HIGHLANDER Reunion Convention Report Part Four

AN EVENING AT JOE'S readings, how to pitch a script, and swordfighting pointers

By Abbie Bernstein     November 04, 2001

The HIGHLANDER Reunion Convention was held Aug. 24-26 at the LAX Westin Hotel in Los Angeles, marking the 15th year of the existence of HIGHLANDER. CINESCAPE's extensive coverage of the event continues today with a look at the "Script to Screen" panel, the secrets of swordfight choreography, and more.

Readings of excerpts from HIGHLANDER: AN EVENING AT JOE'S are next on the menu. Among those reading from their own contributions are HIGHLANDER creative staffers Gillian Horvath (who also edited the anthology), Donna Lettow and Laura Brennan, producer Ken Gord, director Dennis Berry's writing partner Darla Kershner, swordmaster F. Braun McAsh and actors Jim Byrnes, Stan Kirsch and Anthony de Longis. Ocean Hellman, who played Methos' love Alexa in the episode "Timeless," and Byrnes also read their respective roles in other people's stories and Morrie Ruvinsky, who wrote six HIGHLANDER episodes including the acclaimed "End of Innocence," reads from his non-HIGHLANDER immortal/Native American lore fantasy DREAM KEEPER.

Then it's time for Horvath and Lettow's "Script to Screen" panel. They've done this before at several other conventions, Horvath reveals. "This is the famous Gillian and Donna Show. We explain how a HIGHLANDER episode gets made."

Step one is the pitch or

rather, how not to pitch. An example of an unacceptable episode is given, which Lettow adds, is still not as bad as one aspiring writer's opening comment: "'I know what's wrong with your show.'"

Freelance writers need to work out pitches thoroughly before coming in, but staffers are allowed a little more developmental latitude. "As a staff writer," Horvath relates, "you can have half an idea [and try to flesh it out with the rest of the staff]."

Lettow elaborates. "Hey, wasn't Adrian taking flamenco lessons? Wasn't Anthony de Longis just in here, pitching Spanish swordfights?" This is how the "Duende" episode came about.

One of the ongoing challenges of writing HIGHLANDER, Horvath notes, is "Making it credible that the battle won't take place until act four. Why don't they have it out in the third scene?"

Many episodes were designed to incorporate sets that were near one another. Joe's Paris bar and the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore were across the street from one another and around the corner from Darius' church.

Producer Gord tries to watch from the audience, but Horvath and Lettow bring him onto the stage. Ostensibly, each episode of HIGHLANDER was scheduled for seven shooting days, but these became eight in France. "I blame it on wine at lunch," Lettow quips.

"Six [days] in times of tight budget," Horvath recalls.

Nearly all of the scripts developed for HIGHLANDER were eventually filmed, albeit some with enormous changes. A case in point is the episode "The Cross of St. Antoine," an episode with Old West flashbacks that was originally entitled "The Chalice of St. Antoine" and set in France, with flashbacks to a castle.

Once the story was rewritten for America, Lettow says, "[Director] Dennis Berry wanted more in the Old West. Then he wanted to give the schoolteacher a subplot. Then Adrian calls. 'It's going to be a fine episode but I think I should get shot.'" The script was rewritten to accommodate Duncan taking a bullet.

In fact, the script was

revised so many times that the writing staff literally lost track of who was coming and going. "We had created Escher's museum," Lettow notes. "Joe left the room twice!"

As it was established that one day of shooting equaled eight pages of script, all sets had to be utilized in multiples of eight pages, so that there would be no company move in the middle of the day. In one draft of "Cross," it was deemed that too many pages occurred in Joe's bar. Lettow explains that someone in production suggested, "'The scene with Joe drinking his breakfast, Amanda comforts him can that be in the park with Joe drinking his breakfast from a paper bag?'" This vision of Joe as a full-blown alcoholic was successfully nixed, although it cropped up seasons later in an alternate universe: "And you wonder where 'To Be'/'Not To Be' comes from," Lettow observes dryly.

