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The
film was shot on the 1980's classic
format, Betamax.
After the boys burned out the first camera,
a rental camera was used while Jayson Lamb
delivered pizzas to save up to buy his own
new video camera with a new format, VHS.
Jayson wrecked his car in the process. |
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Originally,
Chris and Eric's roles were reversed
- Eric was going to be producer, Chris
was going to direct. During the first day
of shooting, after two years of preparation,
the boys found they naturally gravitated toward
different roles -- Chris producing, and Eric
directing. In a discussion lasting about a
minute, they both agreed to switch, and stayed
in those roles through the following five
years, through completion. |
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First
Raiders: The Adaptation
shot ever filmed: Satipo pulling the gun on
Indy, but the sound of thunder from an approaching
thunderstorm messed up the shot. |
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| • |
Raiders:
The Adaptation was shot completely
out of sequence over seven years, resulting
in the casts' transformation in voice tone,
hair style and body size from scene to scene.
For example, in the college classroom scene,
the cutaway of Indy (Chris) 's reaction
to the female student's "I love
you" message written her eyelids had
to be re-shot because it was out-of-focus.
The shooting schedule didn't permit
returning to that location for another three
years. By that time, Chris's voice had
changed with puberty. In the final edited
version, the re-shot cutaway sticks out noticeably
by Chris's voice dropping several octaves. |
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When
the boys started, they were too young to grow
their own stubble, which Chris needed for
his character of Indy, who is usually seen
with about three-days growth of stubble. To
remedy this, Chris smeared Vaseline and ash
on his cheeks to simulate fake stubble. By
the time they finished several years later,
Chris was sporting his own naturally grown
stubble. |
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Basement hieroglyphs. |
|
Nearly all of the interiors were shot in Eric's
mom's house in Ocean Springs, Mississippi
- The Cave Scene, the Well of Souls,
the Map Room, the Catacombs, the Bantu Wind
hold, and the Bar fight (which nearly burned
the house down) were all shot in the basement.
Sallah's Porch, the Cabin Scene, the
Tent Scene, Indy's House, were shot
inside the house proper, while Indy's
flight from the Hovitos across an open field
was shot in Eric's backyard. |
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When
they first started off, the boys lacked filmmaking
skills, and the first scenes they shot looked
really bad. As a result, extensive portions
of the jungle and cave sequences were re-shot
probably two or three times. |
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The
shot of Indy (Chris) running from the boulder
right behind him that tracks backwards with
him was achieved by Jayson constricting himself
into a shopping cart and pointing the camera
at Chris - and Chris pushed the shopping
cart with Jayson in it, his hands on the cart
out of frame. |
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In
Indy's Study, there are artifacts on
his desk. Those "artifacts" are
actually fragments of plaster that were surgically
removed from Eric's head during a mishap
whilst preparing the FX shot where Belloq's
head explodes. |
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In the Pan Am
Clipper Scene, the boys located and used the
same issue of the Life
magazine featured in close-up as in the original
- the November 1936 issue, which features
a West Point
cadet drinking a glass of water on the cover. |
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As the cast was
well under the legal drinking age, all the
booze that's being slugged down in the
film is not whiskey, bourbon, scotch or l'eau-de-vie.
It's either apple juice or water. |
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The gunshots exploding
fiery holes in the wall of the Raven Bar during
the gunfight were the result of an invention
of Jayson's: Dubbed the Jay-o-phone,
due to its resemblance to a xylophone, Jayson
fashioned a 2x1 piece of plywood with rows
of metal bars affixed to the top. Jayson painstakingly
created squibs by emptying Tylenol gel caplets
of their contents filled them with gunpowder
and an electric fuse, sealing each with melted
candle wax. Wires were attached to each caplet's
fuse, running to individual bars on the Jay-o-phone.
The wires were then concealed in the walls
beneath dried plaster. Then, by attached positively-
and negatively-charged clamps, Jay ran live
electrical current through a large flathead
screwdriver. Finally, when Jayson dragged
the electrified screwdriver across the metal
bars of the Jay-o-phone,
he completed the circuit for each bar/wire/squib,
and they exploded in the intended bullet-like
rat-tat-tat succession. |
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In the bar scene,
the German solider that dies, a condom filled
with fake blood, was taped to the actor's
chest (Kurt Zala, Eric's little brother).
