Ames photographers are attempting to attract Hollywood producers to the heartland for the filming of A Thousand Acres.

Movie producers are scouting for a filming site for a movie based on Iowa State English professor Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres. Local officials are vying for those producers to come here.

Rich Harter of the Ames Convention and Visitors Bureau contacted the Ames Camera Club to take photos of Iowa’s farmlands to help set the scene for the up-coming movie.

Harter said he is enthusiastic about the prospects of having another movie made in Iowa.

“It’s an exciting process, and hopefully our state will be considered,” he said. “But there is a likelihood that any area other than Ames could get it also.”

Nebraska, Minnesota and Canada are also competing for the rights to film the movie, but Don Wishart, Ames camera club member, said he thinks Iowa has a good chance since two movies were recently filmed here—Bridges of Madison County, which opened the summer of 1994, and Twister, scheduled to open this summer.

“We visited the map room at the library, looked at aerial photos and studied land configurations before we got studied,” Wishart said.

Wishart received specific instructions about what they wanted photographed. The wish list included a big traditional farm home with a porch and two other modest homes near it and acres of farmland.

“We took some county maps and went driving to the sites. We shot some panoramic shots [to piece together] to get a quick look at what is available.”

Several club members took photos to persuade the Hollywood producers, Wishart said.

“Iowa is a very friendly place. People are very willing to accommodate movie makers. It’s not something that happens every day,” Wishart said.

Harter said he is trying to promote the fact that the author lives in this area.

Harter said the decision about the movie site will probably be made in late spring, with shooting to begin in August when the corn crop is at its peak.

“If they do come, we won’t even know they’re here. They tend to keep things low-key,” Harter said.