Production trailers have lined the streets and the film reels have begun to roll.
Recently the city of Hammond has opened up its community arms to allow a few filmmakers to produce scenes for movies. Upcoming titles such as “Beautiful Creatures” and “The Demented,” as well as a few others, have filmed have scenes utilizing Hammond and Southeastern’s scenery.
The Hammond community has been hospitable to its guests.
“Everything’s been great,” said Dave Foulton, the “Beautiful Creatures” media relations representative. “I think they’ve been very, very cooperative. The key is you just want people to be respectful of what you’re trying to do.”
“Beautiful Creatures” is adapted from a best-selling young adult novel of the same title. The crew filmed in downtown Hammond on South Cypress Street at the Ritz Apartments.
“The Demented” raised the undead on campus. For the horror movie, extras were dressed up as the walking dead and zombies were sighted in multiple places including Sims Memorial Library and the Biology Building, as well as running through the Student Union.
“The filming of ‘The Demented’ overlapped with a class I was teaching on the third floor of the biology building,” said Dr. Rick Miller, associate professor of biological sciences. “When they were filming on the fourth floor, my students and I were working in the lab (we collectively work in the lab every day of the week for long hours), and then some scenes were filmed in the potting area and in the greenhouse which houses our collection of rare morning glories.”
Dr. Miller continued to describe the rarity and importance of these flowers.
“We recently received an important seed donation to our collection from Professor Eckhart Eich from Germany representing 15 years of collecting from around the world. It would take thousands of dollars to replace any one of these plants if they were accidentally killed.”
Miller assessed that the film crews were very respectful of the greenhouse and all of the science department’s research.
 “The crew for this movie was sincere, focused and hard working,” said Miller. “They were extremely respectful and did everything they could to not infringe on our research and appreciated the rarity of our plants. They moved a few things around in the potting shed and took pictures of everything to make sure it was all put back exactly where they found it (they did have a nice collection of cameras). We even talked briefly about zombies and I brought to their attention the very interesting book about ethnobiology and  the zombification process in Haiti called ‘Passage of Darkness’ by Wade Davis (BL 2530 .H3 D37 1988 in our library). I wish them well with their movie.”
The Film Commission, Tangi Tourism, Downtown Development District and City of Hammond will be meeting about the movie productions in Hammond on July 23.