Behind The Scenes And on The Set With Anthony De Longis

"Vengeance"

At left - A long-distance shot of the cliff used for Ramon's rescue from the Rancheros by the Queen. The X marks the spot of the scene.

The Things You Do For A Friend

Freddy Douglas played Ramon. I was looking forward to the rescue scene on the cliffs above the Rambla. In the script the scene called for the Rancheros to have Ramon poised at the edge of the cliff ready to toss him off. Suddenly the Queen rides in, kicks the first Ranchero from horseback then hits the second with the hilt of her sword. She dismounts to fight the man with a knife while the other Ranchero pushes Ramon towards the edge of the cliff. Ramon is saved by the Queen wrapping her whip and yanking him back from the edge.

I had two great stunt professionals to help me keep Freddy safe. The Ranchero with the latin good looks was my co-coordinator, Ricardo Cruz. His partner, the mustachioed westerner, was George Bullock, an American cowboy and roping champion who came to Spain and stayed. George is a friend and long-time associate of Ricardo's, and very respected for his knowledge of horses. He had lots of great stories from his many jobs including "The Mummy" which he'd just filmed in Morocco. The original cowboys, the Spanish Vaqueros, were the first to use the "riata" or lariat and the "dally vuelta," the technique of lassoing a steer and wrapping the rope around the large Spanish saddle horn for leverage. When I prepped the action for "Fever," I suggested capturing the running farmer using George's extensive roping skills. I was very pleased to see that action stayed in the "Fever" episode. It offered a nice piece of history to our series.

At right - Frames from the Queen's rescue of Ramon from the Rancheros. This sequence features Natalia as the Queen, Ricardo and George as the Rancheros, and Luis-Miguel doubling Freddy as Ramon.

Back to "Vengeance." In the opening shot Ricardo and George drag Freddy towards the edge of the cliff. As you can see on the screen, it was a hundred foot sheer drop to the valley below. Our fearless DP, Alwyn Kumst wanted to balance a camera on his shoulder and run right to the edge to give Freddy's POV in the most dramatic fashion possible. I wrapped a whip around his waist for safety and Alwyn dangled his toes over the edge and got his shot.

Now the scene as written on the page was pretty cool but I had an idea to link all of the elements into one continuous flow of action that we could shoot in one Master shot. This would give the scene more urgency and we could save shooting time by moving straight to Close Up coverage. All week I worked with Natalia with her whip. She'd been practicing hard and her ground work was really coming. Ricardo put a saddle on a barrel so we could simulate the challenges of working from horseback. Mary worked with Natalia to polish her technique while I continued to train Chico and Champion, the two Queen horses. Natalia also practiced leaping from the back of the horse onto George to knock him down and land on her feet ready to continue the rescue.

I staged the action with Natalia to riding in at the gallop, whipping the gun from Ricardo's hand and knock him down with the horse. George pulled Freddy to the side to prevent the rescue and aimed his pistol. Natalia wheeled her horse and threw the whip to entangle George and spoil his aim. She then dived onto his chest from Chico's back, landed on her feet and punched his lights out. Meanwhile, Ricardo had recovered enough to push Ramon towards the lip of the cliff. As Ramon teetered on the edge the Queen retrieved her whip and lashed out to wrap Ramon's waist and yank him back from certain death. Ricardo was already charging, his dagger plunging towards her chest. The Queen caught the descending dagger, rolled and flipped Ricardo over the edge of the cliff. This was very ambitious but we got our master including the flip, obviously staged far enough from the edge so we didn't sacrifice Ricardo. After all, it's only a movie. Now it's hard enough to handle a whip accurately from the ground. From the back of a galloping horse while factoring in distance and timing with the responsibility of human parters, is a real challenge and Natalia did great job for brand new whip artist. We moved in for our CU coverage and a nifty little "cowboy switch" at its seamless best. Tessie exited the frame as Freddy says, "You saved my life." Natalie was already mounting the horse for the overlap and Freddy vaulted from the hidden ramp onto Chico's back and the two galloped out of the shot. Movie magic.

At left - Anthony and Brian Grant on the location shoot for the various countryside scenes in "Vengeance."

Just WHERE Are We Going To Do This Fight?

The day we moved to the Rambla for Dr. Helm's attempt to escape his past was full of adventures. Director Brian Grant, Ricardo Cruz and I had done an extensive location scout for several days of action in the Rambla below the Pueblo and we were very pleased with our staging areas.