Horvath urges Gord to tell some production stories. "You can tell them about the times you'd get the script and think, 'What the hell were they thinking?'"

Gord perfectly times his delivery. "That was every time."

Dailies are shown from the episode "The Fighter," illustrating how scenes are cut together, and from "Comes a Horseman," showing how the use of sound can make or break a scene the villains don't seem nearly as formidable with just the clip-clop of their steeds accompanying their raid.

Horvath explains that sometimes changes had to be made in little things like script descriptions. For example, in the episode "Glory Days," "Joe had a girlfriend who was 'beautiful, stunning, 48.' No actress wants to be 48." The age reference was eliminated.

One constant, Gord reveals, was when it came time to clothe the flashbacks, "The costume designer would come close to a nervous breakdown. There are no costumes in North America [with designs] earlier than 1300. They had to come from England, a place called Angels. It takes three days to get to Canada."

Asked who was the hardest character to cast, Gord replies, "Rebecca. She was fabulous, but she had to be all kinds of things at once modern, timeless..."

There was no "easiest" role

to cast, although Lettow observes, "Sandra Bernhard [the romance writer in 'Dramatic License'] was handed to us."

Horvath and Lettow describe "The Puppeteer," an episode that got fairly far along in the development process before it "squicked Bill [Panzer] out" and was killed. The storyline dealt with an Immortal who had managed to incorporate Immortal mythology into his puppet show, complete with little sparklers for the Quickenings. The Immortal, it turned out, was a pedophile who escapes Duncan and meets a young blonde boy who, we see in the final shot, is Kenny (the character from "The Lamb" and "Reunion"), a thoroughly destructive 800-year-old trapped forever in a 10-year-old body who kills practically everybody who crosses his path. The audience whoops with delight at this rough justice.

Horvath and Lettow have recently been working on MYTHQUEST, a series in which two teens travel through various myths seeking their missing father. They run an intriguing-looking trailer for the series, which has begun airing on Showcase in Canada and is due on PBS in the U.S. in January.

Lettow says one of the things she liked best about working on HIGHLANDER was that story arcs were developed over time and episodes did not have to end tidily with everything as it was at the beginning. "They call it 'putting your toys back in the box.' On HIGHLANDER, we were allowed to leave toys all over the floor."

After a break, the stage is taken by swordmaster McAsh, who is also an actor, and actor de Longis, also a swordmaster in his own right. Both appear in an Arthurian episode of MYTHQUEST scripted by Horvath, "Sir Caradoc at the Round Table," with McAsh as a would-be seizer of the throne and de Longis as Lancelot. A clip is shown of their onscreen sword fight, which is then discussed with the audience.

Although both men have choreographed

sword fights for stage and film, McAsh and de Longis have somewhat different styles. "Tony works a bit 'out of distance' [with the combatants further apart]," McAsh explains, "whereas I work completely in distance, because the camera lens sees things differently than a live audience."

When the two work together, however, it is in distance close enough to wound should someone make a mistake. "There are things I will do with Braun that I won't do with anybody else," de Longis says, "because I don't trust them."

De Longis laughs when asked about his favorite fights. "Is this a rhetorical question?"

"All three of the fights in 'Duende,'" McAsh says, rank highly on his personal list.

There wasn't a great deal of time to work on the "Duende" fights on the tight schedule. "The only reason we got any rehearsal time," de Longis recalls of one fight between his Consone character and Adrian Paul's MacLeod, "was the camera truck broke down on the way to the set." It took two hours for the equipment to arrive at the location. "That's when we learned the fight."

With Bob Chapin's cameras rolling to capture the event for an episode of THE HUNTED, McAsh and de Longis then do a live demonstration of their fight from MYTHQUEST. They start slowly, so that the various moves are clear, then duel at full speed. Even after the long, eventful day, the crowd still has the energy to go completely wild at the spectacle.

Keep checking back for more of CINESCAPE's continuing coverage of the HIGHLANDER Reunion Convention.