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Post by Ragingblues on Jun 12, 2008 21:28:19 GMT -5
I just remembered that I had copied the complete production details and saved them for after KOTCS had been released. So, here they are for all to enjoy: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Complete OFFICIAL Production Details on INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL! Written by Stephanie Sanchez
Monday, 21 April 2008 Not only did a few new images from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull come out today but so did the complete production details on the film! From an official synopsis to the new villains we'll see!
First, the official synopsis which finally gives us some insight into what this Indiana Jones movie is officially going to be about...
His exploits are the stuff of legend and his name has become the very definition of adventure.
Indiana Jones.
The whip-toting, punch-packing, snake-hating, globe-trotting archaeologist with a fedora is back on screen in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” debuting worldwide Thursday, May 22, 2008.
This newest adventure begins in the desert Southwest in 1957 – the height of the Cold War. Indy and his sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) have barely escaped a close scrape with nefarious Soviet agents on a remote airfield.
Now, Professor Jones has returned home to Marshall College – only to find things have gone from bad to worse. His close friend and dean of the college (Jim Broadbent) explains that Indy’s recent activities have made him the object of suspicion, and that the government has put pressure on the university to fire him. On his way out of town, Indiana meets rebellious young Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), who carries both a grudge and a proposition for the adventurous archaeologist: If he’ll help Mutt on a mission with deeply personal stakes, Indy could very well make one of the most spectacular archaeological finds in history – the Crystal Skull of Akator, a legendary object of fascination, superstition and fear.
But as Indy and Mutt set out for the most remote corners of Peru – a land of ancient tombs, forgotten explorers and a rumored city of gold – they quickly realize they are not alone in their search. The Soviet agents are also hot on the trail of the Crystal Skull. Chief among them is icy cold, devastatingly beautiful Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), whose elite military unit is scouring the globe for the eerie Crystal Skull, which they believe can help the Soviets dominate the world ... if they can unlock its secrets.
Indy and Mutt must find a way to evade the ruthless Soviets, follow an impenetrable trail of mystery, grapple with enemies and friends of questionable motives, and, above all, stop the powerful Crystal Skull from falling into the deadliest of hands.
Paramount Pictures Presents a Lucasfilm Ltd. Production “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf. The film is directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp. Story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. The film is produced by Frank Marshall. The executive producers are George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy. The co-producer is Denis L. Stewart. The director of photography is Janusz Kaminski. The production designer is Guy Hendrix Dyas. The film is edited by Michael Kahn, A.C.E. The costume designer is Mary Zophres. The music is by John Williams. The visual effects and animation are by Industrial Light & Magic. This film has not yet been rated.
Then comes the rest of the production details...info on locations, franchise history, costumes and more...
The Return of the Great Adventure
Spielberg, Lucas and Ford Re-Team for an Adventure Worthy of the Name INDIANA JONES
Like its predecessors, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is distinguished from anything else in the cinema landscape by Steven Spielberg’s unparalleled vision, George Lucas’s limitless imagination and Harrison Ford’s embodiment of a timeless adventure hero.
From his first appearance nearly 27 years ago, Indiana Jones has become one of the most beloved heroes of the silver screen, and almost since the day 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was released, audiences all over the world have announced their collective desire for another Indiana Jones adventure.
“We created Indiana Jones, but it belongs to the world,” says director Steven Spielberg. “And now we’re the custodians. Our job really is to serve up a huge helping not only of what Indiana Jones means to audiences who grew up with it, but to introduce the character to those who haven’t. This new film is for the fans.”
Executive producer and co-story writer, George Lucas, says his goal was to create an experience that will transport audiences into an all-new adventure set in a familiar world – a world that generations of fans have come to know and love. “The style is the same, the humor is the same. Everything feels the same. But we’ve also been able to build on it. The relationships we have on the set and the ones on the screen are stronger and better and more fun than they’ve ever been,” Lucas says.
Few actors have been as inextricably identified with a character as Harrison Ford is with Indiana Jones – and he returned to the role with all the style and swagger that helped turn the archaeologist-adventurer into a cinema icon. “Having been out in the world making all kinds of other movies, I was happy to do another Indiana Jones film, just because they’re so damned much fun to do,” Ford says. “I love being in business again with Steven and George, and I’ve had a great time on this one.”
Spielberg calls Ford’s casting the most important element in the unique alchemy of Indiana Jones. “More important than my directing it, more important than all the writers that came in, more important than almost the sum of all of its parts, was the fact that this series would not have been as successful as it was if it were not for Harrison Ford playing that role,” says Spielberg. “Harrison is at home in the skin of Indiana Jones.”
For years after the release of “Last Crusade,” Spielberg harbored a belief that the time for Indiana Jones had ended. “I shot Indiana Jones riding a horse into the sunset because I thought that brought the curtain down on the story,” he remarks. “And in a sweet, nostalgic way, that was fine with me at the time. But there were some people who weren’t fine with it – and this movie really started with the fans.”
It took the energy, enthusiasm and persistence of Harrison Ford to inspire the team to reunite for another adventure. “Harrison called me and said, ‘Why don’t we make another one of these pictures? There’s a fan base out there that wants it,’” Spielberg recalls. “He was tenacious. He called George, and George got to thinking about it, and then George called me and said, ‘Well, Steve, what do you want to do? It could be fun to make another movie.’”
“I have to give the credit to Harrison for starting the ball rolling and then to George for working to get me to consider the possibility of at least one more story,” Spielberg says.
