The PDX Executive Podcast interviews industry insiders from Portland and beyond. This week host Dan Bruton talks to Oregon Film Executive Director Tim Williams.

You can listen to it here.

The PDX Executive podcast is powered by the PDX Executive Forums.

Picture: Joan McGuire
Oregon Business

Sander Gusinow, Oregon Business, Arts and Entertainment, explores the growth of filmed projects and production business in Oregon over the last five years.  Read the article here.

The #OregonMade, live-action, “Timmy Failure:Mistakes Were made” will be premiering in the “Kids” section of the Sundance Film Festival 2020. This section of the Festival was created especially for the “youngest independent film fans. Programmed in cooperation with Utah Film Center, which presents the annual Tumbleweeds Film Festival, Utah’s premiere film festival for children and youth.”  “Timmy Failure” was inspired by the popular books of the same name (by Stephan Pastis, a New York Times best-selling cartoonist.  Pastis also wrote the movie).  “Timmy Failure” will also be showing on the new Disney +.

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made / U.S.A. (Director: Tom McCarthy, Screenwriters: Stephan Pastis, Tom McCarthy, Producers: Tom McCarthy, Jim Whitaker) — The hilarious exploits of Timmy Failure and his 1,500-pound polar bear partner, Total, as they operate Total Failure, Inc., a Portland detective agency. Based on the book by Stephan Pastis. Cast: Winslow Fegley, Ophelia Lovibond, Wallace Shawn, Craig Robinson, Kyle Bornheimer. World Premiere.

The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, from January 23–February 2, 2020. The Sundance Film Festival is Sundance Institute’s flagship public program, widely regarded as the largest American independent film festival and attended by more than 120,000 people and 1,300 accredited press, and powered by more than 2,000 volunteers last year.

#OegonMade

A new Oregon Film Trail sign will be unveiled in Depoe Bay (4 PM, Thursday, December 19^th, 2019).  The sign honors the town harbor’s starring role as a location in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  The Depoe Bay Chamber is hosting an unveiling of the newest sign on the Oregon Film Trail in the World’s Smallest Harbor – between dock 1 and 2. A reception will follow at Dockside Charters harbor location.  This sign marks an important filming location related to the classic feature film, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and features a few facts and anecdotes about the film as well as a reference to two other films shot close by (The Burning Plain and Sometimes A Great Notion).. The Depoe Bay harbor featured prominently in the film when Jack Nicholson’s character, Randle “Mac” McMurphy, staged an escape from hospital and led his fellow patients to the harbor where they commandeered a fishing boat and took it out for a day’s fishing. Dockside Charters provided the picture boat for the film when it was shot in March 1975.

This newest sign on the Trail comes on the heels of two others (relating to the same film) that were installed in Salem last month; one at the Oregon State hospital and the other at the Department of Correction’s, “Dome Building.” Visitors to Depoe Bay will be able to stand next to the sign and see the picturesque harbor in front of them. This sign is a collaborative partnership between the Oregon Film Office (partnered with the Oregon Made Creative Foundation) and the Depoe Bay Chamber of Commerce and has been funded in part by a grant from Travel Oregon.  Additional funding came from the Oregon Coast Visitors Association.

 Read More »

Exciting news today – the 47th Annie Awards announced their 2019 nomination lineup – with Laika Studios‘ “Missing Link” receiving 8 (as did Disney with “Frozen”).

The nominations for this #OregonMade stop motion feature are:

• “Best Feature” – LAIKA
• “Best FX for Feature” – CG Look Development Lead: Eric Wachtman; Lead CG Effects Artist: David Horsley; Senior Technical Director: Peter Stuart; Lead Technical Compositor: Timu Khodzhaev; Lead CG Lighter: Joe Strasser.
• “Best Character Animation – Animated Feature” – Rachelle Lambden; Characters: Multiple.
• “Best Direction – Feature” – Chris Butler.
• “Best Production Design” – Nelson Lowry; Production Design: Santiago Montiel; Production Design: Trevor Dalmer.
• 2 for “Best Storyboarding – Feature” – Julián Nariño and also Oliver Thomas.
• “Best Editorial – Feature” – Stephen Perkins.

Read more from Variety.

Mark your calendars, the Annie Awards will take place in Los Angeles, Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 7PM.  Congrats to Laika!

