Q: How did you keep the enthusiasm for the project alive? I’m sure most kids would probably lose interest after a few weeks or months but you guys put in a massive effort for years and years.
CHRIS: Of course.‚ We kept one another in check.‚ Eric was a huge driving force through many of those years. We were all such good friends, there was an inter-accountability between us. The trio all leaned on one another and pushed each other when morale was low.‚ There were some times where we “felt” like giving up and the friendships were tested beyond normal parameters for sure, but we stuck it out.‚ There were a few years there where we didn’t speak to one another – mainly from burnout. But when the third one came out (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), Eric called me up and suggested we go see it to get inspired again.‚ So we did. The friendship was patched up, we set our old stuff aside and kept rocking until we completed it.
Q: So did you work on it every day after school?
CHRIS: We shot during the summers only.‚ After my mom was remarried, Eric and Jay worked on it when I was off at boarding school.‚ But it was never in question what we were going to do during the summers.‚ It was always Raiders.‚ Period.
ERIC: We only shot in the summer-time, as Chris went to school out in Long Island.‚ We’d correspond during the school year, of our plans for the following summer.‚ I’d write Chris with news of how set construction was coming along in my mom’s basement, Chris would write me with news of what props he’d managed to acquire.‚ Jayson would work like a mad scientist in my mom’s garage, fashioning fake corpses and special FX devices out of household items.‚ And then, as the summer began, we’d come together again and resume filming, starting with whichever set was ready.
Q: What was your favourite scene to re-create?
ERIC: The Truck Scene. The stunts, the physicality, shooting a moving vehicle perched atop another moving vehicle, the sheer rugged adventure of it.‚ What was very satisfying was that not only were we at the top of our game, we had really gelled as a crew.‚ We’d been through a lot by that point, the relationships were full-formed, we could communicate through shorthand, we knew what to do, and how we worked as a team.‚ So, when we approached the challenge of how to pull off these crazy stunts in each shot, we did so together, as a unified crew.‚ It’s a really good feeling to be part of that.
CHRIS: The truck scene for sure. The kissing scene (it was my first kiss captured on screen) was a definite highlight. Also, the submarine scene was a ball.
Q: How did you re-create the climatic Nazi face-melting scene at the end of the film?
ERIC: I nearly suffocated in plaster during our attempt to make a plaster mould of Belloq’s face for the special effect of his spectacular death in the end.‚ There’s a nod to this in the ending credits of our film.‚ Ultimately, we made a plaster mould of a mannequin’s face, filled its empty cranium with this gore concoction that Jayson mixed up… and projected a slide photo of me screaming – onto the plaster face.‚ Then blew it apart with a double-barrel gauge shotgun.‚ Good times.
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