Together, Spielberg, Lucas and Ford agreed that they would only pursue a fourth Indiana Jones adventure if the idea – and the execution – were up to the standards of the first three movies.
It took 19 years to find just the right script – and one of the first points of agreement between the three was that 19 years should pass for Indiana Jones, too. “He is certainly older, if not wiser,” Ford jokes.
Another Time, Another Quest
Indiana Jones Ventures Into the Amazing World of the 1950s
When we last saw Indiana Jones on screen, it was 1938, and the world stood on the brink of war as Dr. Jones chased down evildoers to find the Holy Grail.
Nineteen years later, he’s cracking his whip again, and many things have changed ... but some have remained the same. Again, the world is at a precipice, this time caused by the specter of nuclear annihilation, and Indy’s struggle is once again to ensure that a precious, mysterious object remains safe from those bent on destroying humanity.
The story of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” as created by George Lucas, Jeff Nathanson and written by David Koepp moves the era forward, and their decisions led to some unexpected – and creatively rewarding – choices about the feel of the fourth Indiana Jones adventure.
The genesis of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was inextricably tied to Spielberg and Lucas’s respective love for movie serials from the 1930s. Those adventure classics were enormously influential on the action, adventure and suspense of first three Indiana Jones movies. But 19 years after those serials had ended, a new entertainment age had dawned. Serials gave way to television, but their sensibilities weren’t gone from the screen. By the mid-1950s, science-fiction films had become ubiquitous, especially for younger audiences craving action and adventure.
Often breathtaking, despite the fact that they were usually filmed on shoestring budgets, they were movies filled with suspicion and paranoia about the rapidly changing scientific and technological world. Though imbued with dread fueled by the Cold War, they were also optimistic about the ingenuity of mankind to overcome attacks from outer space, under the sea – or from within. The spirit of those movies is felt throughout “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
“It was important for me that the character move into the Atomic Age,” says Spielberg. “Our film takes place in 1957, which is totally informed by the Cold War, by McCarthyism, by hot rods, and girls wearing letter sweaters, ponytails, and saddle shoes. For me, the ‘50s were emblematic of music, of the very beginning of rock and roll. It was Technicolor. The Fifties means the bright young faces that Norman Rockwell loved to paint.”
Executive producer Kathleen Kennedy concurs, “The ‘50s were an interesting period, because it was still an age of innocence, a time when we were coming out of World War II and people were excited about moving into the future.”
The changes also meant the filmmakers could explore a different kind of villain. As Spielberg explains, “Setting the story in 1957 planted us firmly in the middle of the Cold War with the threat of nuclear annihilation and the Red Menace, as it used to be known in America. Those were things that were in the headlines on a daily basis, so when it came to who the villains would be, the Russians got the job.”
Despite the changes in setting and tone, some things remain undeniably the same.
“All the traditions of Indiana Jones are back again,” says Spielberg. “We’ve got the map; we’ve got the plane and the vehicles with the little red line showing you how you’re hop-scotching across the globe – and it’s just part of the milieu that we’ve spent many years establishing.”
The end result is a movie for both old fans and new ones. “There’s a tremendous feeling among everyone to hit the high bar and live up to the huge expectations for this movie,” says producer Frank Marshall. “And when people ask me, ‘What’s the new movie like?’ the only thing I can say is: It’s Indiana Jones!”
Heroes and Villains ...
Familiar Faces and Talented Newcomers Sign Up for the Adventure of a Lifetime
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” would be nothing without its iconic title character. But while Indy may fancy himself a solitary scholar and a lone wolf, his travels always seem to couple him with an eclectic assortment of friends, enemies and every questionable alliance in between.
“There is a certain amount of comfortable melodrama that always takes place in the storytelling,” says executive producer Kathleen Kennedy. “There’s the villain – and this one definitely has a great villain. There’s the banter with Indy and whoever his counterpart is – and we have a great sidekick. Indy always has a love interest, he’s got buddies along the way, people who betray him, and people who are not what they appear to be, and that’s what makes it fun.”
For the latest Indiana Jones adventure, the filmmakers assembled an impressive international cast – led, of course, by the inimitable Harrison Ford.
Director Steven Spielberg calls Ford “the secret weapon. From the very beginning, Harrison was and is the center of Indiana Jones.”
In Dr. Jones, Ford has created a screen hero whose enduring appeal is a unique combination of no-nonsense toughness and snake-fearing humility.
“Harrison’s a man’s man,” says co-star Shia LaBeouf, who portrays Indy’s unwitting sidekick as they go in search of the legendary Crystal Skull. “So when you put him into these situations where he’s vulnerable, it’s hysterical. Any vulnerabilities Indy has – and there are a lot of them – are funny. Indiana Jones is very rough around the edges, but he’s actually a really good person, and that’s also just the way Harrison is. He’s an action man, and he makes an art form out of it. No one else is Indiana Jones.”
Returning to the unforgettable role of the intrepid archaeologist, Ford knew that there would be tremendous stunt demands put on him, so he went into training to ensure he’d be up to the task and that a stunt double could be used as rarely as possible. “He wants to be Indiana Jones and doesn’t want anyone else doing those stunts,” says producer Marshall. “In this movie, there’s a lot of running around, chasing, jumping, whipping, rolling around in the jungle, and Harrison did it all. It’s a real testament to his passion for the character, and it comes through on the screen. You see that it’s him, and you know that it’s real.”
