Going back through the archives, we came across this piece Anthony wrote shortly after filming Queen of Swords. Written while the experience was still fresh, it offers a little glimpse into his thoughts and memories from that time. We thought it was worth bringing back and sharing with you.
Hello from the road again. I completed filming "Broadsword for the Stage and Screen, the De Longis Method," last weekend. It was a good shoot with Ed Douglas again directing and Bob Chapin, Dave Baker and Mary Gallien providing their talented assistance. I'll complete the edit after the holidays and it should be ready by the end of January. I'm very proud of the work and I think you'll find our efforts informative and entertaining.
As soon as we wrapped, we immediately loaded up the car for the drive up the coast from Los Angeles to Vancouver. It's been a long time since I made this drive and I was again struck by the beauty and grandeur of the Pacific northwest. My new Canadian agents were anxious for me to arrive and the auditions have already started. I'll keep you posted.
I'm looking forward to seeing my friends Braun Mc Ash and Alex Green and experiencing new adventures in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Vancouver. I'll also hope to watch the editors at work on Ariana's Quest and see some of the footage from my work in Prague. This has been a year of extensive travel for me and I love the experiences that a life on the road brings with it. But it does play havoc with plans and schedules. Thank you for your patience. Here, at last, is my commentary for the first episode filmed on The Queen of Swords Death to the Queen."
Death to the Queen
This episode will always have special memories because it was literally where it all began. Mary, Marley and I flew into Almeria on April 20 finally arriving at our new home the next day, Friday April 21 at 11:30pm after a grueling endurance flight. We left Los Angeles just two days after returning from Australia. I think this put us through every time zone on the globe within a period of 4 days. Our house was a jewel at the top of British enclave called Sierra Cabrera. When we woke up the first morning and looked out the window we couldn't believe how beautiful the view was from our summit vantage point. Behind us and all around us were the crests of the mountains. Below us, the winding road to the valley floor with its golf course, horse ranch, dry riverbed ravines and clusters of private ranch style homes with their beautiful gardens a lush contrast to the dry gypsum rock formations. Throughout the day the light would paint the hills and valleys different hues and colors so the scene never failed to dazzle. The view extended over ridges and valleys all the way to the ocean. At night the lights from the surrounding villages and towns dotted the distant hills like fireflies but the real lightshow was in the heavens. Stars filled the sky and the familiar constellations came out to welcome us. Scorpio rose nightly just behind and above our house.
That first Saturday morning we were treated to the sight of the British Lawn Bowling Club in their spotless whites skillfully putting "English" on the balls they rolled with amazing accuracy across the wide expanse of cultivated lawns at the foot of the castle behind our house. We became quite good friends with several of the couples, spending much of our brief leisure time as guests for dinner and delightful conversation. We made some lovely new friendships and discovered a lot about our neighbors and the fascinating countryside surrounding us. For a time, Tessie and Peter and Valentine lived below us in the beautiful private houses alongside the golf course before they moved to the bustle of the beach town of Agua Dulce. We savored our solitude and wouldn't have changed our home for the world.
I hit the ground running Monday morning when I followed Ken Gord on what he referred to as the "Zen" drive along the narrow, winding country roads from our mountain top aerie above Turre into Tabernas and "Texas Hollywood." This was the first and only day I went to the set alone. From the second day forward Mary and Marley were always with me. Mary proved to be an invaluable assistant and helped me to train every actor and stunt performer that appeared in the show. Marley's "happy-dog dance" of greeting became quite popular with both cast and crew. Before long both Anthony Lemke and Paulina Galvez were bringing their canine companions to work to brighten up their own long days on the set.
The first day at the office I met all the department heads and the enormity of the challenge we all faced made itself apparent. We were creating a new show from the ground up and we all had to start working as a creative unit ASAP. I met my new partner and co-coordinator, Ricardo Cruz and the members of his team and immediately started rehearsing and scouting locations. Ricardo, Mary and I had to teach the soldiers, train the actors and try out our ideas for action in order to be ready to go before cameras in less than a week.
I met with Tessie's horse and sword double, Natalia Guijarro, and with the help of Ricardo to translate, began her sword training. Fortunately, I've been teaching swordplay to actors professionally since 1973. I scrambled and quickly learned the Spanish vocabulary for the key body parts and the active verbs necessary to get my message across. This basic but growing vocabulary held me in good stead to teach the rest of Ricardo's stunt team in the weeks to come.
