Physical effects were also created cheaply. Instead of using expensive rain towers, the rain featured in the film's climactic scenes was created simply using hoses and unheated water. This meant that one night of production had to be wrapped three hours early because lead actor Andy Whitfield became hypothermic: his temperature dropped to 32.5 degrees Celsius (90.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Abbess described this as the hardest scene to shoot. Initially intending to make Gabriel without computer-generated effects, Abbess also tried to reproduce bullet time on a low budget by using giant props on strings, though he eventually decided CGI were more successful.