Ford has been one of the silver screen’s most iconic actors for more than three decades, and his biggest break (after a walk-on role as a bellhop in 1966’s “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round”) came in George Lucas’s “American Graffiti” in 1973. Lucas then cast Ford as Han Solo in “Star Wars,” even though the actor originally only intended to help read lines with auditioning actors.
Likewise, Ford wasn’t the original choice for Indiana Jones – but today, it would be nearly impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. That’s doubly true, Lucas says, now that Indy has aged as a character. “In this movie, Harrison gets to portray a huge evolution of the character, as he moves from the 1930s to the 1950s,” he says. “Pushing the plot forward has been a bit of an adventure in more ways than one, because we’re breaking the mold while keeping the films consistent. The reason it works this time is the same reason it has always worked: Harrison Ford.”
The actor’s return to the role brought feelings of excitement and nostalgia to everyone on the set – especially to Spielberg. “To see Harrison walk on the set, pick up the whip, snap it and wrap it around one of the bad guys was pretty incredible,” he says. “It was amazing to see how fast Harrison was with it – and then be on the set to see Indy’s rucksack and his other props ... well, it wasn’t just nostalgia. That was when I realized that we were bringing this character and everything he’s about back to the audience that grew up with him, as well as to new audiences.”
For his part, LaBeouf thinks that once they see Indiana Jones back in action, audiences of all ages in theaters will share the excitement the actor experienced on set. “Maybe people my age never saw them in the theater, but Indiana Jones is huge for us,” he says. “It’s huge for all generations.”
LaBeouf’s character, Mutt, is integral to Indy’s newest escapade, and bringing the character to the screen proved to be an adventure in itself for the actor. The rising star of “TRANSFORMERS,” “Disturbia” and this fall’s “Eagle Eye,” found himself thrust into the action from the moment he learned he got the part.
“Steven wrote a little note on my script that said, ‘OK, now it’s time to transform yourself into Mutt! Signed, Steven,’ and then he gave me three movies to watch,” LaBeouf says of his preparation for the role. The movies: “The Blackboard Jungle,” “Rebel Without a Cause” and “The Wild One.” The latter still makes LaBeouf chuckle. “As though I was supposed to go home and watch ‘The Wild One’ and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I see how Marlon Brando did it!’”
Nonetheless, he soon found himself learning about his unique character. “Mutt’s a kid who’s never really had a normal upbringing. He quit school and became obsessed with motorcycles and machinery,” he says. “There’s so much about Mutt that he never really got to talk about, so now he prefers not to. He’s like a man-boy, a person who on the outside is presenting himself to be something he’s really not.”
Mutt’s isolated, solitary ‘50s rebel proves to be an interesting counterpoint to Dr. Jones himself, LaBeouf says. “In some ways, this quest is really about forging and re-creating a family. First with Indiana, then with the others they meet, their unit becomes stronger as all this insanity happens – you know, each punch is bringing them closer together!”
Preparing the character was only part of LaBeouf’s Indiana Jones adventure. As soon as he signed on, he says he knew there would be more – much more. “You just know that you’re going to get it coming onto an Indiana Jones movie – you know you’re going to get it! That was one of my first thoughts: Something horrible is going to happen to me.” Through it all – snakes, swords, knives and motorcycles – LaBeouf found his most exciting moment came when he first laid eyes on Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.
“You get breathless,” he says. “Your breath literally leaves you. For me, though, part of that reaction had to do with the way I saw him in full costume for the first time. We were on an Air Force base, and we were doing vehicle training. Harrison flew in on a helicopter. He got out of the helicopter, took five or six steps, then reached back for something. It was his whip! It’s weird, because in that moment, he wasn’t Harrison Ford – he was Indiana Jones. I was watching him pulling out that whip, untangling it, putting grease on it, and then he held it and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. This is real.’”
But Indiana Jones isn’t the only returning screen favorite in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” To Indy’s surprise, he also reunites with the greatest love of his life, a woman he’s never completely been able to forget: Marion Ravenwood, again played by Karen Allen. For the story, bringing back Marion made complete sense, says screenwriter David Koepp. “The thing about Marion and Indy is that they so clearly belong together.”
Executive producer Kathleen Kennedy adds, “The minute Karen smiles, she’s right back to when we were shooting the first movie. There’s very little that’s changed about her spirit.”
Allen does smile when she reflects on Marion’s fiery spirit, which illuminated “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” “She’s a very strong character,” Allen says. “I think she’s somebody who fell very hard for Indy when she was a teenager, and in that wonderful, old-fashioned, romantic way, Indiana Jones is the love of her life.
“But,” Allen observes, “he wasn’t the kind of person who could be around, and she understood that from the beginning. She was a modern girl. A lot of people said she was ‘spunky.’ It’s not just spunk – she’s resourceful. She knows how to take care of herself and take care of other people. She didn’t want to stop Indy from being who he is.”
Allen’s return to the screen is something her fellow actors were eager to see. “Everyone just cheered at the end of her first take,” says co-star Cate Blanchett. “She’s just this extraordinarily liberated presence onscreen. I remember seeing her for the first time and thinking there was no other heroine I’d ever seen as free and feisty as that. Karen is just so buoyant. You fall in love with her both as a person and a screen presence.”
For Lucas, there’s a good reason audiences have found Marion to be the most memorable, and perhaps formidable, of Indy’s on-screen loves. “Marion has got a great sense of humor, and that’s really Karen,” he says. “She’s fun to be with, she’s strong, she’s up to Indy and you believe that only she could put him in his place. They’re a real team together.”