An attached fire cracker was supposed to burst
the condom and thus splatter the blood. It
didn't work, so Jayson had Kurt pop
the condom with his hand "acting"
as if he were being shot. The condom exploded
beautifully. |
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To create the
explosives, an underage Jayson effortlessly
bought gun powder at a local Mom
& Pop Gun shop & General Store. |
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In experimenting
for gunshot effects, Jayson ran the wires
for the explosives up his pant leg and attached
it to a fake-blood filled condom, taped to
his chest. The effect work well, but the idea
of having raw current on his chest with the
liquid from the fake blood was slightly dangerous. |
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| • |
Exploding Belloq. |
|
The Jay-o-phone
was also used in the melting scene when the
lights and generator explode. This was achieved
with brillow pads connected to the end of
electrical wire with gunpowder sprinkled over
it. When the electrical current ran through
it caused the brillow pad to ignite and thus
explode with the gunpowder. A similar technique
was used directly on the soldiers when they
are electrocuted by the streams of electricity
flowing through Belloq. |
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For the "glowing
red light effect" in the chests of the
soldiers as they die, Christmas lights were
strapped to the actors' chests with
the exploding brillow pad/gunpowder combination
to give the effect. |
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The first ghost
experiment was created by reflecting a puppet
on a sheet of glass, while Jayson's
sister "acted horrified" with the
ghost image superimposed over her. |
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Jayson Lamb created
the effects for the ghosts that come out of
the Ark at the end and swirl about the German
soldiers. First, they filmed the soldiers
on the set, looking about at empty air. Then,
Jayson swirled silk tied to black puppet sticks
around in a tank of lit water. He watched
the video of the actors on a monitor and mimicked
the movement of the ghosts to correspond to
the actors' choreography. Jayson then super-imposed
the silk swirling "ghosts" on top
of the shots of the soldiers looking around.
With the two images overlaid - viola! Ghosts
now encircled the frightened soldiers. |
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Production was
shut down for a summer because the boys lit
Eric on fire with gasoline for the bar scene.
Shooting was resumed after they found an "adult
chaperone" - one who was actually
far less responsible than they were. |
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The boys used
approximately 36 bottles of Isopropyl alcohol
for the final shot of the Bar fight, with
the set engulfed in flames. |
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The closest the
boys ever got to being actually arrested was
when the owner of a diner in downtown Gulfport
discovered them setting up merchant stands
in the alley behind the diner, in preparation
for shooting the Cairo Street Fight scene
the following day. For reasons still not entirely
known, the diner owner thought the boys were
shooting pornographic movies (bed sheets draped
over the merchant stands?), and announced
he was calling the police. While Chris and
Eric were waiting for Gulfport's finest
to arrive, the owner of a furniture store
on the other side of the alley came out of
a back door into the alley and asked what
they were doing. The boys explained, then
got an idea: they asked for his permission
to shoot, on his side of the alley. The man
said yes, and so, by the time the police arrived
(three squad cars, and later, a plainclothes
officer), the boys could legitimately claim
to have permission to shoot in the alley. |
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| • |
In the truck sequence,
when Indy gets shot, Jayson ran tubing up
Chris's (Indy's) arm underneath
his jacket. Several holes were perforated
into the tubing tip. So when the cue came,
one blew the end of the tube causing fake
blood to burst out of Indy's shoulder,
as if he where shot. |
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The Raven Bar
and the bar in Cairo where Indy and Belloq
confront one another are actually the same
location - they just painted the same
room white. |
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The part of Imam,
the elderly Arab cleric who helps Indy (Chris)
and Sallah (Alan Stenum) decipher the glyphs
on the Medallion, is played by Jayson Lamb,
the film's cameraman and special FX
artisan, under layers of self-applied make-up. |
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After much searching
for a location in Mississippi that could pass
for the Sahara desert and Tanis excavation
scenes, Eric and Chris finally found one -
a "dirt farm" in Lizana, Mississippi,
that supplied construction sites with dirt.
The boys asked the dirt farmer if they could
film the needed scenes on his property. Initially
he told then no, commenting, "You boys
are just dreamin." Later on, his wife
spotted the boys on a local TV news station
talking about their movie. At his wife's
insistence, he agreed to Chris and Eric's
request. |
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Since they lacked
their own orchestra to score music, the boys
needed some means to get their footage to
match timing with John Williams' original
score. In some scenes such as the Map Room,
Eric used a stopwatch and gave hand-signals
to Chris for when certain actions should be
done, to time the action in sync with Williams'
score to be edited in later. |
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| • |
In the scene where
Indy is opening the Well of the Souls, the
shot required a flash of lighting behind Indy.