This episode was my first real opportunity to work with Peter Wingfield. His action on "Death to the Queen" had been confined to dodging untrained extras with firearms at the mine set. Too much reality. We had begun our training with the sword and Peter was both apt and attentive. I had gone over our protocol for cuts, parries and safety and Peter had drilled with Mary whenever I wasn't available. Peter liked the fight I had worked out and was an excellent partner. The guest actor, James Innes-Smith was a newcomer to the sword but I planned to double him on the day of shooting so that Peter would be able to act his part with intensity and assurance when it came time for his coverage.

photo at right - Peter Wingfield ("Dr. Helm") slowly rides his horse into the scene. Horse wrangler, Hernan Ortiz Redondo was always nearby as support (the horses LOVE him!).

Peter had also been very diligent in his horseback riding practice. I was able to offer a few basic tips but I put him in the expert hands of Ricardo's equestrian team and Peter got aboard every chance his busy schedule allowed. Our paths crossed one day on the trail. I was training Chico with the whip and Peter was out for a ride with his lovely wife and their Spanish trail guides. His hard work really paid off because in the opening sequence of Dr. Helm's ride through the canyon to escape his pursuer, there was no place in the immediate vicinity to hide his wrangler, Hernan Ortiz. What you don't see is the two hundred yard approach shot master that Peter made alone on horseback through the canyon floor towards camera. Peter was pretty much on his own for any initial difficulties with his mount.

We'd positioned other horses behind camera and knew Peter's horse would almost certainly ride calmly to his stable buddies. But horses are not machines and there is always the element of surprise. The prevailing wisdom is that horses are big animals with small brains and sometimes they get ideas of their own. Their primaeval instinct for self-preservation prompts immediate flight as a first reaction to any perceived danger. This can include horse eating bushes, horse eating rocks or sand, horse eating plastic bags, horse eating locusts - you get the idea. It is important to ride with confidence, balance and relaxation. Pay attention to the signals your horse is sending, be ready to adjust, never panic and never, ever jump off a horse moving at speed. As my Aussie mate Colin taught me, "You ride that bastard into the ground, and then you step off." As you can see, Peter did great. He sat his horse well and rode to his mark but I'm sure he was glad he'd put in his practice time.

photo at left - Chencho ("Helm" double) prepares for the box jump onto the "Queen", knocking her from the horse. The arrow points to the level used by actor Peter Wingfield ("Helm"), who performed a jump himself.

Helm Jumps the Queen

The jump from the rock ledge to tackle Dr. Helm's pursuer from horseback was originally planned from about twenty-five feet into an airbag. However, Ricardo only had the really big airbag we'd used for the high fall at the beach during "Death to the Queen". This proved to be too large to place cameras for proper coverage of this relatively short fall so we switched to cardboard boxes covered with mats. For those of you who are unaware of the practice, for falls up to about twenty-five feet stuntmen often pile cardboard packing boxes folded with the ends overlapping and stacked in layers on top of each other. The higher the fall, the more layers of boxes. When the stunt professional falls into the mats, the boxes collapse at a controlled rate to further cushion the fall. We used two tiers of boxes secured with tension webbing around the outside to provide a frame, topped with ten inch thick mats covered by a black cloth.

We used a similar setup on a leveling platform for the fall from the Church roof. The impact and the collapsing action of the boxes always tears a few and the broken ones need to be replaced. In a big city you take a plentiful supply of cardboard for granted. Roberta expressed dismay that Ricardo had to send all the way to Madrid for new boxes. Natalia said, "Do you see any trees around here?"

Now southern Spain, and especially the desert area of our location is especially lacking in foliage except for the well-tended olive orchards. Starkly barren mountains and dry riverbeds without a tree in sight for mile after mile. We were told that it is a popular local belief that the reason there are no trees in Almeria is because the forests were stripped to build the ill-fated Spanish Armada that sunk off the coast of England. At any rate, timber and paper products are in very short supply so we were falling into imported boxes.