Marion isn’t the only strong female character he encounters this time around – indeed, the story’s ruthless villain is Soviet agent Irina Spalko. Oscar® and BAFTA Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett plays Spalko, leader of the Soviet Army’s quest for the Crystal Skull. It’s the first time she’s played what she terms an “out-and-out baddie,” and she says it turned out to be gleeful fun.
“Spalko has an almost impenetrable steel-like quality to her – you know, not a hair out of place, no matter what she’s doing, never anything on her boots no matter what mud she’s walking through,” Blanchett says. “There’s a remarkable precision about her. She’s penetrating and, therefore, potentially lethal.”
While on set, Blanchett says, “You’ve got to be ready for anything, because Steven often changes things in the moment.” Blanchett learned to fence for an intense sword fighting scene that took place in the jungle – on top of moving vehicles. And if that wasn’t enough, the director decided to throw one more thing in the mix. “We were doing a chase sequence through the jungle in Hawaii and all of a sudden, he wanted to introduce a karate-chop sequence,” Blanchett recalls, “so we had to get that together very quickly. It’s a great way to work, actually, because it means that everything you do is really fueled and focused by adrenaline.”
Executive producer George Lucas thinks audiences will have a fantastic feeling when watching Blanchett. “Movie stars don’t get a chance to play villains very often, so it’s a fun, juicy, exciting thing,” he says. “Spalko is somebody who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and that’s what makes a good villain. As the audience, you have to believe it, you have to be afraid of it, and the way Cate plays this, you’re definitely afraid of her.”
As an Indiana Jones newcomer, Blanchett says she was amazed by the intense curiosity that surrounded the project. “I don’t think I realized before we began just how many people were desperate for another installment. It’s really a fantastic feeling.”
As seriously as Blanchett took the task of playing a formidable villain, she says part of her was always giddy about being in an Indiana Jones movie. “Everyone at my primary school wanted to kiss Harrison Ford, but I actually wanted to be Harrison Ford. I wanted to be Indiana Jones! When Harrison and Karen Allen were on screen together it was utterly electric, utterly transporting. The ‘Raiders’ theme still gives me goose bumps.”
... Friends and Sidekicks
A Talented Cast Brings to Life Old Acquaintances and New Companions
Behind every great adventurer are equally great friends, and in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” they are portrayed by some of the most renowned actors in the world, who populate the story with indelible characters.
“The beauty of having Steven direct an action/adventure movie like Indiana Jones is that he’s capable of attracting a very high caliber of talent,” explains executive producer Kathleen Kennedy. “That’s never been truer than in ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’”
The movie’s distinguished cast includes Oscar®-nominated actor John Hurt, who portrays an old colleague of Indy’s who is reported missing as “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” begins. Hurt’s character has spent much of his life pursuing the Crystal Skull of Akator, and the endless search has nearly driven him mad.
Director Steven Spielberg says he hoped from the start that Hurt would accept the role, which was inspired by the character Ben Gunn in the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island. “I sent the script to John and said, ‘Please, John, think of Ben Gunn when you read the script.’ And he did. And he plays the part brilliantly.”
Hurt elaborates: “He’s the man who was left on the island for 20 years before they came back for him. But, as it turns out, my character isn’t a man who was simply left on his own – he is a man who has become possessed, which comes out as a kind of madness. Of course, the Russians have also now become interested in the skull for completely different reasons, and that’s where the story picks up.”
Veteran actor Ray Winstone, who gained the attention of international audiences in the gritty gangster film “Sexy Beast,” is also new to the Indiana Jones cast. Indy regards “Mac” George Michale as a friend, but screenwriter Koepp says Winstone’s character isn’t quite as simple as that. “The fun part about Mac is that you never quite know whether to believe him. He bends the truth to suit his purposes. But it’s utterly charming, and he’s really good at it, so just like Indy, we like him and, against our better instincts, we trust him.”
Winstone was Spielberg’s first and only choice to play Mac. “I knew Ray Winstone from seeing him in “Sexy Beast.” When I saw that film, I said, ‘I want to work with that actor!’ I think he is one of the most brilliant actors around.”
Winstone himself says he sympathizes with Mac, who finds himself walking a jagged line between the competing powers of the Americans and the Soviets. “There was a lot of confusion after World War II, with the rise of the Iron Curtain and the start of the Cold War. Figuring out who you were working for and who you were working against must have been crazy.”
A favorite character from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was Marcus Brody, the museum curator and longtime friend of Indy and his father. While Denholm Elliott, who portrayed Brody, died in 1992, the character receives a fitting tribute in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”– and Indy has a new, trusted adviser at Marshall College.
Dean Charles Stanforth, played by Oscar® winner Jim Broadbent, is also “a close friend and colleague of Indiana’s, and they have known each other for many years at the university,” Broadbent says. “Dean Stanforth is Indy’s immediate supervisor, but they have a good, humorous and close-sharing relationship. Harrison is a lovely actor to work with, so that makes it easy.”
