Dusty
Bronco Guru
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2001
- Messages
- 2,965
Only in Southern California can you show up at one of your favorite wheeling spots and find yourself in the middle of a movie set...and nearly run over Clint Eastwood! That's what happened this weekend on the So Cal Broncos run in the Calico Mountains.
Saturday morning we were headed up Doran Canyon and were surprised to see a .50 caliber gun emplacement perched atop the canyon wall:
As we came around a bend in the canyon we found ourselves in the middle of a Japanese WWII military encampment, complete with tanks and other period-correct mechanized equipment, tents and supplies, even corrals for the Japanese officers' horses:
We quickly figured it must be a movie set but there wasn't a soul around. All of the boom trucks and support vehicles were there too, but nobody was stirring. It was about 10:00 AM though, so maybe they just weren't up and around yet. So we tip-toed through and headed on up Doran Canyon to the big gnarly obstacle there, commonly refered to as the waterfall.
There was a second, much smaller movie set that had been set up right at the base of the waterfall also, but this one was just a small boardwalk running out of one of the (pre-existing) mine dugouts in the canyon wall. In this photo the waterfall is up the boulders to the left of the movie-set boardwalk:
We drove around it and headed up to the obstacle. Only one guy, Danny Bogner, took a shot at the falls and we spent all morning winching him back off of it. To show how close the movie set was to the obstacle, here you can see Danny starting up the waterfall, and you can see the temporary boardwalk in the background:
But while we were having fun on the waterfall, some of the film production guys showed up at the little boardwalk and continued their set preparation work. We chatted with them briefly and learned that this was a Clint Eastwood movie about the battle of Iwo Jima. He actually already shot a similar movie, to be released later this year, called "Flags of our Fathers". This one is to be a companion movie showing the battle from the Japanese perspective, shot entirely in Japanese language and to be shown with English subtitles. Sounds pretty ambitious. Anyhow the working title for this one is "Red Sun, Black Sand". Since we had wasted most of the morning on just the one obstacle we decided to head back to camp to re-group before heading back out.
Well, on our way back down the canyon, it seems the entire production crew had now shown up and were getting ready to start filming in the bigger set area of the Japanese encampment. As we approached, a guy in WWII costume looked up and saw us coming, then got on his walkie-talkies for a moment, then waved us on through. You can see him in the middle of the road in this photo:
So here we are 13 Early Broncos driving through a WWII Japanese military base, with a hundred or so actors, extras, horses and production people parting the way for us to pass through their set! They even had to move a couple of trucks for us. But they were very gracious, and seemed to be almost as surprised to see a procession of over a dozen Early Broncos driving through their set as we were to see them all set up in one of our wheeling spots. I was in the lead as we were driving through, my wife and I kept repeating "sorry about this, sorry about this" to everyone on either side as we drove by:
In this photo, note the gray-haired guy in the blue shirt on the right-hand side of the photo, behind the guy with his hands in his pockets (then read on):
As we passed through the set, this tall skinny old gray-haired guy in a blue shirt looks at us as we're driving through and says "Oh, here comes the Bronco club" and stopped what he was doing to watch us go by. Now, being the idiot that I am, I was hurriedly looking back and forth all over the set trying to drink in all the cool sites as we were driving through, and it didn't even dawn on me that we had just driven by Clint Eastwood. And he had been standing an arm's length from the passenger door of the Bronco as we passed (he was the guy in the blue shirt). His gray hair was all puffy and unruly so I didn't recognize him at that point. But it was him (more on how I confirmed this later), and he had to interrupt what he was doing to stand there and watch 13 Early Broncos drive past him at close range. I wonder if it brought back fond memories of "The Eiger Sanction" for him? In this photo you can see him in the far backround (again, in the blue shirt) checking the Broncos out as they pass by:
It dawned on me later that Clint's words "Oh here comes the Bronco Club" sounded like he was sort of expecting us. He must have had prior reports that we were up the canyon messing around and would probably be passing back through. I like to think he was looking forward to it
Anyhow, he and everyone else was nothing but gracious as we passed through (unlike the "security" detail we would run into later in the day).
