Many have heard of the film Twilight, the epic movie adaptation of the book about vampire and human worlds meeting. What students may not know is that parts of the first movie in the Twilight franchise was filmed here. Rooms typically full of students, such as the cafeteria, various hallways and classroom B-18 were transformed into movie sets full of crews, props, equipment–and stars like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
The filming took place in 2008 during spring break, and English teacher Gene Brunak was one of the few staff members who was at the school while they were filming, as he was invited by the assistant director. He was able to actually be there as the scenes were being filmed and see what the process is like for these high budget films.
Brunak was on set with director of the movie, Catherine Hardwicke, and she told him she chose the school as a filming location, because she had seen Gus Van Sant’s film Paranoid Park, another movie filmed at the school, and saw Van Sant at the Cannes Film Festival, where he told her that the school was a perfect example of a mid-century high school.
According to Brunak, it was Chuck Matthews, a former head of campus security and boys basketball coach, who guided the film crew around the district bureaucracy of using the building for filming. The production team had to pay for the use of the building. This money went directly to the district, but Brunak mentioned how the school was gifted supplies to benefit the staff and students here as well, which was in addition to their payment, according to Brunak. The school got new items such as new basketball jerseys and new computers for the journalism program.
When they were filming, it was Brunak who taught in classroom B-18 where one of the biggest scenes shot at the school was filmed. The scene features the two main actors, played by Stewart and Pattinson, in a staged science classroom. Brunak recounted how they liked his room because it faced the courtyard, providing great lighting. Outside the classroom window they set up flatbeds that held potted trees to create an illusion that it was much more wooded outside than it actually was.
The film crew changed and moved around several things within the school to create the perfect set for the scenes. Randy Maves, a printmaking and graphic design teacher and the next occupier of classroom B-18 after Brunak, recounted how they took a taxidermied owl from one teacher’s classroom to put it into classroom B-18.
Brunak himself never met the main cast members, though he did briefly meet Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight book series. He could though see the actors in the school filming various scenes as well as out in the Glenhaven parking lot where their trailers were set up.
“We’d see them coming and going everyday in and out of the classrooms, and they were living on temporary trailers that were parked in the student parking lot on 82nd during spring break,” Brunak said.
Brunak described how when they filmed the cafeteria scene, they used a mini blimp that had pieces of lighting and a camera attached to it to fly overhead the room to get the shot. The cafeteria scene featured many everyday student items.
“Watching all of these actors using our actual tables and chairs was kind of funny. And so if you look at the film, it’s all authentic,” Brunak said.
Some of Maves students’ artwork was hung up on the walls of the cafeteria long before they decided to film at the school and was also featured in that scene—another way the typical student was subtly included in the film. The crew mimicked the art style for the other side of the room, and it ended up staying after they were finished filming.
At one point during the filming process, Brunak was invited to have breakfast with the cast. They parked a giant semi-truck outside the school right along Glenhaven Park, and it was fully catered. Brunak ate near the director of the movie and her brother.
“Robert Pattinson was sitting maybe just a few feet away, away from the rest of the cast, just talking to the custodian that worked here,” he said.
According to Brunak, everyone who was there during the filming said Pattinson was really nice.
Once the movie came out on Nov. 21, 2008, the school became a popular location for fans of the movie to visit. Maves, who moved into Brunak’s classroom the year after they filmed, had many fan encounters over the years he occupied the famed room. At any given time fans from all over the world would stop by Maves’ classroom to take pictures and immerse themselves in the Twilight atmosphere.
Tours of the school were very popular among fans. When the school had the capacity and time to give fans a tour, the fans would get a visitor pass and be escorted by campus security or the former office secretary. She would lead tours around the school, taking fans to the locations in the building where the biggest scenes were filmed, such as the cafeteria and classroom B-18. She would knock on Maves’ door to make sure it was okay for fans to come in, and it typically was.
“The weirdest one were these German women that came. They were older, middle-aged, I mean they were probably in their 50’s, 60’s probably, and they came in and they were completely covered from head to foot with Twilight stuff. Twilight t-shirts, sweatshirts and they were just all for the fan experience, you know, they were taking pictures of themselves in there,” he said.
He mentioned how the fans were never disruptive and were very kind. As for the reaction by students in his classroom as fans came in, they were indifferent.
“They’d be like, ‘That’s weird, that’s strange,’” Maves said.
The overall school reaction to finding out the movie was filmed at the school was one of surprise and excitement. Some of the students were a little blown away, Brunak mentioned.
“At the time, Madison, you know, it was a big deal,” Brunak said, referring to the former name of the school.
College coordinator Esthera Magda was a student here from 2010 to 2014 and described how there used to be a hallway that had pictures of the actors and rooms they’d been in from the movie to commemorate the legacy.
When Magda and her friends found out it was shot at the school, they looked at pictures on Google and tried to stand exactly where the actors were in the cafeteria.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I’m actually in the same cafeteria that it was being shot in,’” she said.
Magda felt it was cool for her to attend the same high school where parts of the movie were filmed because it was one of her favorite films.
The first Twilight movie being filmed in the old building created a long-lasting fame that still remains despite the remodel of the school. It’s an important part of the school’s history and creates a legacy unique from other high schools—a way for students to hold pride in their school.
