"Nuisance dust" covers Drain
by David Loftus
[This story appeared in the Roseburg, Ore.,
News-Review on June 28, 1990.]
Wednesday was the day the city of Drain got "dusted."
The makers of "The Grand Tour," a science fiction adventure about a small Ohio town that gets hit by a meteor, were filming scenes that take place after the meteor has struck.
North Douglas High School and selected homes were sprayed liberally with a cream-colored, pulverized dirt known as Fuller's earth.
"Toxic waste," head scenic artist Ken Wheatley joked when asked what the material was. "We get it cheap 'cause it's radioactive," production designer Michael Novotny chimed in. "They pay us to haul it away," Wheatly concluded.
Actually, Fuller's earth is "totally organic, crushed rock," consisting mostly of silica and quartz, according to Wayne Beauchamp, head of special effects.
"Initially, they wanted to use ash, lime, all kinds of stuff," Beauchamp explained. "They called scientists in LA, chemists, and they all said the same thing. This is the safest."
"EPA classifies it as a nuisance dust," Novotny said. "It's what ladies put on their faces."
"It's an inert clay, a base for makeup, and also used for filtration in labs," Beauchamp said. "It's the same stuff you see (in the movies) when cowboys dust themselves off, (and in) Indiana Jones."
Wednesday's filming involved the second disaster that hits "Greenglen, Ohio."
A leaky gas main explodes in the school where the Red Cross disaster station has been set up in the wake of the meteor strike. The character played by Jeff Daniels knows his daughter is there and sprints across the dusted town, with the time travelers in hot pursuit.
Because the filmmakers only wanted to use selected yards and homes as backdrops to the footrace, the result was a bizarre dusting of only three locations along a two-block stretch of East Moreland Avenue.
While a movie camera records the action from a
low angle, actor Jeff Daniels dashes through a
clothesline that has been dusted with Fuller's earth.
photo by Mike Anderson
courtesy of the News-Review
At one, Daniels burst through a clothesline of shirts and sheets that exploded in puffs of brown smoke. At another he sprinted past a fence with several dusty bicycles leaning against it.
Jackie Pender's house at 521 Moreland got the full treatment.
"They dusted it all because it was going to be in a background shot," she said. Daniels comes running down a trail through the field on the north side of the street and past Pender's home.
"They were saying they would pay people $20 (to dust their homes); big deal," Pender said, laughing heartily.
The sequence was shot just after noon Wednesday. By the time the cameras had moved to the school in late afternoon, Grand Tour employees had hosed off Pender's house, yard and driveway.
"(The filmmakers) have been really accommodating and conscientious about checking with us to make sure everything was all right," she said. "They're really nice people."
Hazel Breahm of Sutherlin and Karen Wright of Myrtle Creek were among the local extras who were weighted down with camcorders and press passes at the school's entrance when Daniels came racing up.
"I was a reporter trying to get information from everybody about what happened," Breahm said. "Daniels was yelling, 'Get out of here, you're not supposed to be here!' It was the best I've seen him do, he was all red in the face."
Daniels pushed through the fake journalists, tripped on a cord and fell down, then a camera shot a "point-of-view" sequence as Daniels pushing and falling.
The film crew wrapped up its work in Drain and returned to Eugene for the final week of filming.
"I thought it was a great experience," said Wright, a gemologist at Knudtson's Jewelers. "My goal was to watch the process, not to become an actress, 'cause I've never dreamed of that."
"It was kind of sad (to say goodbye to the other extras)," Breahm said. "It was like family. We met so many new people."
She said she wasn't impressed with "The Grand Tour" when she first started being an extra in Oakland a month ago, but that has changed.
"After seeing more and more of it, I'm hoping it goes over big."
Go to interview with the star, Jeff Daniels
Go to feature about what it's like to be a film extra
Go to article about the various members of a film crew