Nike founder Phil Knight isn’t just about shoes – he opened a movie studio here in Hillsboro just a few miles from where I work in the sleepy little farming town.  Laika is a huge studio – covering a city block where artists used skateboards to get around faster.

They just finished the stop-motion clay-mation 3D film Coraline – which is opening tonight and then nationwide tomorrow.  Directed by Henry Selick, the same guy that did James and Giant Peach and Nightmare before Christmas, it seems to be promising.  The local free paper did a good review of the studio and the folks that worked on it. Good story – but the takeaway is that the studio may go away depending on how Caroline does.

Seems like Portland has fits and starts at getting a film industry going.  Movies come through the town about once or so a year – such as the latest vampire movie Twilight, but there seem to be far more creative types than steady jobs. Still, it’s always great to see familiar locations in your movies – many of which I’ve had the good fortune to be able to visit or see the actual places various scenes were filmed.

Here’s some goodies that have been filmed in Oregon if you’re trying to find a good netflix rental:
Animal House, Without Limits, Twilight, Goonies, Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, Bandits, Zero Effect, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Drugstore Cowboy, The Shining, Mr Holland’s Opus, Stand by Me, Fools Rush in, Mean Creek.