The Tale of Tutenburg Forest

by Roy Adkins
Photos by Roy Adkins

I was listening to a third tornado warning on NPR as I pulled up to Edward and Lois Saint Pé’s property in Brandon, the location for their short film “Orbis Romanus.” Earlier in the day I had called to see if they were going to delay filming because of the weather; I found out that the crew thought the weather was perfect. Evidently, the battlefield was supposed to be muddy, and the consensus was that the scene with the soothsayer would be great in the rain, too.

I got out of my car and splashed through a few puddles to get under a tent filled with the catering table, an area for the special-effects makeup, several lights and a high-definition camera. Some quick introductions were made, during which the witch/soothsayer, played by Heather Thurgood, earnestly explained, “This isn’t how I normally look,” as she gestured toward her facial prosthetics.

After I finished meeting more people than I could ever manage to remember names for, Lois Saint Pé gave me a tour of the filming area and a brief synopsis of the plot.

As the rain started to slack off a bit, the crew set up for a scene where the two main characters Saturius, played by Edward Saint Pé, and Vespa, played by David Cruz, fall down a hill and find themselves in the presence of a witch/soothsayer (no one seemed to be sure which to call her on set). The witch’s hovel was built into the hillside out of lashed-together branches, moss and faux fur from the fabric store. Inside the hovel a member of the crew had set up a light to cause an eerie glow to emanate from around the pieces of faux fur.

The witch/soothsayer’s prosthetic, which the makeup artist applied, made her look eerie, even without special lighting. A burn scar covered one side of her, and she had a milky-colored contact in one eye. The makeup, combined with her tattered costume and crazed hair filled with peat moss and sticks, could have easily won her a local Halloween costume contest. Not to be outdone, our two heroes were clad in Roman-style breastplate armor, blood red capes à la “300” and black leather boots that might conflict slightly with the suspension of disbelief, but I’m no Roman shoe expert.

Once the HD camera was in place and protected from the elements, the actors started to walk through the blocking for the scene, while the cameraman and director discussed the shots. The last month of rehearsals by the cast was quickly apparent, but it was also obvious that the director wasn’t present for any of the rehearsals. At the first sign of conflict between Saint Pé and the director, Austin Haley, over the blocking, I felt a twinge of excitement, expecting a prima donna-style argument.

“If you walk that way, the tree blocks the camera’s view of you,” Haley yelled from the camera’s location across to the other hillside where the actors approach their “fall.” Instead of a fight, Saint Pé was reasonable, and they came up with some slight alterations that would work for the camera angle.

Once the blocking was settled, it was time for the first take. As I watched the actors move through the Mississippi undergrowth, and prepared to try and get a good shot of them falling down the muddy slope, I began to contemplate how realistic a fall a man in his 50s was willing to make for a low-budget, independent short film (they expect the final edit to be about 25 minutes). I don’t know how the fall will end up looking in the final edit, but I can tell you that on all four takes I watched, both actors were fully committed. For each take, Saint Pé would start to tumble and reach out for support, pulling Cruz down the hill after him, resulting in red capes, short swords and body limbs tumbling through the mud.

I think I even saw some blood the makeup guy had nothing to do with running down a shin.

The next scene began with a “reveal shot” of the witch’s scarred face. You’ve seen it a hundred times: As something shocking or crucial to the plot happens, the camera zooms in and the music builds to a crescendo. This is exactly the effect Haley was trying to get his cameraman to accomplish. Haley watched the monitor as the cameraman repeated the shot, each time zooming a little more, and each time Haley asked for more zoom faster. Finally the cameraman told Haley it was “cheesy,” like something from a soap opera, which is what Haley’s background is (you might have seen him in “Another World” or “One Life to Live”). Another discussion ensued, and once again the result was rational and probably a much better shot. More importantly, it was a shot that made everyone happy.

“This is a tremendous collaboration,” Haley said, as he began to laugh (which everyone on set did a lot of). “Because as good as I like to think I am, my whole focus is on the performance as a director.”

Haley started out as an actor, so he considers himself “an actor’s director.” He says he is “counting on the other creatives, my cinematographer, my (assistant director) anybody that is willing to jump in there and say, ‘How about this? What if you do it this way?’” This openness to change and discussion permeated the entire feel of the production, and everyone on the production crew—from the grip to the sound guy—seemed to be having fun, while doing something they all love. Haley summed it up by saying, “I invite, welcome, and will pat on the back anyone who will help with the collaboration; you’ve got to listen to others.”