The night of the shoot, there was no lighting,
no rain, and no storms to be seen. However,
the moment the record button was pushed on
the camera for this shot, a beautiful flash
of lighting streaked across the sky behind
Chris. It never happened again… only
that one time, captured on the first take. |
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The snakes used
in the Well of the Souls were loaned form
a local pet store in Ocean Springs, Man's
Best Friend, brought over for the day in pillowcases. |
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The Tent Scene
between Belloq (Eric) and Marion (Angela Rodriguez)
is actually shot in Eric's mother's
living room. Eric used an old sewing machine
to stitch together acres of fabric to drape
from the ceiling to create the tent set. Eric
also stitched together all of the Nazi flags
used, and forty traditional Arab costumes. |
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| • |
Marion's costumes. |
|
Angela Rodriguez, who played Marion, asked
her mom to sew together Marion's famous
lacy white cocktail dress, complete with low
back and tulle tail. She did so, aided by
photos provided by the boys. The end result
was a very faithful reproduction (sole significant
difference was Angela's version had
a much higher neckline (read: no cleavage)
than in the original. |
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| • |
When Indy (Chris)
topples the giant Jackal statue in the Well
of Souls scene, it actually fell the wrong
way, in the opposite direction intended. The
falling statue arm caused the breakaway wall
to fall as well, so the shot was kept in the
final version. |
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| • |
Shooting was halted
on a few occasions. One main occasion was
when Eric and Chris had a falling out over
a girl. |
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The airplane scene
is the only scene omitted from the film, despite
having a plane lined up. The reasons for its
omission were ultimately that an attempted
pipe bomb to blow up an miniature of the plane
didn't work, concerns that blowing up
an amateur miniature plane would look silly,
and the scene being the only one in the Raiders
story not essential to its plot. |
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| • |
Truck Scene storyboard. |
|
The Truck Scene was composed of 76 separate
shots. Shooting was divided up according to
whether or not the truck was being pushed
or pulled by another vehicle. Why? This is
because the truck had no engine. The truck
used, a '64
Ford, was donated free of charge by
a tenant in one of the cottages behind Eric's
house, because it was broken. The boys removed
the engine, spray painted it army-green, built
a wooden frame for the back and covered it
with canvas. When it came time to shoot, they
either towed the truck from the front, or
pushed it from behind with another vehicle,
depending on the angle of the shot. A giveaway
to this is a shot taken underneath the truck,
when Indy (Chris) is dragging behind the truck,
it can be seen that the truck has no axle
connecting the front and back wheels. |
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| • |
The brakes on
the truck used for the Truck Scene consisted
of a pulley system that Eric's brother
Kurt rigged underneath the vehicle. A rope
ran through pulleys, up through the rusted
floor of the cab and was tied to a hammer.
One had to pull up on the hammer to activate
the pulley system to stop to truck -- scary
stuff if you are going under the truck! |
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| • |
The white truck
that explodes at the end of the Cairo Street
Fight Scene is the same truck as used in the
Truck Scene, re-painted (much as Spielberg
and Lucas happened to also re-use the same
truck for both scenes in the original). |
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| • |
The first kiss. |
|
The Cabin Scene, in which Indy (Chris) and
Marion (Angela Rodriguez) have their big kissing
scene - was actually the first time
that Chris (then aged 13) had ever kissed
a girl. They went on to maintain an off-screen
teenage romance. |
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| • |
The submarine
scene was the only scene not shot in Mississippi.
Instead, it was shot in nearby Alabama, at
a naval park in Mobile Bay, which featured
a retired battleship (USS
Alabama) and submarine (USS
Drum) from the WWII era. Over the course
of three years of persistent nagging, Chris
talked one Captain Deffley into allowing the
shooting on the submarine and battleship.
The agreement did not include shutting the
park down, however, so the boys shot around
bemused tourists. |
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| • |
When Indy (Chris)
is swimming up alongside the submarine and
climbing up the side of it, Chris is actually
swimming in the alligator infested waters
of Alabama's Back Bay. |
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| • |
The final character
to appear in the film, the Warehouse Man pushing
the crated Ark down the aisle of the government
warehouse, is actually played by Chris (Indy),
who worked at that same warehouse as a summer
job. |
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| • |
The person who
played the most parts in Raiders:
The Adaptation is Eric's long-suffering
little brother. Kurt Zala, who is listed no
less than eighteen times under "Cast"
in the end credits alone. This is because
whenever another kids failed to show up (a
hazard in teenage film-making), Kurt was unfailingly
pressed into service. |
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| • |
Despite the fact
that Chris played Indiana, Eric was the main
person who suffered major injuries; including
his head being trapped inside layers of construction
plaster, suffering singed hair from being
lit on fire, and a broken arm. |
