There are some things you need to know before you plunge into reading this set report. (Revised from a message posted to the HIGHLA-L list on Oct. 15, 1995.)
First off, I need to address a question which is always foremost in people's minds when they hear I got to visit the set. They naturally want to know how I managed such a thing.
My invitation was through the director, Mario Azzopardi, who hung out from time to time during the third season in the Highlander forum on CompuServe. First some European forum members got to visit his set during the filming of MORTAL SINS and I started to set up my Vancouver visit about that time. However, I only discovered the need to clear my visit with Ken Gord and Adrian Paul once Mario started pre-production for LEADER OF THE PACK, as this wasn't exactly how things were arranged for the others who visited the Paris set.
Ken Gord called me a couple of weeks after my set visit (on Aug. 23rd, 1995) on a different matter, but at that time, he asked that I clarify the issue of set visits and said, "You can even post this on the Internet." Well, I only had CompuServe at the time, but I made the announcement there and hoped that the word would spread.
The fact is that the production office gets at least a call per day from fans requesting set visits. I'm not quite clear on what has been allowed in the past, but these requests have become so numerous that the office must now say "No" to all of them. Without some other affiliation with someone in the production company or the freelancers who are hired to work for it, you are not going to be granted a set visit by calling the production office.
The reason why I must lay all this out ahead of time is that, just by posting my set report, I'm likely to set off a vicious cycle of diminishing returns. Hundreds of you will read my report, dozens of you will start to pester various PTB for a set visit and the next person who gains access to the set may be asked to lay low with what they experienced. Eventually, everyone would lose out.
Another thing I need to clarify is that my set report was written for a CompuServe audience. That's what writers do - they write with a certain audience in mind, and mine was not the entire world of Highlander fans. Technically, I should rewrite the thing before posting it to this list. However, the entire report has already gone through Mario and Ken the way it is and I don't want different versions of the report floating around.
NEW NOTE: The report has now been revised for the first time (Feb. 1996) with supplemental footnotes to fill in the parts which couldn't be included the first time around. (These are in italics and maroon type. My additional comments are in blue.- Kevin)
Enjoy!
- Janine
ja9shahinian@comcast.net
Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Janine Shahinian