|
Invesco Field documentary relies heavily on Mile High
By Mark Wolf, News Staff Writer Making a documentary about the building of Invesco Field at Mile High was a little like filming a toddler's first steps while the family patriarch watches from a hammock. "There were times when we were standing on top of the new stadium to shoot and you'd look over your shoulder and see the old-timer" -- Mile High Stadium, that is -- "watching," said Dirk Olsen, director of Denver Center Media and the project's co-producer. In 1996, the center won an Emmy for cultural/historical documentary for Coors Field: Home at Last, which chronicled the construction of Denver's Major League Baseball park. The synergy of the old and the new will be a primary focus of the stadium documentary, which has a working title of A Tale of Two Stadiums. The project won't be completed until around Thanksgiving. A seven-minute documentary was screened at the new stadium before the Eagles concert Aug. 11. Although the Denver Broncos are the stadium's primary tenant and the hallmark of memories of old Mile High, Olsen plans to spotlight the entire scope of Mile High's history, from the Denver Bears minor league baseball team to rock concerts by Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and many others, and appearances by Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II. "(Co-producer) Sam Safarian is a great researcher," Olsen said. "He's been digging into vaults for 'new' old footage of Mile High. "You can't discount the importance of the Denver Bears or people like (Bears owner) Robert Howsam, a down-to-earth guy with big dreams." The crew has hours of taped interviews with such figures from Mile High's past as Howsam, former Broncos coaches Red Miller and Dan Reeves and many others, including Invesco Field construction workers. "For a lot of them, talking about Mile High was closure," Olsen said. "One of the guys who worked on building the old Mile High said it was tough for him to outlive buildings he built." At one point the crew's eyes welled with tears, not from emotion, but from tear gas fired into the Mile High stands at 1999's University of Colorado-Colorado State football game. The documentary, in the works since 1999 and budgeted at about $75,000, will be shown on local television. Home video proceeds will be used to fund public art projects at the new stadium, said district spokesman Matt Sugar. While shooting for the video, Olsen said he came to a deeper understanding of how stadiums can stir the emotions of fans. "I think stadiums have eyes and ears. They've heard and seen things we'll never know," said Olsen. "We stood on top of the southeast corner of Mile High and snapped off a series of shots of construction of the new one. We'll have a time-lapse of it coming out of the ground and finally filling the screen. There was no other way to get that shot without the help of the old stadium. "The old stadium helped us tell the story of the new one. The old stadium kind of held us in its hands." Have some old home movies/videos of events at Mile High Stadium? The documentary producers would like to talk to you. Call Dirk Olsen at (303) 446-4831.
| 
