What do the inventor of Barbie, actor Don Cheadle, and some of the first members of Earth, Wind & Fire all have in common?

Front of East High School in Denver — East High School in Denver Celebrates 150 Year Anniversary

They all walked the halls of East High School in Denver.

So did Hattie McDaniel, Academy Award winner for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone With the Wind, silent film star Douglas Fairbanks Jr., billionaire Philanthropist Robert Smith, and Foxy Brown herself - Pam Grier.

In fact, East High’s Heritage Hall is bursting with so many tributes to alumni who’ve made impacts in such diverse ways, they keep having to build more display cases to hold them all!

So what’s the secret sauce?

The dedicated faculty? The diversity of its students? The legacy of greatness? The iconic building itself?

This was one of many themes we explored in the upcoming documentary we had the pleasure of shooting as East High celebrates its 150th anniversary this fall.

We spent the last year or so filming over thirty interviews, supporting B-roll footage, and aerials of the school and surrounding Denver neighborhoods.

Now it’s in the capable hands of the editors, and will be finished in time for its premiere screening this fall at the Sie Film Center in Denver.

Designing the Look

Since East High is such an iconic campus, we wanted to use its hallways, classrooms and library as the backdrop for our interviews.

And with over thirty interviews, one of our main challenges was creating new looks for each one while also maintaining consistency for the overall film.

We varied locations and angles so that no two backgrounds looked exactly alike. This also gave us the chance to show off different areas of the school.

The other challenge was dealing with the mixed lighting coming from the older fixtures throughout the buildings, and the daylight coming in the beautiful old windows.

I decided to balance our lights to the color temperature of the available lighting in the halls and classrooms, and let the windows go more cool.

Video interview with East High student in the library — Interviewing East High student in the library

I love modern lights!

We keyed with an Aputure LS 600x Pro mono light softened by a 3 foot light dome, and punched up the backgrounds as needed with Aputure Light Storm LS 60x Bi-Color LEDs. We used our little LED PavoTubes as hair lights, and side kicks as needed.

We were able to dial in all these lights to match the color temperature of the existing light.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure (not) of putting gels on hot tungsten fixtures, you can really appreciate the latest LED technology and the ability to precisely match available lighting.

This relatively small lighting set-up allowed us to move quickly and provide lots of looks at each location. Plus everything was able to fit onto our handy Magliner cart which we wheeled from place to place.

While we kept the backgrounds soft, we didn’t want to have such a shallow depth-of-field that you couldn’t tell where we were. We wanted to show off the beautiful architecture, long rows of metal lockers, and stately old windows that help add texture to the shots.

So we shot most of our interviews with our Sony 85mm G-Master Prime lens, and kept the F-stop no wider than an F4.

The only two interviews we shot off campus were Pam Grier in Santa Fe, and Robert Smith at his ranch in the Rocky Mountains. Another crew shot a couple of interviews in LA.

We used our Sony FX9 and Sony FX6 cameras with a variety of G-Master prime and zoom lenses as our main camera setups, and lots of other toys for the B-roll footage.

Capturing the Architecture and Movement

When I first walked up to the front of East High my reaction was like many - this is a high school? I thought it was a college, or at the very least an expensive prep school.

Its Jacobean-style architecture and 162-foot clock tower, inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia, can be a bit intimidating.

But for most of the students and teachers who walk through the beautiful front lobby, it’s inspiring - a symbol of the school’s deep-rooted commitment to excellence and tradition.

I mean how do you not do your best in a place like this?

The challenge we faced was to try to convey this all on film. Not just the buildings, but how the inhabitants interacted with them.

Luckily we had plenty of great film tools to work with. Our wider lenses were perfect for capturing the curvy stairways and adornments throughout the school, and we used our longer focal length lenses to compress the hundreds of feet walking though the halls.

Our SYRP Magic Carpet Slider, Ronin RC3 Gimbal, and even a little pocket Osmo provided a variety of camera movement options. We even mounted GoPros onto our Magliner and drove it up and down the crowded hallways of a passing period in timelapse mode. We also shot timelapse outside of kids arriving and leaving, from the clock tower, and in the stairwells.

For aerials we flew our DJI Mini 4 Pro Drone. It’s small, quiet and unobtrusive. We captured the campus and the surrounding neighborhoods from just about every angle, in lots of different light.

Our Nimble Video Crew

Producer/Director Robert Dean (East, ‘72) and I met on a Dateline shoot many years ago, and I was delighted when he asked me to help him out with this project as the Director of Photography. We were joined by Producer Charlotte Glover, and Associate Producer Niani Scott, with an occasional visit from our delightful Executive Producer Elizabeth Fisher Woodard (East, ‘68.) Dennis Fry and Trevor Nordeen were our sound mixers, and Angela Roelle did hair and makeup. A highly efficient team!

The editors are Warren Potter, Bart Rachmil, and Robert Spencer; and our narrator is Denver icon Adel Arakawa.

Celebration and Premiere!

The East High documentary will premiere on September 26, at 7PM in the historic EHS auditorium, as part of East’s 150-year Anniversary Celebration. You can come as early as 5:30 and take a self-guided tour of East. Other screenings will follow, with hopefully a run on PBS.

Denver’s East High Shines in Upcoming Documentary