Life in the late seventies was completely different from today. Instead of seeing generic cars parked now, you would see boxy, smooth, colorful, muscle or other unique cars parked on the streets, adding to the bright atmosphere of that time period. On the way to school, you would see cars like that, no phones connected to radios, no earbuds for walkers. But, there was something extraordinary you would see when you arrived: cameras on an active film set all around and inside LFHS.
The set was for Robert Redford’s 1980 Academy Award winning movie for Best Picture: Ordinary People. The movie also scored a phenomenal 89% Rotten Tomatoes and earned three other Oscars at the 53rd Academy Awards. Redford’s film was set in Lake Forest during the 1970s, and the school scenes were filmed at LFHS. Other scenes in the opening of the movie were shot at Sheridan Road and the Gazebo of Lake Bluff and many more familiar locations.
You may not recognize it, as the school looked a little different back in the day. The whole senior parking lot was not constructed yet, the pool was in the basement, and the North side of the school—along with both gyms— weren’t constructed yet. Moreover, the Varsity Field was at the East Campus: all athletic events were held at East Campus, and West Campus was the academic building for freshmen and sophomores.
Instead of just using students already in the school as extras, willing students would be paid and have roles to perform throughout the course of the day. 1979 sophomore Doug Green and his brother volunteered as extras for a scene in the movie.
“The only reason I became an extra in that movie was because of my neighbor Karen Ursrty. She called our house at around 6 a.m. and said that they needed two or three extras, and my brother and I decided to do it. When we got there, Robert Redford was just sitting in a chair. I didn’t talk to him much,” said Green.
Green was called to as an in hopes of being an extra in the movie and Green and his brother both accepted the extra role and went to the high school, where they saw Robert Redford setting up a scene with his film crew.
“It was boring, just walking down the hallway. They spent hours and hours setting up railroad ties for cameras,” said Green. “The guys working the cameras would be pushed by someone to film someone that would be walking on the screen.”
The scene was set in the hallways, and many extras were used. Green was hanging out with his brother and one of his friends behind the filming.
“They would spend [a lot of time] setting these things up. [If it was not] the right angle,they would change the railroad. Since it was the seventies, things were way different and outdated,” said Green. “The cameras were called ‘Panafix’ cameras with umbrellas with all these lights.”
Green described the process as a lot, given all the cameras and large amounts of filming gear made everything take a long time.
“Redford yelled ‘Extras!’ and I would walk down this hallway and the film guys said, ‘You’ll probably bump shoulders with Timothy in the hallway,’” said Green.
That was Green’s scene: he bumps into Conrad (Timothy Hutton).
“It took all day and I got a paycheck for $27,” Green said. “But they also had a food truck and all the actors and extras would eat lunch. I remember how good the food was; they made like skirt stakes and they were unbelievable.”
Given the very long filming process, Green talked about off set, this small food truck outside the school offered these skirt stakes that he thought were breathtaking.
“My experience of being in the movie was a lot of fun, but it didn’t really change much about my LFHS experience,” Green said.
The school was different back then and even with the filming being over, Green didn’t have his experience changed much at all.
“We spent a whole day filming only five to ten minutes of the movie,” said Green. “Yet, at the end of the day, it’s pretty cool to say that I was in a movie that won best picture.”