Open Signal‘s Black Film Fellowship is accepting applications until December 20th, 2019.  The fellowship allows six Portland-based Black filmmakers to immerse themselves in a creative environment that avoids the biases of extra-cultural critique, while fostering an environment of trust and experimentation. The Black Filmmaker Fellowship is a rare opportunity for social exploration and deep career development at Open Signal.

Open Signal Labs is an incubator for new stories at Open Signal, a media arts center based in Northeast Portland. Labs and its fellowship were created with a clear awareness of emerging opportunities for African-Americans in film and television, and the critical social and political importance of the Black perspective in all areas of storytelling.

Part professional development program and part content development studio, the fellowship was piloted in 2018-19. It is designed to help filmmakers advance their careers and to develop unique and high quality cinematic projects. Over the course of the 10-month program, fellows will create new works independently and as a group, challenging themselves and others to aspire to the highest standards. Collectively, the fellows’ work will explore a new creative operating model, which seeks to advance the culture of the industry at large.

The fellowship is comprised of four major components:

• Individual Project — Fellows will use Open Signal resources to advance their own individual projects in development.
• Group Project Work — Fellows will spend a designated number of hours in primary and secondary production roles on an existing Open Signal documentary project, with specific details shared upon acceptance.
• Professional/Career Development — Fellows will strengthen skills and experience with the intent to move into professional industry production.
• Exhibition/Distribution — With the support and resources from Open Signal, fellows will plan and execute a screening of their finished work or work in progress, build understanding or further develop relationships and processes associated with long-term creative sustainability and ensuring adequate compensation for creative work. In addition to the screenings, the exhibited works will be broadcast on Open Signal cable channels.

You can also find more information here:
http://opensignalpdx.org/labs2020

“Fire in Paradise“, the Netflix documentary chronicling the recent (2018) Camp Fire in northern California that killed 85 people, was produced by Gary Kout, based in Ashland, OR. The film was directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canapari, for whom Gary has produced many commercial and documentary projects including the award-winning feature doc “T-Rex” and the acclaimed Netflix doc series “Flintown“.

Both Kout and Cooper have ties to the town of Paradise and surrounding communities, and as the aftermath of the fire was making headlines, the trio teamed up with Netflix and began working on the doc. Filming began on Thanksgiving Day, two weeks after the fire flattened Paradise, and continued for a month, followed by six months of editorial. While cutting the film, the filmmakers felt they were missing a “visceral feel of the fire,” according to Kout, as well as a few elements that tie directly into the stories of the interviewees. In order to create and film these fire elements, they looked for a location that was safe and accessible. Kout had previously filmed at the Jackson County Fire Training Center in White City, OR and had found it very film-friendly. It would also meet the safety requirements of Netflix.

Other Oregonians involved in the making of “Fire In Paradise” are DP Tyler Maddox, Phantom Tech Operator Chris Vanderschaaf, and Art Director Dave Marshall down in Southern Oregon, and the Portland-based special effects team of Kai Shelton and Carly Sertic. Jason Wynkoop of Ashland provided some post compositing and clean-up.

The feature was directed and written by, Lara Jean Gallagher,  and produced by Aimee Lynn Barneburg, Davis Priestley, and Karina Ripper.

It takes place in Oregon (Florence and Portland) – “reeling from a one-sided breakup, heartbroken Karen breaks into her ex’s lakehouse. There, she strikes up a complicated relationship with provocative younger woman Lana in this beautifully rendered psychological drama and sexual coming of age story.”  Starring, Otmara Marrero, Sydney Sweeney, Will Brittain, Sonya Walger. Read about the team, and cast.

#clementinemovie    #OregonMade

FIND ANIMATION PRODUCTION JOBS IN OREGON

OregonAnimation is a new place exclusively created for the stop-motion community to connect job seekers with opportunities.
Artists, production people… this will be the place to post your information, images and link to your reel.

And, for a limited time, it is completely FREE!

Recruiters, teachers and producers looking for talent… this will be your resource to find the best talent in the stop-motion industry.

Go there now, register and start connecting the animation jobs and jobseekers in Oregon.

OregonAnimation is a partnership between Oregon Film, Alise Munson & Mark Nguyen of Keyframe and the animation community of Oregon. This free-to-use period will be on a trail basis for at least the next 6 months.