Look Out Hollywood, Here Comes College Town, USA

By Connie Defour

Staff Writer

ith the upcoming release of "Scream II," much debate has come about in regards to filming movies on college campuses. Agnes Scott College, a small women's college in Decatur, Georgia; is the scene for this sequel to "Scream." This campus also serves as the set in numerous other movies including: "The Bear," "Driving Miss Daisy," and "Fried Green Tomatoes." When choosing a location for the next movie, filmakers look for lush green lawns and gothic buildings that depict the picturesque college campus. As Cath Corgan, an assistant location manager, comments, "All that detail adds production values."

Some colleges,like Agnes Scott, readily welcome opportunities such as this. Appearing on the big screen offers a college that may not have been so well known, a chance to be seen across the country. In addition, shooting a movie on campus brings many internship opportunities to the student body with available positions as extras, camera loaders, etc... Although these filmings rarely bring much profit to the schools, they draw motivated prospective students. Schools have been known to even offer extra spots to prospectives willing to visit the campus. UCLA and USC both have entire offices that handle the scheduling of movies, television shows, and commercials.

Not all administrations can see the positive side of this situation, however. Susan Green, public information manager at Harvard, justifies Harvard's strong policy against filming on campus by arguing that "it's not part of the educational mission. It's disruptive." In addition, schools do not want perspective students and their families to get the wrong idea of their campus due to the content of the movies in which they appear. For instance, who hasn't seen the timeless classic, "Animal House," in which John Belushi and his friends break the beer guzzling records at the University of Oregon, which opted to remain unnamed in the film?

FYI- The most popular campuses for filming movies include: MIT, Smith College, University of Oregon, and Manhattan College. Whatever happened to old Trinity? Perhaps our #5 spot can put us in contention for a sequel to "Animal House."