Sep 14, 2011

Hoosiers

1985

This is me all dressed up to star in the movie Hoosiers.

It was a pretty exciting time when they were filming the movie in our area.

They used Nineveh Elementary for an exterior shot and at least one of our teachers and some students for the classroom scenes.

I had already graduated so I didn't have a part in any of that.

They did need people to fill the stands though.

I went up a couple of times for the final game scenes in the Hinkle Field House at Butler University.

One night my boss and I went and got there a little late. After going through wardrobe and being deemed "50's" enough we walked out in the middle a speech being given by the director. He stopped, thanked us for coming and asked us to set under the score board.


I don't see me in that picture but that is where we sat.

Another night they said that they were going to be filming the game winning conclusion of the film.

So I picked up my future wife and headed up to the Butler campus once again.

The director told us how to sit and how to behave when Hickory won.
He said "We are now filming in a time before the high five and fist pumping so please just applaud and smile." We could wave our arms in the air though.

The crowd was not as large as they would have liked so they had us sit in every other row to make it look like more people were there.

He then said some of us would be allowed to run on to the court to celebrate.

Elaine and I got our hopes up because we were in the lower section of the bleachers.
The director sent his assistant up into the stands and then he stopped on our row and said "Every one below this row can flood onto the court when the team wins".

Bummer. We were the row that they didn't allow on to the court.

We sat about where the blue arrow is pointing.

They shot the final scene several times.
We clapped and smiled and refrained from high fiving one another and when you watch the movie you can see my row neatly staying in the stands.

It was nice that they put me in the posters though.

3 comments:

Emmalea said...

You crack me up! The movie was a big deal and it seems like yesterday - not 25 years ago that our communities were SO excited that a movie about basketball was going to be filmed in our midst.

Great post. Hope lots of people see it. Nancy Voris put a link to it on her FB status. That should jog some memories!

Brian Ashmore said...

That is awesome!! You know, that must be a "Special edition" movie poster or something because the ones I've seen are a bit different (No Gene Hackman). We watched Hoosiers once looking for you guys... but, it was definitely hard to make many people out in the stands. Fun to know you were "in there" somewhere, though.

Brian B said...

Brian- Yes there are some variant DVD covers out there.