Ashland is an amazing place for film lovers. Movie Maker Magazine has named Ashland a “best place to live and work as a moviemaker”. Ashland is also home of the Ashland Independent Film Festival, Southern Oregon’s University’s Digital Cinema program and the locations of multiple film productions.
This week, we here at Film Southern Oregon are proud to announce that Ashland, Oregon is now the home to the 18th and 19th stops on the Oregon Film Trail, a network of trail markers placed in many iconic filming locations across he State of Oregon. The films Wild and Coraline are the latest films to join the Ashland Film Trail.
The Ashland Plaza is featured in Wild, the 2014 film adaptation of the best-selling book, starring Reese Witherspoon as Oregon author Cheryl Strayed. The story chronicles Strayed’s transformative solo hike along a 1,100-mile stretch of the iconic Pacific Crest Trail, which spans 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. The sign celebrating Wild is now in Ashland’s Downtown Plaza.
Coraline, the first stop-motion film from Oregon-based Laika Studios and adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novella of the same name, was inspired by a fictionalized version of Ashland. The film tells the story of Coraline, a young girl living is a very Ashland like town, complete with a large Shakespeare festival. The sign celebrating Coraline can be found at the intersection of Pioneer Street and East Main Street in front of OSF’s Black Swan Theatre and the Ashland Chamber of Commerce.
These signs are a collaborative partnership between the Governor’s Office of Film & Television (Oregon Film), in partnership with the Oregon Made Creative Foundation and was paid for in part by a grant from Travel Oregon, a grant from the City of Ashland facilitated by Andrew Gay, Associate Professor & Program Coordinator Digital Cinema at Southern Oregon University, in partnership with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and with support from us here at Film Southern Oregon.
To celebrate these new signs Film Southern Oregon is encouraging everyone to go take a selfie with them and post the picture on social media with the hashtag #oregonfilmtrailashland. We can’t wait to see your pictures!
For more information on the Oregon Film Trail go to https://www.historicoregonfilmtrail.com.
