MUNCIE, IN – No doubt, the release of the movie Vampire Diaries, an X-rated title from Glass Ceiling Studios, is receiving a lot of attention – if, perhaps, not the most desirable form of attention.Rather than the theme, visuals or storyline, it is the location where the film was shot tht is raising eyebrows. Vampire Diaries, it turns out, was shot entirely on the grounds of the Kitselman Center, which hosts the Ball State University “Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry.”
Director Christopher Gregory, a Muncie resident, began scouting for nearby locations for filming in the summer of 2004, according to the Muncie Star Press. Gregory approached the director of the Virginia Ball Center, Joe Trimmer, and in August 2004 was granted permission to film inside the Kitselman Center, according to a location agreement obtained by the Star Press and signed by both Gregory and Trimmer.
Trimmer said that he was not aware the filming he was authorizing at the time would include sexually explicit material.
“We would have never signed a location release had we known this would be the content,” said Trimmer, who also says he was unaware of the movie’s release until contacted by the media earlier this week.
“That [Vampire Diaries] was not the film that was depicted to us,” Trimmer added.
According to the Star Press, the location agreement granted Gregory permission to shoot scenes for what he described as a horror movie under the working title Night Scream.
Trimmer says that he asked for a copy of Gregory’s résumé and noted that Gregory’s past experience as a director for MTV’s Real World and a children’s TV series for broadcast on public television.
A single coffin was the sole prop that Trimmer says he observed indicating that a horror film was being made, adding that he believed the film crew mostly worked at night.
“That was the last I heard of this until now,” Trimmer said Wednesday.
Gregory conceded that he never disclosed to Trimmer that the movie was going to be in the “horror porn” genre, telling the Star Press that the decision to make the film pornographic was a “last-minute decision.”
“From a director’s point of view, I don’t believe a filmmaker should be reined in creatively,” Gregory said.
Gregory added that he doesn’t believe Ball State has any grounds on which to sue his company.
“We had a right to shoot on location there, and we’ve not shown anything in the film that would identify it as being Ball State,” Gregory said. “We took every precaution with that. So unless you knew the interior of the Kitselman Center, you’d have no idea. A chair, after all, is a chair.”
Trimmer isn’t buying that into logic, saying that he believes Gregory “pulled a fast one.”
“He was pretty slick about the whole thing, in retrospect,” Trimmer said.
Gregory suggested the whole situation is much ado about nothing.
“I’m not ashamed of what I do,” said Gregory, who also authored the book How to Break Into the Porn Industry.
“Porn today is more mainstream than it’s ever been,” Gregory said. “People who think it’s evil are naive.”
