A Loami-based filmmaker is looking to use a former Jacksonville college as the back drop for his latest project.
Director Ash Hamilton, whose found-footage film Holes In the Sky: The Sean Miller Story is racking up awards and getting major streaming time on several platforms, is looking to bring his next project to the former MacMurray College campus.
The Holes In the Sky film was shot almost entirely in rural settings in Western Sangamon County. Hamilton says he wants to use his home for the tone of his films: “In this case, for what our needs are and for the tone of the film, and for the fact that we just want to support some local art and local film-making, we’re definitely doing the film in Illinois.”
Hamilton says the scope of the Jacksonville project is a horror/science-fiction anthology dealing with the end of days called F’d: Tales from the End Times: “It’s a horror anthology mainly as a sci-fi/horror/thriller anthology. We’ve got four other directors that are working with this, all doing an individual segment. These are five stories that take place all on the day the world ends, all from feature film directors ranging from John Isberg who did Final Summer that will be available for theatrical release soon to Dillon Brown who is working on his next feature called Ghost, and a couple of other local filmmakers Josh Brucker and Ben Harl, who are from the Champaign and Decatur areas. So, it’s five stories centered around the same universe and the same day which is when the world ends. We will be shooting our primary sequence, which is actually the culmination of all the efforts from the films – this big, sort of huge, very cinematic sequence at the old MacMurray College campus in Jacksonville on April 22nd and 23rd.”
Hamilton says if you want to be an extra in the shoot, they will take you for the large production: “We’ll be shooting on both Saturday and Sunday from 8AM to 6PM. That doesn’t mean someone needs to be there at 8AM. We’ll be shooting basically throughout the whole day both for interior scenes and some exterior scenes. If anyone has further questions, you can reach me at casting@horror-fix.com. We can give you all the casting information and arrangements. Basically, you can come and we can give them all of the casting arrangements and say ‘Hey, we have some openings here. Here is what we need you to pantomime or act.’ We’ll put you through some sort of ropes on how and what we need. Almost everyone will be featured because it is a very long sequence and it’s something that we definitely need bodies for. Anybody who comes down, we will probably find a way to work you in and get you on screen.”
The film wraps this summer with an expected theatrical and Video-On-Demand release in early 2024.