A couple more shots as we passed through:
We continued on down the canyon, past the movie set and headed back over to camp. After lunch we headed back out again but went in a different direction, up to the upper end of the Calico Mountains, to do some exploring and sightseeing. On our way back, we decided to come back down Doran Canyon to get another glimpse of the movie set. For those of you not familiar with the area, there is a bypass that you can use to avoid that gnarly obstacle that we had spent the morning hung up on. So when we got to the lower end of the canyon we took the bypass. An added bonus of the bypass is that it goes up high onto the canyon wall, and gave us a birds-eye view down onto the movie set. So we stopped at a good vantage point and got out and watched for a while:
We were several hundred yards away and up above the set, but we had a great view. Here's our group stopped on top of the canyon ridge above the set, checking things out below:
This one sort of gives you an ide how far up we were at this point, as you can barely see one of the gun placements and part of the encampment below, just over the hood of the Bronco, in the distance:
Watching what was happening below, it was soon obvious who was in charge--the man in the blue shirt. I got out my digital camera with 10X zoom, zoomed in tight on him and snapped a bunch of photos. From so far away they're still not the best shots, but with the 10X they're good enough to show that it was indeed Clint. Besides, who else would be directing a Clint Eastwood film? We were of course too far away to hear what was going on, but we watched as Clint was apparently showing some actors what he wanted them to do, actually picking up one end of a medical cot and showing them how he wanted them to carry it into the tent. It was quite a thrill to get to watch this. Here are some of the zoom photos I took from up on the ridge, sorry they're not better but it was at quite a distance with 10X zoom (again, Clint is the guy in the blue shirt):
And of course by now I was kicking myself for having been so close to Clint earlier that morning and not even realizing it. After watching for a while we proceeded down into the canyon, below the movie set to head back to camp. Only this time, the rent-a-cop, sherriff and BLM goon wouldn't let us go the way we had come, so we had to go all the way out the canyon and take the long way around.
Dusty
Saturday morning we were headed up Doran Canyon and were surprised to see a .50 caliber gun emplacement perched atop the canyon wall:
As we came around a bend in the canyon we found ourselves in the middle of a Japanese WWII military encampment, complete with tanks and other period-correct mechanized equipment, tents and supplies, even corrals for the Japanese officers' horses:
We quickly figured it must be a movie set but there wasn't a soul around. All of the boom trucks and support vehicles were there too, but nobody was stirring. It was about 10:00 AM though, so maybe they just weren't up and around yet. So we tip-toed through and headed on up Doran Canyon to the big gnarly obstacle there, commonly refered to as the waterfall.
There was a second, much smaller movie set that had been set up right at the base of the waterfall also, but this one was just a small boardwalk running out of one of the (pre-existing) mine dugouts in the canyon wall. In this photo the waterfall is up the boulders to the left of the movie-set boardwalk:
We drove around it and headed up to the obstacle. Only one guy, Danny Bogner, took a shot at the falls and we spent all morning winching him back off of it. To show how close the movie set was to the obstacle, here you can see Danny starting up the waterfall, and you can see the temporary boardwalk in the background:
But while we were having fun on the waterfall, some of the film production guys showed up at the little boardwalk and continued their set preparation work. We chatted with them briefly and learned that this was a Clint Eastwood movie about the battle of Iwo Jima. He actually already shot a similar movie, to be released later this year, called "Flags of our Fathers". This one is to be a companion movie showing the battle from the Japanese perspective, shot entirely in Japanese language and to be shown with English subtitles. Sounds pretty ambitious. Anyhow the working title for this one is "Red Sun, Black Sand". Since we had wasted most of the morning on just the one obstacle we decided to head back to camp to re-group before heading back out.