In spite of her work ethic and effort it was clear to me after two days that Natalia didn't have the experience with the sword to be ready to step in front of cameras as a sword double for our star the following week. On Wednesday I made my assessment known to Ken Gord and David Abramowitz and it was decided to bring in Roberta Brown as sword double for Tessie and sword trainer for Natalia until Natalia could be made ready to go in front of camera herself. As David said, "Roberta will train herself out of a job." Natalia was such a good horse riding and camera double for Tessie that the producers were anxious to have her do as much as possible as soon as possible.
I'll never forget my first visit to the beach and Hacienda locations. I was to follow our Director of Photography, Alwyn Kumst and meet our director, Jon Cassar, First Assistant Director Rob Urquhart, cameraman Jean Claude Couty and co-coordinator Ricardo Cruz to view the proposed location for our first day of shooting. I'd worked with Alwyn in South Africa when I guest starred on "Sinbad, the Series," and I like to call him the man who turned night into day. We were slated to shoot a "magic hour" sunset shot by a lovely stream. Since it was a scene with a considerable amount of important dialogue for my character, I was a bit concerned when the sun sank behind the mountains and it got dark, and I do mean night time dark. Alwyn pumped in some smoke, bounced some light off the smoke to produce a lovely sunset-like glow and we got our scene. I was very impressed. When the show aired you couldn't tell that the sun had deserted our set half an hour earlier. It was magic.
Alwyn is quite the Renaissance man. He's an excellent DP and for fun takes yachts on solo shake down cruises before delivering them to their new owners. At the end of the Sinbad season he outfitted his motorcycle with cameras and set off alone on an odyssey across the African desert. Alwyn lived just below my house in the mountains above Turre and ultimately inherited the house when we left Spain. I knew he would appreciate the light show even more than we did. But I digress. It took me, driving quite quickly, an average of 35-40 minutes to get to the set in Tabernas. Alwyn confided to me that his personal best record was 22 minutes! Alwyn likes to drive fast and he's very good at it. Following him along unmarked back country roads to the San Jose beach location while trying to write down directions so that I could find my way home and back again the next day was a terrifying yet exhilarating experience. Alwyn confided when we finally arrived that he saw me writing and had taken it easy for my benefit.
Our first location scout was the top of a cliff high above the beach. The site was a sixty-degree uphill climb to a narrow peak with a 45-foot drop to the ocean below. Jon Cassar had selected it for its panoramic beauty and it was indeed stunning. However it was less than user-friendly and Jon wanted to know if we could safely perform our first fight at the top of this pointed rock equivalent to the head of a pin. Ricardo and I walked the ground and planned out our safety precautions. Fortunately I had trained Tessie with a multiple opponent choreography sequence that could effectively accommodate the difficulties of footing and limited space.
The days that followed were spent training the Spanish team with the sword. Everyone of Ricardo's team were seasoned horse specialists and stuntmen. However, their experience with the sword was minimal and we really had to cram as much training as we could into a very brief time. The job of the sword-fighting stuntmen goes beyond wielding the weapon without hurting their partners or themselves. The stuntman/actor must always protect the actor he's working with, keeping them safe no matter what and always striving to make the actor look good. This requires excellent technique, timing and extraordinary sensitivity to your partner's energy. In other words, it takes the kind of experience you just don't get overnight.
Ricardo trucked in a variety of his horses to "audition" as the Queen's photo and stunt action horses. We selected "Chico" and "Champion" for starters and I began to ride them everyday to get them used to having a whip cracked from their backs by their rider. Once I'd trained Natalia with the whip, I hoped to choreograph mounted whip action for both her and Tessie in upcoming episodes. We also selected other horses for the cast, like "Montero" for Anthony Lemke and a highly trained black beauty for Valentine. "Montero" was the horse that Russell Crowe rode in "Gladiator," another of Ricardo's triumphs.
Ricardo and I also worked on trying out ideas for our horse action in "Death to the Queen." I had a gag with a lance in mind that I was pretty sure we could pull off. Ricardo introduced me to one of his team, Luis-Miguel Arranz. He said Luis was very good with horses and had some mounted experience with lances. I discovered later that Luis is one of the most famous rejoneadors in Spain. These are the extraordinary horsemen who fight bulls on horseback without any protection for themselves and their mounts other than the superb communication and skill both horse and rider share. Needless to say, my hopes for the lance gag soared.
