Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Raiders of the Lost Ark directed by Steven Spielberg is a very action filled movie with many stunts. These stunts and special effects were amazing and fun to watch. Henry Ford(Indiana Jones) had three stuntmen in the movie, Vic Armstrong, Martin Grace, and Terry Leonard. Vic Armstrong doubled for Ford when riding the horse, Martin Grace doubled at the falling statue and Terry Leonard doubled at the scene when Indy is pulled behind a moving truck.

It is interesting to know how they did some of these booby trap scenes in the movie when you think that they would harm the actors. No one would like have to run away from a giant boulder that could crush them in a second. They actually simulated a real boulder by using one made of fiberglass and using the sounds of a Honda Civic rolling down a hill. They removed the possible harm of doing it and yet made it still seem real. Another booby trap that was used was the pit of snakes. This one, like the boulder could be deadly to the actors if safety measures weren't in place. To get the snakes the producers bought every snake in London and the South of England that they could find, but that was still not enough. They had to use pieces of hoses to fill in the rest and it is said that if you look closely you can tell what is a hose and what is a snake. When Indy falls into the pit, the cobra is really there in front of him and sets out a spray of venom but lucky for him they had a glass wall between him and the snake. These cool scenes seemed to make the movie appear even more real.

A big action seen that was in the movie took over 8 weeks to do. It was the truck chase scene and in order to do it they had to raise the bed of the truck in order to allow Indiana Jones to slide under it. In addition to this the middle of the rode had to be dug out a little in order to make more room. The stuntman the did this scene, as stated before, was Terry Leonard.

There is also some other interesting facts that I came across while researching this movie. One of which is that the leather jackets that Indiana Jones used during the movie were actually bought brand new and had to be age artificially. As well as that the sounds that were used during fighting for the blows that were dealt and taken were the sounds of a bat hitting a pile of leather jackets.

As for the opening of the Ark, the sound was of the of a toilet cistern and the effects of the deaths of the main villains when the Ark was opened were from a vacuum machine, a time-lapse photography of a heat gun, and a shotgun. With knowing this you can sort of tell that deaths were from these.

I found all of the behind the scenes information very interesting to find out. Spielberg and Lucas and all of the people helping in production did a very good job in making this movie the stunts seem real for the most part and were very exciting to watch.

Information gathered was from www.imdb.com