Well, on our way back down the canyon, it seems the entire production crew had now shown up and were getting ready to start filming in the bigger set area of the Japanese encampment. As we approached, a guy in WWII costume looked up and saw us coming, then got on his walkie-talkies for a moment, then waved us on through. You can see him in the middle of the road in this photo:
So here we are 13 Early Broncos driving through a WWII Japanese military base, with a hundred or so actors, extras, horses and production people parting the way for us to pass through their set! They even had to move a couple of trucks for us. But they were very gracious, and seemed to be almost as surprised to see a procession of over a dozen Early Broncos driving through their set as we were to see them all set up in one of our wheeling spots. I was in the lead as we were driving through, my wife and I kept repeating "sorry about this, sorry about this" to everyone on either side as we drove by:
In this photo, note the gray-haired guy in the blue shirt on the right-hand side of the photo, behind the guy with his hands in his pockets (then read on):
As we passed through the set, this tall skinny old gray-haired guy in a blue shirt looks at us as we're driving through and says "Oh, here comes the Bronco club" and stopped what he was doing to watch us go by. Now, being the idiot that I am, I was hurriedly looking back and forth all over the set trying to drink in all the cool sites as we were driving through, and it didn't even dawn on me that we had just driven by Clint Eastwood. And he had been standing an arm's length from the passenger door of the Bronco as we passed (he was the guy in the blue shirt). His gray hair was all puffy and unruly so I didn't recognize him at that point. But it was him (more on how I confirmed this later), and he had to interrupt what he was doing to stand there and watch 13 Early Broncos drive past him at close range. I wonder if it brought back fond memories of "The Eiger Sanction" for him? In this photo you can see him in the far backround (again, in the blue shirt) checking the Broncos out as they pass by:
It dawned on me later that Clint's words "Oh here comes the Bronco Club" sounded like he was sort of expecting us. He must have had prior reports that we were up the canyon messing around and would probably be passing back through. I like to think he was looking forward to it
Anyhow, he and everyone else was nothing but gracious as we passed through (unlike the "security" detail we would run into later in the day).A couple more shots as we passed through:
We continued on down the canyon, past the movie set and headed back over to camp. After lunch we headed back out again but went in a different direction, up to the upper end of the Calico Mountains, to do some exploring and sightseeing. On our way back, we decided to come back down Doran Canyon to get another glimpse of the movie set. For those of you not familiar with the area, there is a bypass that you can use to avoid that gnarly obstacle that we had spent the morning hung up on. So when we got to the lower end of the canyon we took the bypass. An added bonus of the bypass is that it goes up high onto the canyon wall, and gave us a birds-eye view down onto the movie set. So we stopped at a good vantage point and got out and watched for a while:
We were several hundred yards away and up above the set, but we had a great view. Here's our group stopped on top of the canyon ridge above the set, checking things out below:
This one sort of gives you an ide how far up we were at this point, as you can barely see one of the gun placements and part of the encampment below, just over the hood of the Bronco, in the distance:
Watching what was happening below, it was soon obvious who was in charge--the man in the blue shirt. I got out my digital camera with 10X zoom, zoomed in tight on him and snapped a bunch of photos. From so far away they're still not the best shots, but with the 10X they're good enough to show that it was indeed Clint. Besides, who else would be directing a Clint Eastwood film? We were of course too far away to hear what was going on, but we watched as Clint was apparently showing some actors what he wanted them to do, actually picking up one end of a medical cot and showing them how he wanted them to carry it into the tent. It was quite a thrill to get to watch this. Here are some of the zoom photos I took from up on the ridge, sorry they're not better but it was at quite a distance with 10X zoom (again, Clint is the guy in the blue shirt):
And of course by now I was kicking myself for having been so close to Clint earlier that morning and not even realizing it. After watching for a while we proceeded down into the canyon, below the movie set to head back to camp. Only this time, the rent-a-cop, sherriff and BLM goon wouldn't let us go the way we had come, so we had to go all the way out the canyon and take the long way around.
Dusty