I'd called Anthony Lemke in Toronto to ask about his experience and was very pleased at his enthusiastic interest in training to be as good as he could be with the sword. Anthony arrived on Sunday and started daily sword training and horseback riding lessons. Roberta also arrived on the weekend. I'd been working develop a "Spanish" style with Tessie for the Queen that I wanted Roberta to add to her own sword-fighting vocabulary. Monday morning, I immediately added Roberta to rehearsals for the two-on-one fight with guards Luis-Miguel and Tonio. We only had two days for everyone to be camera ready.
Although the clifftop fight was the first day of filming, I'll relate my comments in the order the scenes as they appear onscreen in the finished show. The first scene with action was the prisoners working Montoya's secret gold mine. Yes, that's me cracking the whip at the two prisoners and gruffly ad-libbing the line, "Get back to work." Our first day had the added complication of rain, lots of it. Now the average rainfall for Almeria is five days for the entire year – at least that is what all the books say. We had an embarassment of riches, six days of rain while shooting the first episode alone! Now this really complicates matters when you're still building your interior or "cover" sets, and your first days of shooting are all scheduled to be filmed outdoors. The crew members were frantically buying raingear at the local gas stations on the way to work. I loaned David Abramowitz my extra Highlander rain poncho. The roads leading to the locations in the canyons below the town sets were being eroded even as we filmed. Now these roads were barely passable at best. Add some rain, mud and erosion and the usual traffic problems of moving a company of performers and a caravan of equipment trucks including the portable generator that supplies the power for lights,etc and you've got a logistical nightmare. You try to anticipate problems and plan for them, but nature's curveballs are more the norm than the exception. Anyway, we got a lot of coverage in the mine interior before the rain let up and we were able to move outside. And we did have some great mood setting clouds in the sky all week that are conspicuously absent in the later episodes.
Torlio's escape attempt from the guards was a lot of fun for me. While the main or "first" unit filmed the Queen surrendering when the Sargeant threatens to kill prisoners unless she appears, I ran the second unit action filming the escape just across the valley. Jon Cassar walked the hilltop locations with me and outlined the shots he needed to tell his story. In between the Sargeant's counting, which they filmed over and over again, we shot the mounted lancer chasing Torlio through the brush, the musket shots with the special effect dirt squibs kicking up dust at his running feet and Torlio's desperate climb up the side of the cliff. We borrowed Anthony Lemke from first unit and shot his dialogue looking down at Torlio. The Sound department went back to first unit and we shot MOS ("mit out sound," a Hollywood tradition).
Pedro ------, the stunt/actor husband of Maria Jose who did the high fall from the top of the cliff filmed on the beach location later in the show, played Torlio. We set up Torlio's fall in three shots. We started the stunt sequence with Torlio's slide down the hill shot from above with Pedro looking into camera to simulate Captain Grisham's POV (point of view). Then we put Pedro on a wire harness and moved the camera to the bottom of the hill facing upwards towards Grisham looking down. We measured the cable on Pedro's harness so he could let himself slide straight down the hill towards camera and be confident we wouldn't take out either our 2nd Unit cameraman Jean-Claude or his expensive camera equipment. Alwyn had promised me ten dollars if we kicked dirt into the camera lens and that was a bet I wanted to collect. Next we set up the camera profile to the downhill grade and shot Pedro tumbling past camera towards the bottom of the hill. Finally we positioned the camera facing the natural erosion pit we had filled with pads and Pedro tumbled through frame to disappear over the edge into the pads. The sequence ended with a shot from above of a soldier checking Torlio's corpse with his head twisted and propped against a blood smeared rock. By piecing together this extended sequence of shots we offered the editor the means to make the fall look rougher and more violent than it was. We kept our stunt performer safe and told our story. The editor chose not to utilize everything we shot, but we'd given him the footage to make his final choices.
The sequence of the Queen riding through the surf and across the plains was shot by second unit with Natalia doubling while main unit was filming the fifth episode, "The Witness."
The shot of the Queen looking through her spyglass from behind a ruined wall, although also shot later in the series, was our first planned "cowboy switch." We employed the same technique we utilized to get the Queen down from the top of the church steeple in "Destiny" when Tessie, Natalia, Roberta and Tessie all combining to make the Queen look good. The term "cowboy switch" comes from the early days of Hollywood when the studios were really churning out the "oaters" as western flicks were sometimes called. The idea was to start the shot on the actor and have him move behind a building or duck behind a rock so the switch could be made with the stunt performer for action that was considered too hazardous or that required more training and experience than the actor possessed. The camera kept moving to aid the illusion that both performers were one. The stunt actor would appear to leap onto the horse with a fancy "pony express" mount and gallop off down the road. The same technique was reversed for a fast and furious arrival or a leap from a roof behind a water trough and the hero popping into close camera frame. And that's just what we did with Tessie looking through the telescope and Natalia galloping away to end the scene.
