Every year around this time we take a moment to reflect on the work we do and why we do it.
First of all, the basics: Oregon Film (a/k/a The Oregon Film & Video Office) is a four person semi-independent state agency that is focused on fostering the economic development potential of the film and media industry in Oregon. Established by Gov. Tom McCall in 1968 to aid the permitting process for “Paint Your Wagon,” Oregon Film, as far as we know, is the oldest state film commission in the US.
We are here to both retain and recruit creative projects in Oregon creating jobs, content and small business growth. We do this with the help of an incentive program that has grown from a $1M fund in 2005 to more than $25M here in 2025. We regularly meet and speak with studios, financiers and distributors about projects that might call Oregon home. We work with local producers, location managers, liaisons, cities, counties and towns in order to bring production work into all parts of the state. We meet with and engage state and local legislators to highlight the strength and diversity of our industry and its value to Oregon’s economy. We connect projects to locations and we connect people to productions. We answer calls about creating “lookbooks” from our massive locations database and we review budgets in order to “tag” them for spending qualification in our incentive programs. In fact, we are one of only a very small group of state film offices that regularly review and accurately tag budgets for this purpose.
We work through 200-300 inquiries and requests each year and help to guide 30-60 projects annually through our various programs. We write and publish articles in our extensive Knowledge Base that helps people navigate all of our incentive programs, our locations database, filmmaker resources and Oregon’s Film History going from Recent and Current Productions and mapping our our entire Filmography dating back to 1909.
We also helped created both a “regional” and “local” incentive that focuses exclusively on rural production and locally produced projects, setting aside dedicated funds just for those purposes. This has resulted in projects being shot in Gold Beach, Enterprise, Molalla, Pacific City, Redmond and Eugene.
In 2022 we created the Creative Opportunity Program that sets aside incentive funds each year to fund workforce development, training, partnership programs, education and regional development. The idea behind it is that our industry needs to grow from the ground up in order to support larger projects and producers on an ongoing basis. This fund has helped programs like the Pathways Placement program, the Tell Your Story Grant, the Outdoor Adventure Film Grant and the recently launched Oregon Film Impact Grants. Projects and filmmakers coming through these programs have gone on to have films debut at Sundance, Tribeca and SXSW, obtain union membership and go on to develop and secure their careers and future projects.
We created the Oregon Film Trail and have helped to qualify the impact of Film Tourism in this state.
We regularly showcase the work and events of our community through our blog and then echo those stories, people and locations through our social media outlets and our monthly newsletters.
There are just so many different aspects to our work and that has transformed over time as our industry has wound its way through changes, contractions and expansions. We try to focus on people producing creative work in Oregon. This can be feature films, short films, animation, interactive games, commercials, documentaries and branded content. In fact, a recent economic development report showed:
The growth of the film and video sector in Oregon has been nothing but explosive. In 2004, [EcoNW] wrote an economic impact report of Oregon’s film and video sector. We found that in 2002, the sector’s direct output was $177.7 million, and its total contribution was $357.1 million. Compare that to what we calculated in this report for FY2023—$1,249.9 million in direct and $2,041.9 million in total contributions. Therefore, in 20 years, the sector’s direct output rose 603 percent and its total contribution rose 472 percent. These are extraordinary increases. And they far outpaced the whole economy of Oregon, which grew about 158 percent over that time.
We do this through growing our incentive program and ensuring it caters to what Oregon does best: support engaging and independently spirited projects. Our incentive programs are a cash rebate that are quickly processed and easy to use. Through the OPIF and Greenlight incentive programs, we have managed to work with 30-60 projects every year. These projects are from studios and from independent filmmakers alike. In the last year we’ve worked with projects from Netflix, Media Rights Capital, NBC, AppleTV and Amazon. And we try to make the process for both small and large projects as easy and responsive as possible. This is why producers and studios come back to Oregon. That’s why our crews are so respected and sought after. That’s why our locations are featured in so many projects that reach so many people in the world.
The other thing Oregon Film has pioneered is recognizing and growing the impact of Film Tourism in the state. Starting in 2016 in the south tunnel at PDX airport placing 21 posters over a 40′ mural, Oregon went on to develop the first physical Film Trail in the nation. The Oregon Film Trail has grown to more than 40 signs around the state bringing tourists into towns and cities like Jospeh, Klamath Falls, Astoria, Brownsville, Bend, Burns and, most recently, Dallas. And, through working with partners like SetJetters, we can now identify that Film Tourism in Oregon generates $151M per year in additional economic activity through travelers seeking out locations for iconic films like “Stand By Me,” “Wild,” “Animal House,” “The General” and creating the centerpieces for anniversaries like the 50th anniversary of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in Salem and the 40th anniversary of “The Goonies” in Astoria and Cannon Beach.
We like to think that we support Oregon being creative and then help bring all of that creativity to the rest of the world.
If there’s something we can do to help you or your project, please let us know.
