INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM
OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

New Mexico...New Haven...New Indy
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 t

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