Watching Saint Pé, the weatherman-turned-lounge-singer turned writer/producer/actor, view the action on the small monitor, I wondered aloud what led to this story. He set out to write a “Roman story,” and said, adding “We happened across the battle of Tutenburg Forest, and somehow it just sort of amalgamated into the back-story of the battle.” When he says “we,” he is referring to his wife, Lois, who co-wrote the script.

The battle of Tutenburg (Teutoburg) Forest took place in 9 A.D. between three Roman Legions and an alliance of Germanic tribes, beginning a seven-year war. Saint Pé described the battle as a “setup.” Arminius, a leader of one of the Germanic tribes who was good friends with Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus, convinced the general that there was an uprising and said he would meet him with some German troops at the location coming from a different route. The Romans were caught in the mud for three days before they were slaughtered.

Saint Pé told me that he has been writing for most of his life. When he first started out at Channel 3 in Jackson, he wrote for the morning children's show “Our Playmates.” Each morning he would write a skit for the show, which eventually evolved into “Cowboy Bill,” a character Saint Pé played, leading to his own Saturday morning show. He described the writing as “a two- or three-minute skit of Cowboy Bill-save-the-world-type thing.”

“The only problem is that I got sidetracked in weather for 20 years, which is a great thing because I have been able to raise a family and make a living in it,” Saint Pé continued. But now that his children are older, Saint Pé is able to seize the opportunity to “do something creative rather than sticking my nose to the grindstone every day.”

Viewers will undoubtedly recognize the creative take on the traditional heroic tale of one man saving the world. “Whatever it is that one person can attempt to do, whatever it is in any fashion of life, you don’t succeed unless you try,” Saint Pé said.

“You might fail, you might get killed in the end, but if you succeed you might change everything.”

What is it that Saint Pé’s heroic character could possibly be trying to change in 9 A.D. that would have a big impact on Western society?

Many historians believe that the seven years of war after this battle, which established the Rhine as a border of Roman territory, led directly to rise of the Third Reich. The idea that this isolation of Saxony allowed the people there to develop without Roman influence was a rallying point for Germans after World War I, and was a factor in the rise of German nationalism.

Saint Pé describes where fiction meets reality: “The plausible premise of this story to me, if the Romans were not stopped, if this character Saturius, who this film is about, if he gets through and makes it back with the info to stop his general from marching … you might not have had the development that occurred you would have had a different development. It would have been more Romanized, and it would not have been exactly what it was.”

In other words, if Saint Pé’s character succeeds, there are no Nazis in the future.

I first heard about this film in an e-mail from a good friend, which included a short promotional blurb and a link to the film’s blog (orbisromanus.com). After seeing the first few pictures of actors in costume, I wanted a chance to take photographs of the filming. And here’s my guilty confession: I wanted to take pictures for the same reasons I want to take pictures of Civil War re-enactors, not because I like Civil War re-enactments, but because it just seems silly to me. I didn’t know Saint Pé, yet; I knew he was a weatherman, that he owned WLEZ (which has been kind enough to have me on the air several times), and I even shook his hand in the lobby once. And about four years ago, when my wife and I were still carnivores, I heard him sing at Huntington Grill. It was not necessarily the sum of these experiences that led me to have a pre-conceived negative opinion of the film, but they probably didn’t help, either. Luckily I was given the opportunity to take photos of grown men in Roman costumes and thereby gain more respect for the production and the people behind it.

Saint Pé expects to finish editing by March, but admits they are in no hurry. A few special effects have to be done in post production (e.g. a vision the soothsayer calls up in a fire), but for the most part the film isn’t going to be heavily manipulated. Their immediate plans are to enter it into larger film festivals. Lois explained to me that once a film has won an award in one festival, several other festivals will not accept the film, so they plan to start at the top.

While I was thanking Lois Saint Pé for having me out to their property and showing me around, Haley, Edward Saint Pé, and the rest of the crew were trying to figure out how to deal with the waning daylight for a scene set in the daytime.

Haley barked to the guys setting up hot lights: “It looks too artificial.” And then they began brainstorming for ways to set the scene at night. While I walked back to my car, I could still hear ideas being bantered around, most dealing with editing in such a way as to make the time lapses seem believable.

In the end they went back to their roots and used a more Shakespearean solution: A character looks around and asks, “What happened to the light?”

Another responds: “It must be the witch’s magic.”

 
posted by Roy Adkins on 01/30/08 at 06:49 PM. [printer-friendly version]