The Oregon film community's official blog.
With 80s era hits such as Stranger Things and Sing Street winning praise from critics and fans alike, it is no surprise that the University of Oregon’s television network, Duck TV, picked up and produced PRIMO, an 80s feel-good miniseries following four aspiring yuppies through a night on the town.
Each episode presents a different characters’ perspective on the same night, culminating into a dramatic and fun final episode.
This week we make a literal visit to Sandy to say goodbye to a institution that not only changed our expectation deadlines (kind of establishing the mid-point between the “wait for it…” past and the “I want it now!” present) but also changed the world. Who recalls walking out of a Blockbuster video not just holding a stack of 4 or 5 movies (half of which you’d probably never watch) but also carrying a blue plastic encased VHS player/rental? Those were the days: tuning the TV to channel 2, making a few video tracking adjustments, and then settling in for some hi-impact-lo-resolution images on 1/2″ tape.
It’s not often The Shining meets Tony the Tiger meets The Grinch meets hipster drum solos, but this week, they all do meet up for a delicious hot cocoa and a rockin’ sing-along around the fire at a 1940’s Timberline Lodge.
And, that, my friends, is where Raider/Contributor Phil Oppenheim takes over…
Picture the Timberline Lodge in December, with its famous drifting snowbank reaching up to the second story windows.
As many of you know, The North Face launched a new “Ventrix™” jacket this fall and in collaboration with musician Maggie Rogers, produced an interactive digital outdoor/music themed campaign film, mostly shot here in Oregon. In case you missed it, here is some back ground on the film – The North Face teamed up with Rogers around the release of her newest track, “Split Stones” for what was called “The Release Project.” The project simultaneously unveiled the Ventrix™ jacket’s heat release technology and the release of Roger’s new track – the immersive digital experience allowed Roger’s new track to be revealed through movement with your smart phone – the more you moved, the more layer’s of Roger’s song were released until the entire track was revealed.
Alan Ball‘s new HBO series, “Here and Now” is set to premiere February 11, 2018. This 10-episode series was written by Ball (“Six Feet Under,” “True Blood”) and stars Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins. HBO describes the show as a “provocative and darkly comic meditation on the disparate forces polarizing present-day American culture, as experienced by the members of a progressive multi-ethnic family — a philosophy professor and his wife, their adopted children from Vietnam, Liberia and Colombia and their sole biological child — and a contemporary Muslim family, headed by a psychiatrist who is treating one of their children.
2017 wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, that’s for sure.
Nevertheless! Lower Boom did have a year filled with exciting projects, new partnerships and community support.
As we head into 2018, we’d like to invite you to come down to Lower Boom World Headquarters, (Dig a Pony!), and check out what we did in 2017, and hear about our plans for 2018.
Tuesday, December 19th
6 pm – 9 pm.
It’s a trip back to a time of Saturday Matinees and large groups of kids in the back of Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagons for Gen X-ers who remember when Television Stars made movies – long before the time of Movie Stars making television. For those of us who made those journeys – The Apple Dumpling Gang was right up there with Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit and, even, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. If you don’t remember it, maybe it’s time to check out the comic abilities of two icons: Don Knotts and Tim Conway, two bonafide TV Stars who took a trip into the Deschutes National Forest and came out with what can only be called an Apple Dumpling Franchise…with cheese.
(Shot in; Forest Park, Mount Hood National Forest.)
This month we are highlighting location professional, Beth Melnick, Northlight Locations. Beth describes herself as “a hyphenate”, a Location Scout and Location Manager – “scouting and managing call upon two very different sets of muscles and perhaps the one thing that ties them is curiosity about, and compassion for, other people and various environments. As a manager, it is my objective to put a bubble around the creative team so that reality never bites, while protecting the locations so that we may return in the future.
The #OregonMade “IKar” – is a custom built Mini that has been built from the ground up, with careful attention to suspension, tires and brakes. The IKar can currently accomodate 2 crew people and will eventually be able to accomodate 3.
IKar came to life when owner/operator, Mark “Sparky” Haleston, wanted something that “could go 130 miles per hour to track the Gumball Rally in europe – we needed a rig with a stabalized camera on the back.”
Oregon doubles for Alaska in this week’s RotLA edition and it brings some (early) Batman-esque Romp! Danger! and Romance! to the fore in the process. Yes, Adam West is this week’s featured artist in a Deschutes National Forest set feature which predates Mr. West’s glorious days as the first caped crusader to appear on our screens and sends him into the woods to find unexpected love with a Nature Child and danger from rogue hunters in the form of Petticoat Junction’s Lori Sanders and Theo Marcuse, respectively.
