DOCUMENTARY - The Lost Dutchman Mine ~ Behind The Scenes ~

[Jim Hatt]

Well, they "fudged" a little on that one. You know how Hollywood is. I did give up a very good career position, with Arkansas Power & Light at their Nuclear Power Plant in Russellville, Arkansas to go on the road as a Contractor, and work my way to Arizona.

Although I did give up a permanent position as a Quality Assurance Auditor, and had been a "Radiological" Engineer for the same Utility before coming to Az. I didn't completely give up the career, as stated and never was a "Nuclear" Engineer like it sounds in the movie.

Before they closed the GM Desert Proving Grounds down earlier this year, I used to also take short term jobs out there as a Durability Test Driver, which I really enjoyed a lot more than anything I ever did in the Nuclear Industry.

So there you go. When Greystone was interviewing people for the movie, They asked for my resume. They saw that many of my references were from Nuclear Engineering Departments at various Nuclear Power Plants. They combined that with my verbal story that I left Arkansas because I wanted to come to Arizona, and search for the "Dutchman" and formed the way they introduced me from that.

I learned later that they selected the 5 people they did, because they wanted to show that it was not only "Losers", "Fanatics" and "Miss-Fits" that actually believed in, and search for The Lost Dutchman Mine.

They interviewed around 100 people before they decided who they wanted. That doesn't mean the everyone else was undesirable, just that the five they did select were the closest to what they wanted. There are a lot of Dutch Hunters out there that had been searching for the mine a lot longer than I had at the time, and interviewed for one of the positions for the movie. Needless to say, when I was selected and they weren't, they were not happy about it.

That still causes me problems from anonymous posters on various websites all over the internet to this day, and one of the reasons I am quick to delete posts and ban users that appear to be here for no other reason, than to start arguments and derail the topic.

That is probably a lot more than you needed, or cared to know, but sooner or later I would have had to explain it all anyway. This was as good a time as any.

Jim Hatt

[Plays In The Dirt]

Wow, it is tough to fathom. Here in Eureka we're about as far removed from civilization as you can get but I guess we're lucky, we have AT&T here. That's how I get my Internet connection. How about satellite, is that possible?

[Jim Hatt]

Satellite is available ANYWHERE, but I don't use the Internet enough to justify paying $129.00 a month for it.

[Jim Hatt]

Don,

The second one was grabbed off live TV about 10 years ago. The hardware I had to do that back then only had the capability of grabbing thumbnail videos. If you blow it up full screen (which most software does automatically these days) it destroys the the video. Try watching it in it's original size like 320X240 DPI and it will be real clear.

[Desert Cruiser]

Ok Jim: I did swrink it down but not to that small a size. It's interesting and thanks. I really like the way the first one is done. I've put several on youtube and they did the same thing for some reason.

Don....

[JoeyW]

Very Interesting!

Joey