Spielberg says Broadbent “brings a beautiful camaraderie in replacing the loss of Denholm Elliott. Jim brings the same kind of humanity that Denholm lent to the character of Marcus. The deep, deep friendship Dean Stanforth has with Indiana Jones is very important, and plays a major role in the story.” To accompany evil Agent Spalko, this adventure introduces a new character, Col. Dovchenko, the leader of Spalko’s traveling henchmen. Igor Jijikine, who had been a high-wire trapeze artist for Cirque du Soleil, plays Dovchenko. His comrades-in-arms include Dmitri Diatchenko and, from the hit television series “Lost,” Andrew Divoff. “Pat Roach, who was our iconic muscleman villain, passed away, and we were very sad not to have him in this picture,” explains Spielberg. “I was looking for someone to fit the kind of role he used to play. Debbie Zane, our casting director brought Igor in, and I thought he’d be a terrific villain.” Good guys and bad guys, sidekicks and rivals – they’re familiar territory, and Spielberg says he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I wasn’t trying to make this movie bigger or better,” he says. “I wanted this to be a blood relative to the other three ‘Raiders’ pictures – which is what I love to call them. The world knows them as ‘Indiana Jones films.’ I call them ‘Raiders pictures.’”
New Mexico ... New Haven ... New Indy
Finally, Cameras Roll On the First Indiana Jones Adventure for a New Generation
It happened at Ghost Ranch, north of Santa Fe, N.M.
Indiana Jones came back.
Following tradition on his movies, director Steven Spielberg broke out bottles of Champagne and offered a toast as cameras got ready to capture the first images of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” “It was like we dropped back to the end of the last one,” says producer Frank Marshall. “It was exactly the same. The relationships, the creative atmosphere that was on the set, the respect – all these elements were there once again.”
“There wasn’t one person there who didn’t believe they were witnessing magic,” says co-producer Denis L. Stewart. “Everyone was so happy and full of adrenaline just to see everyone together again making these movies. That carried the day and helped us move through an aggressive schedule.”
The first leg of production unfolded in the stunning and desolate desert landscapes of New Mexico. From Ghost Ranch, the company traveled 300 miles southwest to Deming. There, hangers at an old World War II Army Air base were virtually unchanged since their heyday, and with a little set dressing and some War-era army Jeeps and Soviet soldiers, the area was transformed to provide the backdrop for the opening sequences of the movie.
From New Mexico, production traveled east to the home of Professor Jones and Marshall College. “One of the challenges we had on this movie,” Marshall explains, “was that we had established a lot of locations in the first three movies which we had to duplicate.” Indeed, the interior of the classroom in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was shot in London, while the exterior was shot at the University of the Pacific in Northern California. For “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the filmmakers would need to reproduce both. The solution, says Marshall, was found at an iconic Ivy League school in New Haven, Conn.
The filmmakers were delighted to find the unique personality and flavor for Marshall College at Yale University. “The exteriors were perfect for the period, the classrooms were great and we had wonderful cooperation from the university and the town,” Marshall says. From the classroom to a motorcycle chase through campus halls, quads and town, Yale and New Haven provided a perfect backdrop for Professor Jones, Dean Stanforth and the introduction of Mutt.
As the film’s producer, it was easy, in the midst of production, to forget that Indy’s workplace had a very familiar name. “I started seeing ‘Marshall’ everywhere when I got to New Haven’ and then I realized that, way back on ‘Raiders,’ we had come up with the incredibly inventive name of Marshall College,” he jokes.
Some of the most critical and challenging sequences in the story take place within the dense jungles of the Peruvian rainforest. “Iquitos is referred to as the ‘Gateway to the Amazon,’” says screenwriter David Koepp. “It’s the last city before you move into intense jungle, the border where the wild and the civilized meet. It’s the perfect place for an Indiana Jones adventure to begin.”
In a small town at the jungle’s entrance, Indy and Mutt locate important clues that draw them deeper into the mysteries of the Crystal Skull. While the exterior of the town was shot on the Universal backlot transformed by production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas into a dusty Peruvian street, the jungle itself was a more difficult find. The filmmakers scouted far and wide for an ideal location that would reflect that primeval forest.
“It’s hard to find untouched jungle,” co-producer Stewart says. “We searched Mexico, Guatemala, South America, Puerto Rico.” Finally the production found what they were looking for a little closer to home. “We looked all over for the right location, and finally decided to look at Hawaii.”
The company found their jungle in the southeast corner of the Big Island of Hawaii. On a private tract of land, under the dense canopy of old jungle growth, the filmmakers spent several weeks filming some of the more challenging sequences of the film, including a swordfight atop moving cars.
“The Hawaii location became an excellent place for us to pull off some very difficult scenes,” says Marshall “We had a lot of action, a lot of stunts with the actors themselves, so it was important to be in a place where we could pretty much operate without any outside interference.”
From Hawaii, the company traveled back home to Southern California and resumed shooting, using nearly every studio lot for dozens of vast and varied sets skillfully crafted by Dyas and his team.
Indiana Jones’ home was built on Stage 29 on Universal Studios’ famous backlot. “It’s one of those archetypal sets that allowed us to show our main character's more private side,” says Dyas. The production designer and his team worked hard to replicate Jones’ home, carefully pouring over images from the previous films. “We meticulously tried to recreate the style of Indiana Jones' 1930's home interior while keeping in mind the fact that we're now in 1957," says Dyas. Working with set decorator Larry Dias, Dyas sought to create a home that would both reflect Indy's personal style and interests and convey to the audience a real sense of passage of time since the last film. “We filled his living room and study area with beautiful & intriguing archaeological artifacts, objects that Indy has collected over the years during some of his other faraway adventures.”
Dyas’s team also created several exterior sets at Universal Studios, including the dangerous town where Indy and Mutt land on the first leg of their journey; and a massive, nearly 80-foot-tall, structure that’s part of the temple seen in the film’s climax.
