College makes movie cameo appeareance

By Charles Baynum//

Hood College is featured in “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the latest film in the horror franchise, thanks to the work of Frederick visual creator Matt DeMattia.

The aerial shot that includes  Hood College’s chapel and campus at sunset. The camera begins with a bird’s eye view above the chapel, then pans outward across the west side of campus. In the distance, the sun sets behind the mountains, casting glow over the scene.  

DeMattia, who has produced aerial footage of Frederick and Hood College for years, said Warner Bros. discovered his work online. “Back in spring of 2025, I got an email from Warner Bros. saying that they saw on Reddit one of my photos of Hood College,” he said.

The studio was interested in how his drone shots positioned the campus for a key sequence in the movie. “It wasn’t even really like the sky or anything like that. It was mostly just like positioning where they wanted and how the cross to come in, and that was like a big deal,” DeMattia said.

DeMattia said Warner Bros. initially considered foregoing the footage after hearing Hood did not want to be involved. “All of a sudden they came back to me and they’re like, ‘We can’t continue with the project,’” he said. “They were like, ‘Our legal reached out to somebody at Hood and they were like, we’re not interested in being involved.’ And I was like, that’s so weird.”

He contacted officials at Hood, who told him they had not been approached and were interested in participating. After that, the project resumed. “I don’t know exactly what that was all about … it was just some Hollywood cross stuff happening,” he said.

Negotiations followed over how the footage would be used. “They settled on something and then we went into negotiations for like a licensing fee,” DeMattia said. “They didn’t want to buy it out. All they wanted was a one-time payoff, like no residuals, like no … just one and done.”

DeMattia said he did not see the finished shot until the film was released. “I never saw the final or exactly how it landed in the film until I actually sat in a theater,” 

For DeMattia, the project was more than a licensing deal; it was a chance to see a piece of Frederick on the big screen. “It was pretty surreal to watch it all come together,” he said.

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