The Oregon film community's official blog.
RJ Mitte who plays the son in the AMC series “Breaking Bad” appeared on KATU’s AM Northwest yesterday morning. Here’s the link to the piece. RJ is in town filming “House of Last Things” which is being directed by Michael Bartlett. “House of Last Things” was the third film to apply for the new iOPIF program.
Between KATU’s piece on RJ and KOIN’s piece on Lauren Henry, it’s been a media flury this week for Film and Video projects in Oregon!
I finally got around to reading the Sunday NY Times and noticed this article about Converse’s efforts in the music business. Immediately I thought of my friend JT Griffith who works at Nike as their music licensing consultant. These days music licensing is critical for nearly every marketing plan. Previously he was a music supervisor for film and television projects. So why am I writing about a shoe company and why am I interested in what’s happening in the music business?
Lauren Henry from Corvallis based Talented Animals was on KOIN’s show Studio 6 yesterday. Lauren has been a great resource for the Oregon Film community as she’s always out there plugging our state as a great place to film. I also happened to be in a meeting yesterday where I met John Sechrest from Corvallis and the one thing he mentioned relating to Oregon Film was this video. He helped the production secure a space for the video and spoke very highly of the experience.
So I was doing the Oregon Film rounds Friday night (very rare for me). I first stopped by OMPA’s “Oregon’s Got Talent” event which was literally packed with talent. Then I headed over to a wrap party at the North Portland Chopsticks – equally fully with creative talent. At the party I heard producer Neil Kopp was at the bar celebrating the news that “Meeks Cutoff” got a distribution deal with Oscilloscope Laboratories. I went looking for Neil before my curfiew of 11:00 but could not find him to congratulate him on the news.
We get calls each week from motivated, young, job seekers who are either entering the work force directly from school or taking their career to the next level. It can be daunting knowing where to start and so in answer to these queries, we created the career builder page as an addition to the job hotline resource on our site. We hope it will be a useful initiative full of advice, suggestions and tips. We consulted with industry professionals to get their take on what makes a resume standout and they also gave us some great do’s and don’ts on the job.
So I love nothing more than doing a little googling on a Thursday night (kind of sad commentary) and I came upon this piece that aired on KOIN this week. Last week the principals of the the show “Portlandia” held a low key press conference and KOIN’s show Studio 6 covered the press conference as well as the other local media outlets. They got some good stuff from Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein so check it out!
-Vince
Eugene, Oregon. The Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA Center) announces its Seventh Annual OpenLens Short Film/Video Competition call for entries. The deadline for submissions is 5PM December 1st. Screening and awards will take place during the three-day OpenLens Festival event – January 28th, 29th, and 30th, 2011.
Someone has to sing their praises: You know, the guys and gals you never hear about on talk shows or blog sites: the grips and the gaffers and the extras casters, the craft services and painters and prop finders, the location scouts and managers, the production office runners and p.a.’s and the transportation providers. These Oregonians never know where their next pay-check is coming from, and sacrifice a normal lifestyle with steady wages in order to be available on a moment’s notice to Productions who want to film in Oregon, and whose professionalism keeps these productions coming back.
It’s always great to hear of projects choosing to shoot in Oregon and when we heard about the producers of the documentary, Half Way Home, choosing the Ashland area over their native LA for some of it’s scenes, we learned the reasons in this case were threefold; less expensive, less red tape and solid talent. Gary Kout, producer and executive director of the Southern Oregon Film and Television organization, connected the producers with talented auto-giro pilot, Shawn Adams (Rotor-Head) in southern Oregon to get their tricky arial scenes.
The crew at Extreme Makeover have been working around the clock for the past few weeks to get ready for the big reveal of the School for the Deaf in Salem today. As well as the school, they have also overhauled their haunted house that acts as an annual school fundraiser.
For more information read the article in the Statesman Journal.com.
