When Hollywood Came to Town
She was just a kid when a production crew converged on oakland and other local sites for the filming of “Fire In The Sky” but the experience and movie left indelible impressions on our writer.
Story by Erin Wilds
How do you get to Hollywood? First, a leisurely jaunt through space and time, followed by a brief layover in rural Oregon.
That’s how it worked in the early 1990s, or at least that’s how it seems when you look back at local history. In the span of just a few months, two other-worldly movies were filmed in Douglas County.
First, an independent flick released in 1992 starred Jeff Daniels and had segments filmed in Oakland and Drain. The movie has gone by numerous titles, including Timescape, Grand Tour and Disaster in Time, as well as a few iterations featuring random portions of those titles stitched together. The resulting name confusion and the fact it was released straight to video in most markets did not help this film’s chances of success, but it maintains a small, cult-like following online even today.
For locals, the hoopla surrounding the film’s production was just setting the stage for an even grander tour to come to town.
I was barely pushing toddlerhood in September 1992 when the second film crew set up camp in Roseburg and for several weeks transformed pockets of Oakland, Sutherlin, Winston, Idleyld Park and Myrtle Creek into Snowflake, Ariz., and surrounding areas to adapt Travis Walton’s memoirs of alien abduction into a major motion picture. Regardless of my own place in space and time, as far back as I can remember there is no time when Fire in the Sky fandom did not exist in my life.
Actor Peter Berg between takes
Growing up in a pre-Internet, no-cable-or-satellite household limited viewing options to rented VHS tapes, and Fire in the Sky was a household favorite. I remember my parents pausing the film strategically to look for familiar faces —no easy feat with a VHS tape. As I got older, I grew more interested in the events that inspired the story and gained a new appreciation for the film adaptation and how it fits into Walton's tale.
While that took place almost entirely in Arizona logging country, save for a few blurry memories aboard a spacecraft, an updated edition of his book The Walton Experience revealed that the real Snowflake was ultimately rejected as a filming location because it had grown and modernized too much in 15 years. In their quest for “a place where Main Street fits into a single camera shot” writers scouted Silverton, Colo., and Paris, Idaho, before choosing Oakland to stand in for 1970s Snowflake’s “idyllic small-town country charm.”
And what better way to celebrate idyllic country life than by interspersing a little Hollywood here and a little Hollywood there?
Actor D.B. Sweeney, then possibly at the height of his career, landed the lead role of Walton. Fresh off his breakthrough role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Robert Patrick was cast in the supporting role of Walton’s best friend Mike Rogers. According to IMDb, it was this role that would catch the attention of The X-Files creator Chris Carter and lead to Patrick being later cast as FBI Special Agent John Doggett.
The real standout, not only in resume, but as a fan-favorite among locals, was the late James Garner, who played the composite character, Lieutenant Frank Watters. Walton described Garner as having a genuine affinity for his fans. According to current Oakland resident Kent Rochester, it was not uncommon for Garner to stop by the set to visit with fans and sign autographs even on days when he wasn’t shooting.
Rochester signed up to appear as an extra in the film and received his first call from casting associates asking if he knew how to cut down trees with a chainsaw. According to Rochester,the voice on the other end sounded disappointed that someone who lived in such a rural area did not have experience logging.
Rochester ultimately makes an appearance in the final cut of the film in a town hall scene filmed at the Sutherlin United Methodist Church. In the same scene, the real Travis Walton makes a cameo appearance in the crowd.
Patrick with current Oakland resident and movie extra, Kent Rochester
While Oakland and Sutherlin comprise the town sequences for Snowflake, the filmmakers needed a more rural location to appear as the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, the site of Walton’s disappearance. Boomer Hill in Riddle would fill in nicely for an epic abduction sequence, which is a high point in the film.
An apparently thriving Mac’s Place in Idleyld Park makes an appearance, as does the old Brockway Store in a climactic moment as Walton is returned to a gas station just outside of Heber, Ariz., in a nighttime downpour.
Jason Hink was playing football at Douglas High School at the time and recalls the hot, sunny day of practice when nearby production crews were propping up industrial sprinklers to simulate the rainfall. “We could see it all from the football field,” Hink remembers.“Our coaches got angry because we kept getting distracted, so they made us turn the other way so we’d pay attention to them instead of the motion picture across the street.
”When the film was complete, an early screening at Act III theatre in Roseburg was offered as a thank-you to locals who had participated in its making.
The film went on to enjoy moderate box-office success, while earning 2.5 out of 4 stars from Roger Ebert and nominations for four Saturn Awards.
James Garner and Robert Patrick face off in a scene from the film (photo provided by Jamison Slater)
Clearly, Fire in the Sky did not take the 1993 Academy Awards by storm, and the storytelling deviates from Walton’s own account. But a good alien movie is hard to find, and this one is well-worth at least one watch.
Because of the “local filter,” I always had in my head, like rose-colored glasses,as I watched and re-watched the movie as a child, it was years before I came to realize the Walton story is actually one of the most famous accounts of alien abduction of all time. And, if you like alien stories, it’s quite the doozy.
The short version is that Walton, Rogers and the rest of their seven-man logging crew were making their nightly 48-mile commute home from their worksite near the Mongollon Rim back to Snowflake on Nov. 5, 1975, when they came upon a “yellowish brilliance” glimmering through the trees. Pulling the truck closer for a better look, the crew discovered what appeared to be a flying saucer floating about 15 feet above a pile of logging slash.
