Like many fans, we're constantly fascinated here by actual production materials from Bert I Gordon's 1965 film. This page will chronicle the items that we are able to find, dealing with the rigors of the production process of this film.

CASTING AND CHARACTER INFORMATION

In December of 2014, I managed to win an amazing collection of production materials from "Village of the Giants," on eBay!

Along with an actual copy of the script, the package also included some 25 pages of casting material, which leads me to believe that the items were owned by talent coordinator, Marvin Paige. The collection does include information on acquiring dancers, and some of the musical talent for the film.

As well, there's 14 pages of casting notes that show the numerous young talents who came out to try and be part of Bert I Gordon's film, along with little scribbles here and there. There's also a letter from the William Morris Agency, and pages giving summaries of what each character is like.

Each of these pages has been set up to be displayed in a new window, so that you the viewer, can compare/contrast the different pieces of production materials.

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LOCATION/SHOOTING SCHEDULE

Along with the pages and pages of casting notes that were provided, I was eager to see one piece of material that was also intriguing: The Shooting Schedule!

Unlike some of the more casual pieces of paper that had been handled like in the pieces above, much of the shoot schedule seemed pretty untouched. In checking the stapled pages, it looked like they had hardly ever been bent. Maybe they were just given to the crew member since everyone got them, but he didn't utilize them the way other members of the departments would.

As well, there was one fun little error, in that whoever was putting the pages together, added an extra Page 8 to the ream of papers.

Each of these pages has been set up to be displayed in a new window, so you can get a chance to read over the information provided. As well, I'll be adding some notations regarding certain descriptions. And, if you have a copy of the shooting script with you, you can match up the scene numbers in the schedule, with those in its pages.

EFFECTS STORYBOARDS

In 2020, we were surprised when a copy of the final draft of the Village of the Giants script was listed by a bookstore in Maryland, that included photocopied storyboard images detailing how certain special effects scenes were to be accomplished. A highlight was seeing mention of some scenes that did not make it into the final cut of the film.

The identity as to whose copy of the script this was remains a mystery, but the images on the pages below give an interesting peek into how certain scenes were achieved. Simply click on an image, and a new window will open, showing the full page, along with our notations about the scenes being mentioned.

Camera and Lighting Notes

Along with images of storyboards for special effects scenes, the copy of the script we obtained in 2020 also contained some additional production note pages we hadn't seen before, with the majority of them being hand-written notes.

While we have no knowledge as to whom owned this copy of the script, handwritten notes mention not only camera moves, but also lighting information for some scenes. This makes us wonder if the script belonged to the films process photographer, or camera operator.

Clicking on an image below, will open a new window showing more information on these rare pages.

PRODUCTION CALL SHEET and REQUIREMENTS information

When we interviewed Hank Jones in 2009, he was kind enough to provide us with several pieces of material from his collection of items. One of them was a copied portion of a Production Call Sheet from May 11, 1965. Even with this little portion, we often hoped to see what the full sheet was like.

Upon purchasing the late Johnny Crawford's copy of the film script, we were surprised to find that it contained two full Call Sheet pages, and they were for the days following the date of Hank's page.

These full pages Johnny had also included something we didn't know about. On the back of each one, was a Production Requirements list.

By clicking on the images below, you can get further information on what each page entails.

SHOOTING SCRIPT

No production is complete without a shooting script (yes, even the flimsiest of beach movies!), and this page feels incomplete, without mentioning the Final Draft of the Shooting Script!

Over the years, we've seen five copies of the script possessed by different members of the cast and crew. We first perused Frank Cafferty's copy in February 2007, at the Margaret Herrick Library, in Beverly Hills, CA, but were not able to copy the information in it due to strict rules by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

An amazing opportunity came in 2009, when after interviewing actor Hank Jones, he kindly sent us his personal copy of the script. This allowed us to make our first full transcription, which went up on the site shortly afterward (Hank's script copy is in the image above)!

In December of 2014, we finally obtained our own copy in an eBay auction from Marvin Paige's estate. The auction was also invaluable, in giving us a number of other production materials found on this page!

But, we weren't satiated. In the Spring of 2020, an east coast bookstore put up another copy of the script on eBay, which contained actual storyboard images showing numerous special effects sequences from the film! And then in Spring of 2023, we obtained the late Johnny Crawford's copy, putting three production copies of film's script in our possession (do we have a problem?)!

If you would like to read through and download a copy of the Final Draft of Village of the Giants, simply go to our Shooting Script & Film Transcripts link on the main information page. _______________________________________

SCRIPT REVISIONS

When it comes to production scripts, expect rewrites to happen over the course of a film.

In the script copies we viewed over the years, they all had the same blue revision pages dated 4-19-65, and one dated 4-27-65. Of course, with these revisions, the original pages were destroyed, and we have no clue what was originally written.

However, we were surprised when we obtained Johnny Crawford's copy of the script, and found that it contained a rewrite page that was not in any of the other copies we had seen!

Below you'll find our recreation of the revised 4-19-65 page 25 from the other scripts, and the revised page dated 5-2-65 from Johnny's script.

Most notable are the revisions regarding who is speaking various lines. Rick (Robert Random) is now taking a line from a random extra, and Harry (Kevin O'Neal) takes a line originally spoken by Fatso (Jim Begg).

Side-by-side, one can see the differences made from the previous rewrite, to the one typed on yellow paper during production. Some descriptive text has been condensed, the focus on Mike (Tommy Kirk) is now identified as scene 85a, and one line Mike says in the April revision has been excised. Most likely, it was also cheaper to just have Kevin O'Neal say the line near the end of the page, than have Jim Begg come in to read this one line (if one looks at the scene in the final film, Fatso is nowhere to be seen).

Filming at the Whiskey A Go Go was slated for May 3rd and 4th of 1965, so this page was revised the Sunday before the production started its first full week of filming.