A disappearing “stone” staircase built around a 35-foot cylinder went up on a soundstage on the other side of Los Angeles, at Sony Studios, formerly the legendary MGM backlot. The task of creating practical stairs that would retract as our heroes swiftly make their way down, fell to special effects coordinator Dan Sudick. (As opposed to the visual-effects work of Industrial Light & Magic, “special effects” refers to practical effects created on set.)
Sudick had handled special effects on Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” and the director was so impressed with his work, he invited him back. “I walked onto the set and it was one of the most exciting things I have seen since I walked onto Joe Alves’ set on ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ in that dirigible hanger in Mobile, Ala.,” recalls Spielberg.
Across the road, Universal’s Stage 27 housed another piece of the production puzzle – a Peruvian cemetery set. It was a large, multi-level construction that would allow the characters to crawl amid dusty ruins and ancient artifacts under the treacherous eyes of the keepers of the cemetery and its secrets. Running from a ghoulish mob, Indy and Mutt make their way down to the deepest part of the pit that links up to another set built 20 miles away in Downey, California.
At Downey Studios, a number of sets were erected in a massive hangar that, at more than 600,000 square feet, once served as a home to the development of the Apollo spacecraft and the Space Shuttle. Downey would serve as the home of several notable sequences in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” – among them, a series of cave tunnels in which portions of the adventure unfold, and an experimental military-style bunker that’s related to another location filmed in New Mexico.
A 1950s diner, inspired by the Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks, was built on Paramount’s sprawling backlot, augmenting scenes filmed in Connecticut.
Of all the sets, one stood out as being of particular interest to longtime fans of the Indiana Jones movies: the warehouse. Twenty-seven years ago, it was created with the help of a detailed matte painting and great camera trickery, but in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Spielberg wanted to bring to life his matte painting. "I still remember watching that last scene from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark, as a kid,” says Dyas, “and wondering how they did it. Little did I know that one day I'd be having real conversations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas about it, it was very exciting to try and capture the spirit of that scene from the very first Indiana Jones film.”
On the Warner Bros. lot, the production took over the massive interior of Stage 16 to build some of the most elaborate sets for the climax of the film.
“Guy had a tremendous challenge because we wanted to do all the sets for real,” says Marshall. “He had to build sets that looked ancient, had history behind them, were scary and foreboding – and then had to put them on stages all around Los Angeles. We couldn’t do the whole movie on one lot, like we did in London with the other three, so for the first time in my career, we were on five different studio lots, which may be some sort of record.”
Despite their disparate locations, walking around on Dyas’s sets gave Spielberg a familiar thrill. “I’d walk on each set and say, ‘I’m on the set of an Indiana Jones movie – how lucky am I that I get to direct another one of these?!’”
Skulls, Whips and Leather Jackets
Intricately Designed Props and Costumes Bring Indiana Jones to Life
The Fifties. Indiana Jones.
There can’t be more iconic imagery than that, and it proved a challenge to the talented team assembled to create the props and costumes for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” From Indiana Jones’ whip and fedora to Mutt’s biker jacket, they had a complex task of creating a new and yet still familiar world.
Costume designer Mary Zophres, co-costume designer and collaborator Jenny Eagen and costume designer for Harrison Ford, Bernie Pollack, had a challenging balancing act of hewing closely to the look of the first three films while adding new touches. The era provided no shortage of inspiration in the creation of new characters. Producer Frank Marshall explains, “Each of our new characters has been inspired by the ‘50s, and Mary seemed to have a terrific time creating the look of these characters.”
Zophres pored through old Life magazines, 1950's college yearbooks, vintage Russian military handbooks, photos of Mayan ruins and history books to get inspiration for the design of “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “I got every yearbook I could get my hands on from the Northeast, and from Yale in particular,” she says.
For Zophres, who received a BAFTA nomination for her costumes on Spielberg’s 1960s-era film “Catch Me If You Can,” the thrill of designing costumes for the film was partially derived from the enthusiasm of the director. “His body of work means a great deal to me, so when I make him excited and enthusiastic, it’s very rewarding. When you make Steven smile it makes your day.”
Zophres had her work cut out for her. She had to develop a signature look for femme fatale Irina Spalko, and to do it, Zophres took inspiration from 1930s screen siren Marlene Dietrich. “She had a lot of charisma with a certain amount of edginess and toughness, which I thought would be appropriate for Spalko,” Zophres explains. She and her team found a stock of genuine Russian military uniforms to dress Spalko’s nefarious crew. “I almost had a heart attack when we found them, but they were only in size 40 and 42, so we found fabric, dyed it to match and then made the rest of the sizes for all the other Russian soldiers,” she says. “But we found the real thing. You open up the jackets and there’s a real Soviet stamp inside of them.”
For the return of Marion Ravenwood, Zophres drew inspiration from a previous era, incorporating the look of 1930s adventurers like Amelia Earhart. “Marion’s a little bit of a tomboy,” Zophres explains, “but extremely courageous, beautiful and feminine at the same time.”
For Mutt, Zophres helped actor Shia LaBeouf express the character through a rebel “uniform” of leather jackets and motorcycle boots. “Mutt was inspired by Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild One,’” says Zophres. She and co-costume designer Jenny Eagen found authentic vintage motorcycle jackets and had LaBeouf try them all on until they found the one they liked best – then they recreated it to have the multiple versions they would need as the on-screen adventure progresses. “We had to make about 30 of those motorcycle jackets, because Shia does a lot of stunts and his costume got worn and dirty,” Zophres says.