Back to our jump. Ignacio Losada (known affectionately as "Chencho") is a remarkable stunt and camera double for Peter. We were setting up when Peter approched me with the request to do the jump himself. Our first Assistant Director, Ronaldo Nacionales, went pale. Ronaldo and I had worked together in Winnipeg when I guest-starred on The Adventures of Shirley Holmes. I could see him envisioning the worst, Peter splatted on the rocks and being rushed to hospital and how was he going to explain to the producers how this could have been allowed to happen, etc, etc. Now even a small injury to Peter could cost us our shooting day, not to mention that Peter getting hurt was the last thing I ever wanted to happen. But I also knew that Peter used to be a trampoline champion at school so he had the necessary training to do the stunt. The fall was about twenty feet into the boxes. Not too high but still high enough to give yourself a good tweak if anything went wrong. It required a leap and travel forward in the fall to hit the centre of the mats. I'd scouted the takeoff point which was crumbling, jagged rock and I didn't like the loose footing at all. Now it would be great to see Peter's face in camera, but the risks outweighed the benefit. I thanked Peter for his enthusiasm but gave the nod to Chencho.

At right - Peter Wingfield and his double, Chencho, are both smiles after completing the jumps from the rock face.

Chencho was doing what's called a "face-off" fall. You fall forward watching the spot you want to hit with your face towards camera. A few feet before you land you throw one arm across your chest. This rotates your body enough for you land on your back and dissipate the energy over a broad area It's important to keep your head and chest up, kind of like "Batman" flying. Too far forward and you can land on your neck. Too much or too little rotation and you can dislocate your shoulder.

We had cameras in front and to the side of the mats and one hand held against the rock face pointing up. Both Ricardo and I told Chencho to hold his "Batman" extended position for as long as possible. We rolled, Chencho pushed off and held, and held, and only at the last possible second did he attempt his twist. He was a little late and landed in a tight sideways ball insteaded of an extended face up position. Fortunately he was OK but when we asked why he'd tucked so late he confessed he was concentrating so hard on holding the position that he forgot he didn't have much falling time to work with. Sometimes shorter falls are more difficult for just this reason.

I asked Peter if he was still game. Of course he was. So we checked the boxes, replaced the broken ones and lowered the takeoff point to a secure ledge for Peter's leap. He performed it beautifully and with championship form. It gave me yet another level of respect for Peter's abilities.

Now you know what you didn't get to see. The final assemblage in the show was one quick shot of Peter and then a blur of a body passing through lens from shoulder height to knock the Queen from her horse. I saw the dailies and Peter looked great. I don't know why they chose not to use the footage. Chencho and Natalia did the bulldog from horseback from a takeoff point even with the rider. We did our best with pick and shovel to soften the landing spot and remove the larger rocks but it's still no picnic to get tackled to the ground from the back of a horse. Tessie and Peter picked the scene up on the ground for their very cute dialogue scene.

At left - the location of "Dr. Helm's" slide when he is knocked off-balance by the Queen's horse. The horse reared at the location of the X, and Chencho continued to slide the path noted on the photo.

Peter Wingfield had lots of fun with the horses in this episode. Tessie drove and the actors handled the riding double themselves to get that long traveling dialogue sequence. Tessie practiced her riding every chance she got, often during her lunch hour, and progressed rapidly from her early training at Gold Spirit Farms in Los Angeles.

When the riding double sequence ended at the top of the chute, Peter mounted behind Natalia and we discovered that Champion understood camera preparation dialogue. He heard, "Rolling," "Speed" and "Action" and really wanted to go. Natalia held him in check and he started little rocking horse bucks, with Peter sitting right over the launch point. Peter smiled throughout but that was the day "Banana" started to substitute for "Action" whenever there were horses on the set.

Peter slid off and slapped the horse on the butt. Chencho took over for the horse rear which launched him on his wild ride down the steep hill. We positioned three cameras so Chencho got the big fall in one take. Chencho's a great double and you have to look hard to catch the cut back into Peter at the bottom.

Yes, that's really Valentine leading the charging mounted lancers. Val likes to ride and has the skills to comfortably handle all but the really hazardous horse action for his character. We usually only doubled him for riding when he was busy shooting another scene.

Copyright 2000 Anthony De Longis. All contents, unless otherwise noted, are the property of Anthony De Longis or used with permission of the copyright owner. All text and photos herein may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written consent of Anthony De Longis, his official representative, or the copyright owner.

The Queen of Swords is trademark of Fireworks Productions, Toronto, Canada, and is a production of Fireworks (Canada), Amy Productions (UK), Morena Films (Spain) and M6 (France), and is distributed in the United States by Paramount. The Official Queen of Swords Website can be found at http://www.thequeenofswords.com.