.

To make the magic happen, the actor is shot in front of a blue screen (1), then a background is created (2), and flying demons are animated (3). Then all are composited together for a final shot (4).

Some of the shots, like evil Callisto (Hudson Leick) drop-kicking a hapless angel, were delivered on film. But the special effects crew had to erase the wires that held him up, speed up the angel's motion and even add some digital-camera motion.

"We didn't want it to look like if this was a real environment that they actually just planted a camera on one of these pillars," says composing artist Todd Vaziri. "We wanted to give you the impression that maybe it was from a helicopter, or some kind of a gliding mechanism or something."

Some of the flying sequences couldn't be done with real actors on wires, so digital stand-ins were created on the drafting board.

"What we deliver is different elements," says Mark Kochinski, another 3-D effects supervisor, as he shows off his work. "Like, this is Xena flying, and then this is the beam of light she's flying through. And then when the shot is composited, you can see her flying through the clouds, which are a separate element."

Some effects executed on film in New Zealand needed some high-tech touch ups in California, among them archangel Gabrielle's wings, which didn't work on film.

"We went into the shot," says Kochinski, "removed the wings that she was wearing, created some three-dimensional wings that were a bit more animated and then married them to her body for that shot."

"Xena, Warrior Princess" carries the battle way beyond real life almost every week. But in order to get this far -- like past life itself -- and come back next week, it sure helps to know some special-effects wizards.