PHOTO ESSAY

Indy Spirit

Raiders of the Lost Ark: the remake

By Katrina Onstad

Costume sketches by director Eric Zala

"Eric did the costume designs. He’s an incredible artist. He drew something like 609 storyboards all by hand, which we used as a bible.

We dug through our parents’ closets and the Good Will and Salvation Army and did the tailoring ourselves. Marion Ravenwood’s mom made her the red top for the Cairo scene. [Ravenwood was played by a local named Angela Rodriguez.] Eric personally sewed 50 Arab costumes. We would use all our allowances and birthday money for props and ask for the novelty items for gifts.

Where are they now? We put them to such use that a lot of them fell apart or we threw them away. A lot of the Arab costumes we sold at a garage sale. Oh sure, we grew out of clothes over the years.

We call Eric’s mom's house ‘Raiders headquarters’ and a lot of the old artifacts are kept there, packed inside the arc of the covenant prop, strangely enough. I still have my holster, my bullwhip, my boots. The hat got sucked away in a flood.

Jayson Lamb, to this day, still has the last remaining Arab costume. He uses it as a house robe but it’s covered in paint and special-effects gore, this 25-year-old costume made out of the cheapest material. I joke with him, ‘You look like a homeless person,’ and he says, ‘I like it, I like it.’"

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