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This
episode was filmed on location around Lake Louisa in Lake County,
(central) Florida.
Lake
Louisa is located on the northeast of Green Swamp, which
is one of the largest wetlands in the State, second
only to the Everglades. The Green Swamp covers 870 square
miles through five counties and offered us plenty of
authentic Florida foliage and wildlife.
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Can
you spot the gator above?
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The
young alligators seen in this film were not in captivity,
but were wild alligators we encountered while on location.
Getting footage of these animals can be difficult as, contrary
to popular belief, they have a natural fear of humans and
will flee at the first sound or site of someone approaching
or even worse, they instinctively freeze and can lie motionless
or underwater for over an hour. |
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When an alligator freezes, it is a master of camouflage
and can be nearly invisible among the debris of the swamp
floor. Many times during shooting we stood for hours in
an area in search of gators, only to discover there were
two or three small ones within feet of where we stood. Needless
to say, filming wild alligators is no easy task. |
For
comedy purposes, we pictured Erwin Marlin in lumberjack flannels
and a winter hat, regardless of what part of the world he was
in.
Now, all of the location shooting was done in the last weeks
of August, 2002. If you can imagine wearing a heavy flannel
shirt and a ski cap for over twelve hours in the 98 degree Florida
summer sun and ninety percent humidity of a Florida wetland,
then you can sympathize with our principle actor, Darrell Smith.
Though many of the effects elements were created in a computer,
all of the scenic elements were natural.
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The
tree Erwin exited as a port-a-john was not a prop we built,
but a living cypress tree whose inner cavity was temporarily
exposed due to low water levels. With the return of the
rains in the fall, this shot would now be impossible as
the tree cavity is now beneath the lake water. |
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