Live from Baker City, it’s New Year’s Eve!

Very exciting news from Japan! They’ll be shooting LIVE in Baker City for their big  New Years Eve Show.   It’s sort of like our Dick Clark’s rockin’ New Years Eve,where they flip to different venues around the country-only the Japan version is flipping to different interesting venues around the world. Yep. That’s right, including us in Oregon. We think this is the first time Japan TV has ever broadcast live from Oregon for any reason. Unbelievable TV Show is one of the highest rated TV shows in Japan, now in its 11th season. More than 15 million people watch every show, more than double that for this NYE special! We’re thrilled here that they chose the Geiser Grand Hotel in Baker City Oregon.

Given the time difference, the filming will take conclude 6am Pacific time on December 31. Resonance Productions  (Oregon based award winning filmmaker) will film the whole event, and share an edited piece for broadcast by 1pm December 31. Please email your preferred method of receiving this piece, together with any specs or requests, to [email protected]

This will be Director Nakayama’s third trip to film the Geiser Grand Hotel. His first story, filmed 11 yrs ago, proved to be one of the most popular, making #1 on the “best of ten years” retrospective. When asked “why the Geiser Grand Hotel?” Nakayama said “it’s authentic, you feel the real history everywhere, and its so beautiful”. (He also raved about the ribeye steak).

Nakayama is intrigued by ghosts. He’s sought out ghosts all over the world for 13 years of filming. The Geiser Grand is the only place in which he has had a personal experience.

The October 2010 show was enormously popular; You can view the movie here. Fuji TV says that it generated so much viewer traffic that it crashed their whole website. And that’s why they are coming back again; this time they are coming with a crew of more than a dozen people—even bigger. And now spending real money. Hmmmm. Economic activity increasing after successful small shoot; it happens!

Travel Oregon helped us to craft  a travel package to Japanese who are clearly intrigued by Oregon’s wild gold rush heritage. While the production budget is pretty minor economic impact, we hope that the power of TV/films to bring rich visual images to everyone will translate to increase heritage tourism here in Oregon. See the venue, available to the film industry, in a virtual tour here: http://www.geisergrand.com/360/tour.html

Email me [email protected] for more information on filming opportunities or to plan your own perfect getaway.

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