Steven Sears (producer and writer)

My apologies to Steven Sears -n- fans, but I didn't get any good pictures of him. He wore a spiffy fedora/Indiana Jones/Janice Covington-is-that-you? hat that looked really cool, but made sure his face was nice and shadowy for all my pictures, drat it all.

Steven Sears was in a retrospective mood for his presentation to us about producing and writing for Xena. He talked a lot about the early days of the show, when the XenaStaff was just beginning to get a feel for the characters and the actresses. He described writing some early scenes and wondering if the actresses could handle them, which he and most of the crowd got a good laugh at now. He praised how much the show had lucked out to get two actresses who, he now knows, can handle anything that can be thrown at them.

Steven told us he'd answer a number of his most common questions first: "Yes, no, no, yes, Joxer, no, yes, they will (his emphasis), no, yes, yes, the hot tub."

Steven mentioned the first times he really felt a connection between the actress, the characters, and his writing. For Lucy, it was when Xena threatened Ephiny with the "stop staring at me before I take your eyes out" line in Hooves and Harlots. For Renee, it was the tree-pounding scene in Greater Good. He said at the time, he wasn't sure if she'd connect with all the anger and frustration Gabrielle would be feeling, but was blown away when he saw the performance and still gets tears in his eyes every time he sees it. He was feeling mighty proud of his writing job until he went back to the script and found that the stage directions were "Gabrielle takes out anger on tree."

The Sappho script is not dead yet.

Xena and Gabrielle are still on their evolutionary path, including in their relationship to each other. Steven said this season is bringing them into a very narrow, parallel path, but they're becoming very distinct from each other, and as they figure out who they are, their next job is to figure out their purpose in the world, which will be the springboard into the fifth season. He quoted it as being "I found out who I am - now I'm going to see what I'm going to do with it."

Many of the names he uses for the scripts come from greek myth or from objects around his house. For instance, Talmadeus in The Greater Good's name was derived from seeing the movie Amadeus.

Steven gave a very detailed answer to the age-old question of subtext. While pointing out that no certain act determines a romance, he said that Xena and Gabrielle are closer than most married couples ever are and that they are "the complete circle to each other." He also mentioned that he forgot to wear his "Please don't taunt the straight person" button to the convention.

Robert Field (editor)

Rob Field was not leaving anything in his presentation to chance. He brought huge cue cards to tell the audience when to give "APPLAUSE", when to "OOH" and "AAH", and when to "CHEER". Fortunately, Steven Sears had another card in the back of the stage to let us know that Robert is a "HAMBONE".

Robert talked for a little while about the job of an editor... and its lack of glamour. He read for us the notes he got on a series of takes for the upcoming episode The Way that apparently includes a lot of bugs. The notes were "Take 1... not good... ng bug action. Take 2.. bug ran away. Take 3... Bug ran wrong direction. Take 4... wrong bug position. Take 5... bug ran around." Other notes included "Bug #3 escaped," "Only one bug dropped," and "Bugs no good - ran away."

We were shown the original edit for Xena's death in Destiny, which had been one cut of Niklio's hut, the long flashback to the fight with the Romans after M'Lila's death, then back to the present hut for Xena's death and Gabrielle's grief (Robert made the wisecrack "Could we have a little more emotion on that reading, please?" after Renee's performance). He had been instructed by Rob Tapert to "jazz it up", which ended up with what we saw in the episode - the death and Gabrielle's reactions intercut with the flashback fight.

We got to see some "lost scenes" - scenes that were shot but, usually for reasons of time, were cut from the episodes. They were SO neat to see!

From Sacrifice II, there was an extended version of the campfire scene when Gabrielle is "sleeping" (and listening carefully) and Xena and Callisto are talking by the fire. Callisto talked about feeling nothing when Solan died, about having nothing left now that she didn't even have revenge to live for. Xena, of course, was less than sympathetic. When Xena went to leave, Callisto asked "So did we bond?" "No," Xena replied flatly. "Good," Callisto shot back. "I'm going to miss our fireside chats."

From The Greater Good, we saw the fabled Argo scene - after Gabrielle has finished pounding the bejeebers out of a poor innocent tree, Argo finds her, and Gab treats Argo like her last, best friend, promising "I'm coming back for you... be here when I do, OK?"

Also from the Greater Good was a much shorter clip of an ArgoBelch - apparently Argo got into Lord Seltzer's fizzy water.

Next on our video treats was a bunch of continuity errors ("not bloopers," he tried to explain), like chakrams bouncing around where they shouldn't be, staffs switching hands, and rubber walls, icicles, and feet. Rob gave a great running commentary on these: "Now watch the staff move... left hand... right!... now left... right again! She's so fast."

To close out the show, Steven showed us the third season blooper reel, which wasn't anything new for those of us who have gotten the second fan club kit, but was still fun to watch with a packed auditorium.

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