Kalama High School
548 China Garden Road
Kalama, Washington

I am fortunate to have a friend who personally knew the principal at Kalama HS, Mike Hamilton. He was very generous with his time and led us around the school and showed us all the filming locations. The location scouts were out in early fall of 2007 searching for filming locations for the first Twilight movie. They ended up using three different schools in three different cities to combine and make up Forks High School. They first visited Kalama HS in the fall.  They then returned with director Catherine Hardwicke and then later with people from Summit. When they returned in March 2008 to start filming they brought in 2 semi-trucks, trailers and numerous other vehicles and tents. For everyone’s enjoyment they set up a coffee cart. Food was provided by their own chefs. The cast and crew included about 200 people with 70 extras. The filming went for about 2 weeks. Security and school access were a priority which meant closing several streets around the school. They had hoped to be filming during the schools spring break in March, but timing didnt work out. Only about 12 students were used as extras for the film.

He shared with us some fun stories. Like how after setting up the crash scene in the parking lot, the lighting had changed and so the location was moved up above the stair area. But, then after an hour of set up the light changed once again and they went back to the original location in the parking lot.The original Mural is still at Kalama and was done by a local artist. One of the producers nicely referred to the extras as “flesh props”. Once again we heard that Catherine Hardwicke was just a funny person to work with. Mike Hamilton, the principal, served as the liaison person for the district office which is onsite.  Kalama has all their schools together at one location with around 1,000 students total. The school is open 8:00-3:30 and they ask that anyone visiting to please check in at their office first.

Parking Lot and Crash Scene