Because Raiders was yet not available for rental or sale in video stores when the boys started in the summer of '82, they had no reference copy of the movie they were seeking to remake shot-for-shot. So, they got everything Raiders that they could get their hands on - photos from magazines, the published screenplay, storybooks, making-of publications, action figures, an illicit recording of the soundtrack from smuggling in a cassette recorder into a movie theater showing Raiders when re-released in 1982. With the amassed material, and by memory of seeing Raiders in the theater, they cobbled together a composite reconstruction of the original Raiders, shot-by-shot, laying it out in storyboard form. Before Raiders, Eric Zala wanted to be comic book artist growing up. This prepared him to hand draw over 600 individual detailed storyboards that became the blueprint they used for seven years, only rarely deviated from.
Director Eli Roth brought the tape to the attention of both Harry Knowles and Steven Spielberg. Roth had a copy in his collection of videos for years before showing it at Harry Knowles' 'Butt-numb-a-thon' film festival in December, 2002. The response was so overwhelming that Roth took the tape to his very first meeting at Dreamworks, and gave it to an executive to give to Steven Spielberg. The executive called Roth the next week saying that Spielberg loved it and wanted to contact the filmmakers. Roth had never met the filmmakers, but google searched every name in the credits until he got a hold of Jayson Lamb, the cinematographer. The three filmmakers, Lamb, Strompolis, and Zala had not spoken in years when Roth contacted them out of the blue saying that Spielberg wanted to write them a letter. This reunited the friends, who began touring the world doing charity screenings with the film. Roth felt that the film was so powerful he had to do whatever he could to make sure fans around the world saw it.
The Cabin Scene, in which Indy (Chris) and Marion (Angela Rodriguez) have their big kissing scene - was actually the first time that Chris (then aged 13) had ever kissed a girl. They went on to maintain an off-screen teenage romance.
Raiders Adaptation was shot completely out of sequence over seven years, resulting in the casts' transformation in voice tone, hair style and body size from scene to scene. For example, in the college classroom scene, the cutaway of Indy (Chris) 's reaction to the female student's "I love you" message written her eyelids had to be re-shot because it was out-of-focus. The shooting schedule didn't permit returning to that location for another three years. By that time, Chris's voice had changed with puberty. In the final edited version, the re-shot cutaway sticks out noticeably by Chris's voice dropping several octaves.
Nearly all of the interiors were shot in Eric's mom's house in Ocean Springs, Mississippi - The Cave Scene, the Well of Souls, the Map Room, the Catacombs, the Bantu Wind hold, and the Bar fight (which nearly burned the house down) were all shot in the basement. Sallah's Porch, the Cabin Scene, the Tent Scene, Indy's House, were shot inside the house proper, while Indy's flight from the Hovitos across an open field was shot in Eric's backyard. Eric's parents to this day still show the basement walls frescoed with hieroglyphics to wide-eyed youngsters around town.