A heated argument... a
hasty decision... a barren landscape.
Now all Val wants is to get home.
But she’s in for more than she bargained for.
Dark Highways
A motion picture by Christopher P. Jacobs
TRIVIA TIDBITS and FUN FACTS
The entire project of Dark Highways was conceived,
written, produced, edited, and exhibited theatrically within less than eight
months (from March 31 through November 28, 2003). Most of the script was
written during April and revised in May. After an impressive turnout for
auditions in June, new characters and subplots were added to enlarge the cast
and use more of those who tried out.
The truck stop scene where the Val character wakes up in Dark
Highways was shot at an abandoned, fire-damaged (and very windy) truck
stop. However, shooting was interrupted more than once when cars drove up
believing it to be open, having seen the movie crew’s cars parked out front.
The scene in Dark Highways where Dustin and Val wake up to
find the car battery dead on a remote stretch of highway, was actually shot
near sunset rather than sunrise, and there were actually cars driving by every
few minutes.
The office scenes in Dark Highways were shot in the main office
of the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks, the same place that hosted the
movie’s theatrical premiere.
Most of the office scenes in Dark Highways (all the office
shots that do not feature Wade) were done on the 4th of July between
11 a.m. and midnight.
Visible on the office wall behind the Kevin character in Dark
Highways are small posters for the movies Boundless and Pros
& Cons, both of which featured actor Jeff Nichol (“Kevin”) in prominent
roles.
Both the Wade and Dustin characters are using the identical cell
phone as a prop in their phone call scene in Dark Highways.
The movie that the Mandi character in Dark Highways is
watching on TV while waiting for her phone call is The Threat of the Mummy,
another production by Christopher P. Jacobs and featuring Dark Highways
actor Paul Kelly in a leading role.
The Delchar Theatre in Mayville, ND still operates on weekends,
and has changed very little since it opened in 1927. Owner/manager Steve Larson
allowed the movie crew to change the marquee and poster cases for the night of
shooting.
During the scenes of Dark Highways set at the small town
movie theatre, the two movie titles displayed, Vengeance of the Sorceress and
Working Nights, are recent productions by Christopher P. Jacobs.
The car interior scenes near the end of Dark Highways with
the Val, Tasha, Mandi, and Kevin characters were shot while driving back to
Grand Forks after shooting the Mayville scenes. The other car interiors of
Kevin, Tasha, and Mandi going to find Val, on the other hand, were shot about a
month later in a stationary car.
The dream plot used in the Sons of Poseidon music video for Dark
Highways, depicting the mysterious man with a knife chasing the girl who
suddenly is chasing him, was loosely adapted from an actual dream by actress
Nicole Nelson.
Film clips incorporated into the music video (besides those from Dark
Highways) are from four different public-domain classic films: Intolerance
(1916), The Birth of a Nation (1915), The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1923), and The Lost World (1925).
Actors’ varying schedules
required several scenes to be shot in pieces, later edited together to look as
if they were all in the same room at the same time talking to each other.
Much of the movie takes place at night and had to contend with
the short summer hours of darkness. Many scenes could not begin shooting until
after 10 pm and were not finished until well after 2 or 3 a.m. Others could
only be shot during the half-hour before sunset.. The final scene of the movie
was actually shot in the hours just before sunrise.
Some car driving scenes were actually shot in a moving car, while
others could be more relaxed in a stationary car when it took place in the dead
of night with nothing visible out the windows.