In his book, Walton describes the fear of missing the chance of a lifetime to satisfy his own curiosity as his reason for climbing out of the truck to get a closer look. After pleading unsuccessfully for him to return to the safety of the cab, Walton’s co-workers watched in horror as a foot-wide beam shot from the craft and struck Walton in the face and chest, hurling him through the air. In a moment of panic, the rest of the logging crew tore away in the truck, leaving Walton behind.
By the time the crew realized they had abandoned him and returned to the scene to search, both he and the saucer were nowhere to be found, sparking a five-day search and aftermath that would leave extraterrestrial fanatics and skeptics alike fascinated for decades to come.
In September 2019, on a road trip through the Southwest, I decided to take a detour off the Interstate 40 East at Holbrook, Ariz. Half an hour of desert driving later, I passed through Snowflake without stopping. After another half-hour I was in Show Low at the foothills of National Forest (clearly, I had way too much time on my hands during this trip).
Always fascinated by parts unknown, I spent a chunk of the afternoon exploring the nearest trail while debating with myself the prospect of navigating miles of forest service roads to Walton’s actual abduction site (or alleged abduction site, depending on how one views his story). I decided against it for the sake of time, but ultimately pointed my car back toward Snowflake, vowing to one day return to the site of the incident.
Snowflake didn’t strike me as being particularly modern, nor did it strike me as being very similar in appearance to Oakland or Sutherlin. However, it did have the same small-town charm that was a deciding factor in filming.
I stopped at a gift shop in town to get some souvenirs and learned the woman behind the counter had lived in the area for a long time. I bit my tongue until I couldn’t help myself anymore.
Casting fact sheet (provided by Terrilu Guillen)
“Do tourists ever come through here asking about Travis Walton?” I asked, deftly distancing myself from such tourists.
She and her nearby companion chuckled politely and replied,“Oh, all the time.”
I told her I was from Oakland. She had seen the film and seemed genuinely amused that I had come to check out the area. She told me that the Heber gas station is enshrined in local lore, and further delighted me with stories of Walton himself having spoken at an event in Show Low a few years previously.
Regardless of my own beliefs about what may be out there in the universe, I have always admired the tenacity Travis Walton has shown in standing by his story, despite the relentless criticism he has faced over the last 45 years.
Whether you’re hoping to just escape to another galaxy for 90 minutes or just enjoy some scenes of our area on film, Fire in the Sky is an entertaining lesson in friendship and truth and bravery. It should be remembered fondly in local history for the close-up of Hollywood it gave our quiet little region for an exciting few weeks nearly 30 years ago.
Hanging with the Stars
Terrilu Guillen got a behind-the-scenes-and sometimes under-the-table look at the making of a Hollywood movie when the Fire in the Sky crew came to town.
Story by Dick Baltus
Photo by Robin Loznak
While the recent addition of Fire in the Sky to the Amazon Prime movie library gives locals the opportunity to watch, or re-watch, the alien flick filmed in Oakland and surrounding areas, you can bet Patrick Guillen won’t be streaming it any time soon.It’s not that he has anything against the movie itself. It’s more, says Guillen’s wife, Terrilu, “I’m not very fun to watch it with.”
Hired as a stand-in for the film’s female lead, Georgia Emelin, Guillen got an up-close look at the making of a large Hollywood production. But it wasn’t always the kind of insight that enhanced the viewing experience, she says. “Every time I watch it with someone, I’m talking all the way through it,” she says. “I’m saying things like, ‘OK, in this scene I was hiding under that table because they started filming and I had to get out of the way.”
In the summer of 1992, Guillen (then Fuller) was a 24-year-old rental car manager for Parkway Ford (now Lithia) when she was asked to come to the film’s production office to talk about the crew’s vehicle needs. She left with an offer to double as Emelin, whom she resembled in size, coloring and “big bangs,” Guillen says.
Her boss at Parkway gave her the time to pursue the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” and suddenly Guillen was one of the film’s seven stand-ins, raking in minimum-wage pay in exchange for long days on set and the opportunity to hide under tables and mingle with Hollywood stars. Those included D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, James Garner, Peter Berg and Henry Thomas, the kid from E.T.
“I was dressed just like Georgia,” Guillen remembers. “If the script said Georgia had to run up and check something out, the crew would set up all the lighting, then I’d run up and be Georgia.”
Guillen rattles off memories of the experience as if they occurred last summer. The stand-ins got to hang with the actors and eat the same food they were served. She became friends with Emelin and got to hang out with and talk to the other actors.
Robert Patrick wanted to buy the truck being used in the film and asked Guillen to ask her boss for a discounted price. “I had to tell him that my boss said he was a movie star and could afford to pay full price,” she says.
Guillen even came close to being in the film, standing in for Emelin in a car scene with Sweeney as the driver.
“I had a huge crush on D.B.,” she says. “At one point on the set he walked over and said, ‘Hi, I’m D.B. Sweeney.’ I said, ‘Hi, I’m Terrilu. I rented you your car.’”
Unfortunately for Guillen, the scene didn’t make the film’s final cut. You can bet that didn’t break her husband’s heart.
Actress Georgia Emelin (left) next to her stand-in Terrilu Guillen.
