Raiders
Last month our friend and cast member Azuma announced his upcoming wedding to fellow geek Jane, and he asked Dean and I to film a little video of each of us saying congratulations so they could play it at the wedding with all the other guests saying congratulations. Of course, we’re all Star Wars/Star Trek/Indiana Jones geeks, so Dean and I decided to write a little skit that involved as much geekery as possible without actually using golden idols and huge boulders, since we knew Azuma would get a kick out of it. I sat on it a while because Azuma hadn’t seen it yet, but now he has, so…
Here’s what we came up with. It took us an afternoon to do in a patch of jungle near Dean’s house. Shirzi helped out by acting as Sword-wielding Bad Guy with Evil Laugh. He is wearing headgear he brought back with him from his recent trip to Jordan. We originally had him in a kimono (he hates it when we call it that), but it didn’t work out. I dressed up as Indiana Jones, using Dean’s jacket and shirt and holster along with my fedora, and Dean brought his Star Trek II uniform to play…Captain…..Kirk. Dean and I both shaved our beards, and he even has Star Trek regulation sideburns. If you’re wondering how he came to have such a uniform, he wore it to the Canadian Ball where he did a rendition of William Shatner’s Rocket Man while wearing it. If you listen closely you can tell that, though I don’t do a great Harrison Ford impression, I at least got a Belloq reference in there.
We were nearly devoured by the mosquitoes, Shirzi’s skin was burning from all the mosquito spray, and it was really hot, but we had fun doing it, if not carrying the stuff up the mountain. I was convinced it was a plot to make me appear sweaty for the film. I complained all the way up and made Dean carry extra stuff on the way down. We decided not to bother Paul and Darrell for it because it was just one quick shoot, so I set up the camera and let it film us doing our thing without any operator.
Dean put in all the music and special effects. I know he is particularly partial to the “fight music” Tuh-ta-DA-DA-DA tuh-ta-DA-DA-DA! as he quotes it often. The result looks like the videos I did with my friends in high school, but we had a good time making it, and it gets the message across in a pretty entertaining way, I think.
