MUMBAI: It took two incredible men, their pet dogs and Donald Duck to create the very loved and iconic Professor Indiana Jones in the early 1980s!
Unbelievable? Well, even more unbelievable was the way they managed to shoot action scenes in those years of practically no animation / technology in movies.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Take 1: ?Well of Souls?.
A pit, full of live, slithering, venom spitting snakes had to be created. The producers scoured every pet shop in London and the South of England for every snake they could lay their hands on. Hence there were snakes that were identifiable from many different geographical areas.
However, once all the snakes were on the set, it became clear that there were not nearly enough of them, so Steven Spielberg had several hoses cut into lengths, and these were used as well. Looking closely at the movie even today, you can tell which are the real snakes and which are not!
Lights! Camera! Action! A pit full of venomous slithering creatures? hissing and spitting menacingly... To achieve the sound of thousands of snakes slithering, sound designer Ben Burtt stuck his fingers into a cheese casserole! This was augmented by applying wet sponges to the rubber on a skateboard!!
Thud! Indy is thrown into the ?Well of Souls?? He lands amongst hundreds of snakes - his worst fear realized! As he lies on the ground, he lifts his head to come face to face with an angry, displaying cobra. But wait a minute?.if you look closely, you can see the reflection of the snake in the pane of glass used to separate actor Harrison Ford from the ready-to-strike creature! The snake actually did spray venom onto the glass!
Although the revealing "glass screen" mistake was removed from the final movie, the mistake was not corrected when Marion later faces the cobra. After she falls in, you can still see the cobra‘s reflection on the glass that separates it from her!
We bet you?ll be sure to watch the movie closely the next time! Watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, 3rd October, 9pm only on STAR Movies!