You might have noticed a change in the uniforms between the early episodes and what you're seeing now. It was decided that the uniforms with the red pants looked "too Opera." So as soon as wardrobe could effect the change, all of the soldiers uniforms were changed to blue pants and the uniforms you're seeing now.
The ambush sequence with Grisham and his soldiers in the canyon was started the sequence in the rambla below the pueblo set in Tabernas. Natalia handled the horse fall and EFX whiz Carlos fired dust hits from his semi-auto paint pellet gun to simulate the shots from the soldier's muskets.
The remaining action in this sequence had begun the first day of filming with the entire company on location at the beach in San Jose some hour's drive away. Now the sword action to get the Queen to the top of the hillside was quite the patchwork of talents. The second unit sequences were reshot and added to the shooting schedule while we were filming our fifth episode, "The Witness." Since Roberta Brown was dressed to double for Marta's kitchen fight, Mary Gallien dressed as the Queen and handled the initial sword action at the base of the hill and up the hillside at our beach location. (FYI: Paulina did all the fight action herself but Roberta had to be ready if she was needed. The action then switches to Roberta at the top of the hill with the final sword phrase, the turn and run to the top to peer over the edge and the confrontation with the soldiers to start the fight at the top of the cliff. It's Roberta in all the long shots with Tessie in the closeups and medium range body shots. Mary did the closeup wound reveals to finish off the sequence in second unit. Put all the parts together and you get the final story. We hope you liked it.
By the way, the wind in Tessie's hair is big time real. Roberta shot the first master of the two on one fight with Luis Miguel and Tonio. We really were at the top of this very steep hill performing on a rocky, unfriendly surface with a rapid plummet to the rocks and ocean below. The ladies really had to pay attention and not allow themselves to be distracted. The wind was gusting to 40 mph and posed a real challenge to balance and concentration. When Roberta first took her position to rehearse the fight, the wind ripped a styrofoam reflector from its position behind camera and sent it slamming into Roberta's body. Fortunately, Roberta was unharmed and took it in stride, but this was definitely not good.
I was very proud of Tessie. It was her first day of shooting and there was so much going on. We were in a very difficult location with very real hazards. Just keeping your footing both in the location and getting up and down the hill itself was a serious challenge. The wind was another unexpected factor that had to be dealt with so we could film the Queen fighting for her life without having Tessie lose hers. It was a rough day and everyone worked very hard to get a tough job done.
The next day we came back to shoot our second unit action and the wind was blowing too hard for us to shoot MariaJose's high fall from another cliff further down the beach. We ultimately returned to the location for a third day to get our shot. We carried the heavy airbag across 300 yards of sand and levelled out the surface to level the bag for Mary-Jose's landing. Ricardo also rigged a safety rope and Mary-Jose so she could walk herself over the lip of the cliff for a better angle on her fall.
The second day we did all troop a mile down the beach to a third and bigger cliff that Jon Cassar wanted to use as his long range establishing shot. You can just make out our tiny figures outlined against the sky in the enclosed still picture. It's Roberta and the boys performing the fight on yet another cliff. Ricardo, Pedro and myself are hunkered down below the lip the the cliff so the camera can't see us and acting as catchers if anyone loses their footing. Alas, the editor decided not to use this shot in the final assemblage.
I was a little disappointed in the editor's final choices for the Queen's sword fight. Tessie's close up coverage never captured the thought and dexterity of the Queen's ability to outfight both soldiers and outmaneuver Tonio with a clever disarm to use his sword and her own to persuade him that he should consider a change of careers. Her line says it all, "I wouldn't if I were you"
In between shots the view from the top of the cliff was spectacular. I particularly enjoyed the view the mounted lancers presented galloping across the sand with the pennants on their lances snapping in the breeze. They looked mighty fine and the snapping colored cloth really pulled the eye. I'd fought to have lancers and not just gun toters and the effort paid off.
It's fun to watch the show grow and mature. Tacho is really making Don Hidalgo his own. Valentine and Peter, as usual, are doing their magnetic performances.
