Memphis crime drama shoots scene in Ama

St. Charles Parish has been standing in for Texas for the past few weeks during filming of “The Fields” and now Ama served as the setting of a Memphis crime drama.

“Memphis Beat,” which stars Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) as a Memphis cop who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator and lives with his mother, shot a scene for the TV series at the Ama airport.

Though some scenes for the series, which will appear on TNT, were filmed in Memphis, most of it was shot in New Orleans, according to The Sun Times.

Filming of “Memphis Beat” coincided with filming of “The Fields” in Ama last week.

In “The Fields,” Sam Worthington (Avatar) plays a local Texas policeman who teams up with a cop from New York to investigate a series of unsolved murders, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Scenes for the film have been shot in Bayou Gauche, Norco and Ama.

Filming of the movie has wrapped in the area, according to Corey Faucheux, the parish’s director of economic development.

“It’s unusual to have two separate productions going on, especially in the same town,” Faucheux said. “We have had more than one production going on before, but they are usually in different areas of the parish.”

Faucheux said the parish received several phone calls and emails from residents wondering what was going on during the filming.

While Hollywood trucks may have concerned some residents, it does pay off for the parish.

Faucheux said he has heard that around $5,000 is spent in the parish every day a film crew sets up shop.
“That can be money spent on anything from site cost to lunch,” he said.

Though the parish does want to recruit as many production crews as possible, Faucheux said they will only do so when it won’t disrupt the normal flow of business or affect the daily lives of residents.