Oregon was the first state in the country to launch a proactive film tourism program, establishing the Oregon Film Trail. This program spearheaded by Oregon Film has placed historic markers across the state of Oregon showcasing key film locations for historically-relevant films shot in Oregon.
As a loving expansion of this successful program, Oregon Arts & Film is developing a Lane County Film Trail to highlight more of the films made locally, and actively working towards a film museum based in Cottage Grove. More to come soon!
Additionally, OAF is working on a book that will serve as a guided tour with historic insight of the films made here locally that have impacted the world. Written by OAF co-founder Katherine Wilson, this book will provide historic photographs, behind-the-scenes stories, and location markers to help guide visitors to the locations set in your favorite films shot locally.
in Katherine’s own words:
A Filmmaker’s Guide to the Oregon Film Trail of Lane County
This summer we celebrate three of the best & biggest films ever shot in Oregon by launching the Lane County Film Trail- thanks to the Oregon Governor’s Office of Film & Television and in collaboration with their Jane Ridley and the Oregon Film Trail. We also celebrate other Oregon Film Trail Loops in the state such as Astoria in NW Oregon with its wildly popular Goonies Celebration and Oregon’s oldest film on record from 1909, Fisherman’s Bride; as well as others in the NE of Oregon such as the Wallowas and Baker City.
From a Filmmaker’s perspective however, Lane County’s Film History includes important film history for all of Oregon, including the now 100-year-old film The General, which hired 500 University of Oregon Students in 1926, who during WWI had access to “a simple code receiver for the University Newspaper by the Physics Department by 1922”; (Peterson) and in 1929 made their own film, Ed’s Co-ed.
Later the Morse code receiver and broadcaster had morphed into a full-scale studio for educational broadcasting in 1932, when the “Eugene studio on the University of Oregon campus (was) involving journalism, music and speech students.” (Wilson, 2021)
This became Oregon Public Radio Broadcasting. By 1957 the UO had created the OPB TV Station and a hugely popular Film Club that influenced major UO filmmakers like James Ivory and Ken Kesey; and who were not only learning how to use cameras and editing machines, but were showing Avant Garde Experimental films at the campus Mayflower Theater- of which also inspired what became the “poetic capital of the world” (Brakage) that brought New Hollywood Filmmakers to Eugene.
In addition, the McKenzie River Drift Boat’s camera footage, as was seen in one of the 1930’s World’s Fairs, made shooting stable river footage possible. (Dersham) Suddenly films with River scenes began filming here, such as The Way West, Rachael and the Stranger, How the West Was Won, Shenandoah, and Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Actor Robert Mitchum was in the 1950’s Jeff Chandler films shot in the Wallowas, but when he came to shoot The Way West in Eugene in 1967, it really became one of “Hollywood’s Back Lots,” thanks to the creation of the Oregon Film Office. However, Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1962) had already brought the likes of Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Dan Blocker, Don Devlin, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson to town to try to option the book for a film.
By 1969, when the filmmakers for 5 Easy Pieces stopped their caravan to just have lunch at Denny’s in Glenwood on Thanksgiving Day 1969 (Vidor) and were then invited by the Oregon Film Commissioner to stay and have dinner at the Eugene Hotel, Jack Nicholson met the Eugene Poetic Cinema Filmmakers there, and the rest is history. Nicholson’s Drive He Said and then the similar Getting Straight were instrumental in not only the creation of Chinatown, but later brought Personal Best, How to Beat the High Cost of Living, and Without Limits to town, while the local Poetic Cinema Filmmakers who were friends of Kesey’s brought Cuckoo’s Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion, Emperor of the North, Animal House and Stand By Me to Lane County first. These are just a few of the stories you will find embellished with photos in this book. Also see the SetJetter’s App for Q-R codes and more.
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