Seeing the soldiers discover the Queen's sword buried in the sand and half underwater still makes me cringe. Dave Baker designed and hand built a distinctive and functional sword for our hero. While the blade is aluminum, the layered guard is shaped and welded steel. That means it rusts. Dousing it in sea water just hastens the process. The next day we put in an emergency request for steel wool and Mary cleaned and polished the rust out of the nooks and crannies of all three of the Queen swords.
I had an idea for a shot that I thought would look really cool. I ran it by Ricardo and he agreed we should go for it. I suggested to Jon Cassar that the soldier plant the Queen sword upright in the sand when he spots the Queen's body down the beach and goes to investigate the body. We'd come back and pay it off later.
Tessie handled the action with Tonio, the soldier, herself. Roberta got to lie in the cold, wet sand to frame the shot and rehearse the action for camera. As you may have noticed, the sun had disappeared and the day had gotten grey, cloudy, windy and cold. Aaah, the glamor of showbiz.
After Tessa punched out the soldier's lights, Luis Miguel Arranz appeared from behind the rock, reared his horse and came charging down the beach with his lance lowered to put an end to the Queen once and for all. We'd rehearsed with Ricardo, Luis and Natalie back in Tabernas and filmed on my Hi8 video camera to check camera angles for safety and effectiveness. We'd practiced with a piece of wooden dowling to be sure we could make the gag work, and was assured by EFX that they could find a pole that would support Luis' weight. The first practical pole they came up with was 15 feet long and made of steel. Needless to say it was far too heavy. It was Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend and every store was about to close. I suggested we call a sporting goods store for pole vault pole that handle Luis' weight and still be light enough for him to control and keep Natalie, his horse and himself safe. We got lucky and located a pole Saturday afternoon for our Monday morning shoot. Whew.
Natalia, doubling for the Queen, waited until the lance was almost in range, pivoted aside and brushed the lance towards the ground so Luis could plant the point and crash to the ground. We positioned our cameras and shot with the Queen's POV facing the lance, the lancer's POV from behind the charging horse, and in semi-profiles to catch the fall and roll. Tessie stepped in for some closeup shots and gave the director a scare when she let Luis Miguel ride right past her close enough for Tessie to touch the horse. Brave girl, good rider. The editor assembled the pieces and we had our sequence.
But the Queen still had to exit, preferably with style and flare. Our final shot focused on the sword left forgotten in the sand at the start of the scene. It took us two tries to get our shot because Chico had never rehearsed this deep sand pass near enough to the sword for Natalia to be able to reach from horseback at the gallop. The margin for error was very small and a horse naturally moves away from unfamiliar objects. But Natalia reassured Chico and her second pass gave us the shot that appears in the title sequence each week.
The flashback sequence for the Doctor Helm and Marta the mindreader sequence utilized one of the plains above the rambla just off the main highway. We also needed a battlescene for "Vengeance" so both Brian Grant and John Cassar utilized the same location and shooting opportunity for their episodes. We shot the bulk of the day for the more elaborate action of the "Vengeance" episode but Jon took advantage of the opportunity to get the shots he needed for his own flashback sequence. We had cannons and soldiers and muskets and mayhem.
One of my favorite shots came at the end of the day. As the sun was setting, I ran from the cliff-top rescue sequence of Ramon by the Queen in "Vengeance" to the nearby battlefield location. I wanted to supervise the last shot of the day, a mini-tramp explosion of Chencho flying through the air as the fire and explosion silhouettes him from behind. We timed the explosion as Chencho launched himself from a mini-tramp hidden behind some brush and shot the sequence on my Hi8 camera so we'd have a record of the stunt. We have a great shot that was admired by cameraman Brian Gedge who came to look after his own shot was finished. Unfortunately, this stunt was part of the 12 rolls of exposed negative footage from "Vengeance" that got lost on its way to development and post production in Canada. But we've got it on my memories reel.
The actor who played the evil Sargeant at the mines had a "Dennis Price" British accent, which may be why his voice was dubbed. Tessie especially enjoyed his performance and commented several times on how effective and creepy her scenes with him had felt.
They cut the sequence of the Queen sneaking into postion at the mine and disarming two guards including Chencho, Peter's double in the upcoming "Vengeance." It was becaming a tradition that at some point in every episode Chencho would get clobbered in the puss with a fist, rifle butt or pistol.
At the mine, both Valentine and Anthony Lemke's galloped into the scene and dismounted, both looking very good. Valentine is an experienced horseman but Anthony got his trial by fire in this first episode. To his credit, Anthony came out to ride and swordfight whenever his schedule permitted and his rapid progression in both areas is very apparant.
