Oregon Production Programs Offer Locals Pathways to Film Careers
variety.comTodd Longwell A production coming to Oregon with an in-state spend of $1 million dollars or more doesn’t have to hire locally to qualify for the state’s incentive program, but it’s still likely to be staffed largely by Oregonians. “Over the last eight or nine years, in excess of 85% of the crews on larger movies have been locals,” says Tim Williams, exec director of Oregon Film, aka the Oregon Governor’s Office of Film & Television. “We have young members coming in all the time and a lot of them came in within the last few years,” says Portland-based Sierra Bay Robinson, a veteran costume designer who now works full-time as the southern business agent for IATSE Local 488.
But she says it’s hard to accurately measure the increase in membership for Oregon alone, since Local 488’s jurisdiction includes three other states (Washington, Montana and northern Idaho).
Many states offering film and TV incentives pay lip service to workforce development, but few take it as seriously as the Beaver State does.
In 2018, it launched the Oregon Media Pathways program, which trains people from historically disadvantaged communities for entry-level production jobs.
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