Since these pictures are widely available on the net, I'll use them for (ahem) illustrative
purposes....
Peter against a blue screen, brightly lit (so you can see that those "form-fitting"
jeans are really navy blue, not black as they appear on TV screens),
full-length head-to-feet view, wind machine blowing his shirt tight
against his chest, sword in hand....
In motion, at
various times crunched up as in the picture above or with arms spread
as in the screen capture below (both of these pictures are from that
blue-screen session), very tense — you could see the veins bulging
on his arms. Peter said that his arms ached for days after that shooting
and that's when he realized that when Adrian does his own quickenings,
his look is very intense but his body is actually quite relaxed....
Lots of swaying and panting and moaning (some of which
is in the final cut, heh heh) — about 10 minutes worth. There
was no actual sound on the video but you could infer it from
(ahem) facial expressions. Gillian said that throughout the whole
clip Adrian, as the director of "Revelation 6:8," would
have been giving Peter instructions — which, of course, brings
up the point, just what exactly was Adrian saying?!? Oh to be a fly
on that particular wall.... ;-)
The clip ended with a shot of about 15 seconds of Adrian doing his own "Revelation
6:8" quickening against the blue screen. The wind machine was
either turned up 10 notches in Adrian's case or Adrian just has more
hair to get blown (that's more hair to get blown, gutter minds!
;-)
And what was the audience reaction to all this, er, drama? Lots of laughter. Whether
the laughter was because people found it hysterically funny or people
were embarrassed (embarrassed to be watching such a thing in public
and embarrassed for Peter), I don't know, but I suspect it was a bit
of both — at least it was in my case.
And speaking of hysterically funny quickenings... at Anglicon Peter said that after
Stan Kirsch filmed his quickening for "The Messenger," the
guys in visual effects not only put together the "disco"
quickening seen in the episode, but also another version in which
Stan was superimposed over a clip of ocean waves, accompanied by Beach
Boys music, so it looked like Richie was surfing!
In the Eurominutes after Duncan drives away in the T-bird, Methos throws his jacket in
the Jimmy, stares after Duncan a long moment, then gets in the Jimmy,
slams the door and rests his head on his arms on the steering wheel.
These are some of the variations I remember in the outtakes:
- In one of the
takes the camera starts rolling before the scene actually starts
and you can see Peter warming up and getting into character —
closing eyes, deep breaths, etc.
- In "Comes a Horseman" the scene starts with Methos speaking to Duncan
where Duncan has his back against the truck, then Duncan grabs Methos
and throws him up against the truck. In one of the outtakes, the
reverse happens — the scene starts with Methos having his back
against the truck and during the scene Methos throws Duncan up against
the truck before saying the "I was Death... When mothers warned
their children..." lines.
- In some takes Methos' laugh sounds more giggly than in the final episode, in other
takes more maniacal.
- Either Methos grabs Duncan by the shoulders and shakes him violently or vice versa
— I can't remember which it was — but the shaking is carried
on repeatedly as lines are spoken.
- The T-bird takes forever to get started — you hear the engine turning
over several times — before Duncan drives away, which makes
it sound like Duncan's car is a piece of junk!
- The glass in the door breaks after Methos slams it. Peter starts giggling.
- Methos starts to cry after resting his head on his arms (you see his shoulders
shaking).
Unfortunately,
while I remember that the order of lines spoken was changed, I don't
remember any of the specific reorderings. In any case, it's impossible
to show in text the different intonations, emphasis and rhythms that
Adrian and Peter used speaking the lines in the different takes —
and these were what made the biggest changes in the "flavor"
of the different takes. For example, here are some variations on the
"I was Death on a horse" line:
- I was Death on a horse.
- I was Death on a horse.
- I was Death [laugh] on a horse.
In some takes Peter spoke slowly, placing emphasis on the line. In other takes,
"I was Death on a horse" was tossed off nonchalantly as
if he was saying "I had eggs for breakfast." And there were
several shades in between.
I do remember that almost all of what was used in the final episode came from one
particular take, which makes sense — since every take had a totally
different "flavor," it would have been really difficult
to integrate cuts from several takes into one smooth overall scene.
The scene took several hours to film and during the course of it the lighting changed
from day to dusk. In post production, visual effects tried to balance
out the exposure so the change in lighting is less noticible, but
you can still tell in the final episode. Fortunately, because of the
intensity of the scene, the focus is so much on the actors that this
blooper is not as distracting as it would have been otherwise.
While filming the final scene in Highlander's final episode on Duncan's barge,
another boat passed by on the Seine. The sound of a woman singing
drifted through the barge's portholes. After this had gone on for
several minutes, Peter finally said (paraphrase), "It's the fat
lady."