Chencho was the smoking guard who gets clobbered with his own pistol after Helm cuts the Queen free.
The Spanish actor who played the Sargeant got to shout his line "I'll get her," with his own undubbed voice.
"Death to the Queen" was our first use of firearms. Gun safety is everyone's responsibility, all the time. The normal set procedure calls for a specially trained and licensed armorer to take care of the weapons and institute a strict gun safety protocol for everyone on the set. This especially includes training the actors and stuntmen and anyone else who carries a practical weapon. Of course we only used blanks but John Eric Hexum's unfortunate accident proves that blanks can be just as deadly if a strict safety protocol is not rigorously enforced. Being our first episode, this was a time of sorting out who was doing what and plugging the gaps as we found them. To my horror, I discovered on this day that the extras with muskets hadn't been schooled in a safety procedure and had virtually no experience with firearms or firearms safety. It was a scary moment when Peter approached a line of soldiers whose guns were loaded and pushed one aside to say, "If you plan to commit murder today, you may have to commit more than one." I apologized to Peter for the situation and told him to take extra care with his own safety until we could get this ironed out. We immediately instituted a policy whereby EFX gave each person with a gun the basics in handling and safety before they were allowed to hold a weapon, loaded or otherwise.
Flintlocks pose additional problems outdoors since the flint must first spark the powder held in the pan in order to ignite the waiting powder in the barrel. Neat little cartridges with self-contained primers didn't come along until later. This delay affords the opportunity for the wind to blow sparks into the shooter's own eyes or those of his neighbor if they are positioned too close. Indeed, the reason for the large turned down brims on the hats of the Musketeers was to protect the eyes from the man next to you when shooting as a group. You also have to keep the pistol or rifle pointed at your target until both powders have ignited and the weapon has fired. I think Anthony Lemke was unfamiliar with a flint lock's mechanics. He aimed his pistol to shoot the Queen and pulled the trigger. He heard the initial ignition of the powder in the pan so he raised the barrel into the air for safety. The pistol then fired in the vertical position. Although he was destined to miss the Queen in our story, we decided to reshoot that one.
The ceiling inside the mine was too low for a sword fight. You could touch the ceiling with your hand at the entrance and the roof got lower the farther into the cave you progressed. We had the Queen hide behind a supporting post and pop out so the startled Sargeant's sword would bury itself in the wood and enable the Queen to position herself for the quick strip disarm I had taught Tessie during our training period in LA. Tessie did great and we easily got our shot in very cramped confines. Don't forget it was raining outside, so the entire camera and sound crews were also crowded into this very tiny area. If they ever turned the camera around so you could see behind the scenes you'd be surprised how roomy the interior of a sardine can looks by comparison.
During episode five, Natalie and second unit returned to shoot the inserts with booted feet and the sword hilt smashing into the powder barrel.
Natalie also doubled Tessie for the big climactic explosion. We loaded dust and chunky cork debris into two high pressure air cannons. This was supported by a controlled explosion and a small flame ball in the final explosion. I draw your attention to the two guards who crash down the slope outside the mine as the explosion is triggered. We quickly removed some of the larger rocks to create a narrow dirt path between the chunks so they could do the stunt safely.
I really liked how the editor assembled the final sequence. We actually set up the explosion twice. I had suggested to Jon that Tessie drop to her knees in prayer. This would allow for an easy substitution with the double from the knee drop to the final forward fall onto her face. The first explosion is behind Natalie as she falls towards camera. Jon Cassar wanted more carry and debris so we dusted off Natalie and I told Carlos Hernandez to double the pressures on his cannons. The next shot gave us what we wanted and really ended the sequence with a bang. You see the second, larger explosion from an off angle and the smoke billows out of the cave over Natalie and the unconscious soldiers to provide the thick smoke screen cover for the Queen to escape Grisham's charge into the mine.
Our final shot was dropping card into frame for Grisham to retrieve and bring to the fuming Colonel Montoya. That effortless flutter into the center of frame each week is no easy task to get on film. This was our first try and it set an ugly precedent for succeeding episodes.
Well that's my report on "Death to the Queen." Everyone worked very hard to get that puppy on film and we all breathed a big sigh of relief. The next day, we were back to work with a new director and a whole new story to tell. No rest for the weary. Stay tuned for my behind the scenes report on "Vengeance."
