I went to last night’s sold out Live Wire show which was fantastic! The first hour was their coming Christmas night radio broadcast and it was packed with entertainment. If you don’t podcast the show, you should. The second hour was for a show that will air January 15 and it featured Gus Van Sant and Carrie Brownstein. Carrie did a fun skit with the team from the show who affectionately call themselves “Faces For Radio Theater”. Show host Courtenay Hameister played a clip from “Portlandia” titled “Dream of the 90’s is Alive in Portland”. Continue reading... ““Dream of the 90’s is Alive in Portland” – Portlandia”
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. Continue reading... “Live from Baker City, it’s New Year’s Eve!”
The Independent Film Channel is beginning to roll out more footage for the upcoming series “Portlandia”. At the film office, we’re waiting with baited breath for the premiere air date on January 21. Actually we’ve been invited to participate in the premiere party in New York City on January 19 as a sponsor. The premiere party will be at the Edison Ballroom in Mid Town Manhattan and IFC is committed to making the party all about Portland (rumor has it a popular local band will be performing). Continue reading... ““Portlandia”!!!! Footage Available.”
Turner Broadcasting announced today that D.B. Sweeney has been cast to play the lead in Electric Entertainment’s pilot set in Portland titled “Brain Trust”. Here’s the info on the pilot. Dean Devlin will be directing the pilot which is due to shoot in Portland in December for two weeks. We were thrilled to have Electric bring a second project to Oregon and even more excited to hear that they made the decision to re-write this pilot for Portland. The original script had set the pilot in Washington D.C. Continue reading... “D.B. Sweeney to star in new TV pilot set in Portland”
A few months back I was contacted by the PR executives at TNT regarding a profile that Costco was looking to do on “Leverage”. I was curious why Costco of all companies was interested in talking about Oregon Film and Video but when I found out that their Costco Connections gets sent out to over 8,000,000 people nationwide, I realized it didn’t really matter why they were interested, it was great exposure for our state and this industry.
I was sent this website today which has some great material from the show. Lots of behind the scenes footage which shows off Portland in a great way. Even Jim Clark from Hive FX made an appearance in the clip about the skateboarding scenes.
In today’s Oregonian Kristi Turnquist writes about IFC’s announcement of “Portlandia’s” premiere date. I’ve had several conversations with IFC about their plans for promoting the show and I can say that the cable network is 100% behind “Portlandia”. Expect to hear of some cool promotional efforts surrounding the show soon! In the meantime, set your DVR’s for January 21 for the premiere episode!
This past week there were two news articles of note; one in the Eugene Register Guard and the other in the Ashland Daily Tidings. In Eugene writer Mark Baker profiled Katherine Wilson’s efforts to start a film museum in the Willamette Valley. For those of you who have seen Katherine’s photos from the days of “Animal House” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, you know she’s collected a lot of film history on her own – here’s the article. Continue reading... “Fun Film News out of Ashland and Eugene”
In case you haven’t already caught Aaron Mesh’s profile on Carrie Brownstein, here’s a link to the article. Carrie’s diverse talents as musician, writer and actor make her a perfect representation of Portland’s creative class. I don’t know if it’s because you need to be versatile to make a career in a small market like Oregon, or if it’s in the fabric of the region that creative professionals have many talents.