The far-flung inspiration for the movie’s characters continued with Mac, played by Ray Winstone. “Mac has one of my favorite costumes in the movie,” Zophres says. “There’s this picture I have of Ernest Hemingway, and he’s got his foot kicked up in the air with these great high boots on. I found a pair of these high boots with this really interesting sole, so Mac wears his pants tucked in and he’s rocking those boots through the whole movie.”
As if Zophres’ hands weren’t full enough, she and Egan also had to create costumes for the scores of extras that populate the film, including more than 200 in the sequences set in Peru – for which Zophres had to send a buyer to the South American country itself and bring back textiles to use when making the costumes. "Because it’s a story that travels the globe, I wanted to go there with the costumes as well. We achieved that through changes in color palettes and stylistic differentiations, giving each locale a distinctive look."
Pollack, who has worked with Ford for 15 years, went on an odyssey of his own to recreate – and update – Indy’s wardrobe, both as an academic and as an adventurer. “Bernie took Indiana Jones as he was in the earlier movies and then stepped him up into the Fifties,” Marshall says. Pollack says some of his task was easy. “Indy is a classic guy who sets his own style and has his own look, and doesn’t change it.”
As it turned out, Indiana Jones wasn’t the only person who hadn’t changed much in the time between. “I hadn’t worn the Indiana Jones costume for 18 years,” says Ford. “Bernie sent that original costume to my house for me to try on, to see where we would have to change sizes. I put it on and it fit like a glove. I felt really comfortable and ready to go!”
While Indy may only seem to wear one costume on screen, in reality, Pollack ultimately had to make 60 pairs of pants and 72 shirts. He also decided to make Indy’s jacket slightly bigger, in order to accommodate the padding Ford would need when doing his stunts. Using stills from the original films, he meticulously designed the instantly recognizable leather jacket, then searched for someone who could make it. That search spanned the U.S., the U.K. and Europe. Finally, costume supervisor Bob Morgan brought in a leather clothier named Tony Novak from El Segundo, Calif. Novak said he needed only a sample jacket to make a prototype overnight. But the Lucasfilm Archives, which had kept the original jacket safe for more than two decades, required tight security; Pollack had an assistant accompany the jacket to Novak’s offices.
“About nine o’clock that night, the jacket was back,” Pollack says. “And it was perfect. I couldn’t believe it. So, I asked him to make 30 of them! I love that guy.”
Recreating the famous fedora was more difficult. Pollack worked his way through numerous designs, multiple fabrics and scores of hatmakers. While he seemed to find the right haberdasher in Germany, the quick turnaround was daunting – Pollack had only a month to have someone make and ship the hats to the set. That’s when Pollack’s German contact suggested Steven Delk of Adventurebilt Hat Company in Columbus, Miss.
“Steven ended up making a lot of different hats, and refining them until he came up with exactly the perfect hat,” Pollack recalls.
Award-winning prop master Doug Harlocker’s job encompassed finding, buying or making everything from bullwhips to mummies, motorcycles to llamas. And while procuring the wide range of things that fall under the umbrella of film props, Harlocker worked to remain true to the film’s legacy while introducing a few new things.
“We constantly talk about how to reprise little things from the previous movies that the audience would enjoy discovering,” says Kennedy. “Doug Harlocker has done a great job bringing in several things from the previous movies that the audience can have fun with and, at the same time, he’s contributing all sorts of new ideas.”
For “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Harlocker and his team assembled a treasure trove of goodies including a Bobber-style motorcycle for Mutt, AK47s and Tacarov pistols for the Russians, a cache of fencing swords, a barn house of animals and, one other indispensable “prop.”
“Indiana Jones’s one weakness is an absolute pathological fear of snakes,” says Harrison Ford. “So, of course, we had to have snakes.”
When shooting “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1980, he recalls, “there were laundry tubs of snakes. In one of those containers, you can put maybe 8,000 snakes. We had dozens of these containers in the original scene in the temple in the first ‘Raiders.’”
Luckily, there’s only one snake in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” But it’s a doozy: a giant Olive Python. “We had the requisite snake, a beautiful snake to us but not to Indy, of course,” Spielberg says with a laugh. “It was a rather large python. The audience wouldn’t forgive us if we didn’t have at least one snake in the movie.” In addition to the real snake (two for shooting purposes), Stan Winston’s studio worked with Harlocker to create a perfect replica out of rubber.
With the help of the Lucasfilm Archives, Harlocker was able to pull together samples of all the original props and build on them. Indiana’s personal items included the whip, the haversack, his gun belt, his whip keep, his journals, his father’s pocket watch and his glasses – and while the glasses would evolve for the film, Indy’s haversack would be the very same one he carried through his last adventure.
Harlocker had Indy’s bullwhips custom-designed by an Australian company to be more versatile for Ford. That made re-mastering the fine art of whip-cracking a bit easier for Ford. “It’s a relatively uncommon skill,” Ford says. “And I wasn’t terribly good at it – but I guess I was good enough for show business when I did it the last time. We had a new whip trainer on this movie who had a different technique. So after a couple of weeks of pretty diligent practice, I was able to get it all back.”
Seeing Indy’s trademark bullwhip brought feelings of nostalgia and excitement to everyone on the set, Spielberg says. “To see Harrison walk on the set, pick up the whip, snap it and wrap it around one of the bad guys was pretty incredible,” he says. “It was amazing to see how fast Harrison was with it – and then to be on the set and see Indy’s rucksack and his other props, well, it wasn’t just nostalgia. That was when I realized we’re bringing this character and everything he’s about back to the audience that grew up with him and to new audiences.”
The History Behind the Mystery
Eighty Years of Exploration and Study Reveal the Secrets of Crystal Skulls ... Maybe
In 1924, the famed British banker-turned-adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges led an expedition deep into the Central American jungles of British Honduras (now Belize). His mission: to find evidence of the lost continent of Atlantis. But it was Mitchell-Hedges’ adopted daughter, Anna, who made a find for which this quest was to become famous. On Anna’s 17th birthday, as Mitchell-Hedges and his crew were excavating the ancient ruins of a Mayan temple at Lubaantun, Anna spied an object glinting in the soil under a collapsed altar: a beautiful sculpted human skull carved with uncanny craftsmanship out of a single block of translucent quartz crystal.
When she first touched the artifact, Anna reported experiencing strange sensations. And any time she placed the skull near her bed at night, she reported vivid dreams of the Mayan Indians who had lived thousands of years ago, and of their everyday life and ritual sacrifices. According to the few remaining Indians in the area, she said, the skull had been used by the high priest of that culture to will death. Her father asserted the skull was 3,600 years old and dubbed it “The Skull of Doom,” because of its supposed supernatural powers and the misfortune that befell those who handled it.
News of the startling discovery caused a sensation in the art and antiquities world. Subsequently, a number of other crystal skulls surfaced, some of which found their way into museums around the world, while others have remained in private ownership. To this day, speculation about the origins of these artifacts ranges far and wide. Some say the skulls are relics of Atlantis and may have been wrought by space aliens. Believers maintain they are matrices of radiant psychic energy with the power to cast spells, conjure spirits, cure illness and foretell the future.
In many hypotheses, the number 13 features prominently. One such theory maintains that the skulls were left behind by a society that lived at the hollow center of the Earth, and that 13 “master skulls” contain the history of these people. Others theorize that each of the 13 master skulls has a specific property, and that bringing all 13 together will make all these abilities available to everyone at once, thus ushering in a new age.
Most of the other crystal skulls that rose to fame after Mitchell-Hedges announced his discovery are of a more stylized structure, with teeth etched onto a single skull piece, as opposed to the Mitchell-Hedges skull which had a detachable lower jaw. Examples include a pair of skulls — known as the British Crystal Skull and the Paris Crystal Skull — currently on display at the Museum of Mankind in London and the Musée de L’Homme in Paris, respectively. Another pair of famous skulls—the Mayan Crystal Skull and the Amethyst Skull—were reportedly brought to the United States by a Mayan priest.
Two well-known skulls in private collections are nicknamed “Max” and “ET.” Max, also known as the Texas Crystal Skull, reportedly passed from a Tibetan healer to JoAnn Parks of Houston in the early 1980s. The skull gained its nickname after Parks claimed the skull told her its name was Max. The E.T. skull — so named because its pointed cranium and exaggerated overbite make it resemble the skull of an alien — is part of a private collection belonging to Joke van Dieten Maasland, who claims the skull helped heal her of a brain tumor. The only crystal skull with a comparable level of craftsmanship to the Mitchell-Hedges skull is the Rose Quartz Crystal Skull, which also includes a removable jaw, but is slightly larger and not translucent.
But the Mitchell-Hedges skull — weighing 11.7 pounds and standing 5 inches high, 7 inches long and 5 inches wide — remains most famous to this day. In 1970, the Mitchell-Hedges family reportedly loaned the skull for testing to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories — a leading facility for crystal research in Santa Clara, California. The testing produced some startling findings, according to Frank Dorland, an art restorer who claims to have overseen the examinations. He reported that HP researchers found that the skull had been carved against the natural axis of the crystal. Modern crystal sculptors always take into account the axis, or orientation of the crystal’s molecular symmetry, because carving “against the grain” causes the crystal to shatter — even with the use of lasers and other high-tech cutting methods.
Furthermore, Dorland claimed, HP could find none of the microscopic scratches on the crystal typically caused by carving with metal instruments. This led Dorland to hypothesize that the skull was roughly hewn with diamonds, with the detail work being done with a gentle solution of silicon sand and water— a near-impossible task he estimated would have required up to 300 years in man hours to complete. Dorland also claimed the skull originated in Atlantis and had been carried around by the Knights Templar during the Crusades.
But there is no documented evidence to support the claims of the skull’s exotic origins and some authorities have claimed that Mitchell-Hedges purchased the skull at an auction at Sotheby’s in London in 1943 — an allegation supported by documents at the British Museum, which reportedly had bid against him for the artifact. That would also explain why Mitchell-Hedges apparently never spoke of the skull before 1943 — even though he claimed Anna had found it nearly 20 years earlier. However, Mitchell-Hedges claimed he was actually buying back the skull after leaving it in the care of a friend, who put it up for sale at Sotheby's.
There is also some doubt as to whether the tests at Hewlett-Packard were ever carried out, since no evidence of such testing has been provided by the company. Furthermore, later tests determined that the skull was carved using 19th century jeweler’s tools, making its supposed pre-Columbian origin even more dubious.
But Anna Mitchell-Hedges, who possessed the skull until her death in 2007 at the age of 100, stood by her father’s story and was loyally supported by others who are convinced that the crystal skulls possess important mystical powers. Note: Among the resources used to research this article are the following websites: www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htmwww.si.edu/opa/insideresearch/articles/V9_CrystalSkulls.htmlwww.mitchell-hedges.com/www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTOe7c0n-ocwww.youtube.com/watch?v=OwrGQuFyRDQ--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken |
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