Two episodes of a Portland-produced docuseries about Black Oregon entrepreneurs will debut Friday at the Hollywood Theatre. The premiere will be part of a larger event called “Black Friday,” hosted by Microenterprise Services of Oregon director Cobi Lewis. The night will include a panel of business leaders including Pitch Black PDX founder Stephen Green, All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner, and Black Founders Matter Fund principal Marquita Jaramillo.

The first episode, only five minutes in length, centers around North Portland businessman Paul Knauls, and documents his journey from purchasing and owning the historic jazz venue The Cotton Club, to becoming co-owner of his wife’s barbershop after her death. The other episode, 20 minutes in length, features DJ OG One and path to becoming the official DJ of the Portland Trailblazers, as well as the BIPOC enterprise hub Creative Homies.

The series is a collaboration between film company Devin Boss, the owner of North East Production’s docuseries “Where We Going,” and art producer Zoe Piliafas. Boss and Piliafas previously worked together on the short documentary “Never Look Away” about Piliafas’ work producing a multi-story Portland mural dedicated to the LGBTQ community.

Boss says he had an idea for a film project on Black entrepreneurs for two years. He produced the series on a $20,000 budget.

“What we wanted to do was pay homage to the trailblazers of the Black business world. We’re going to open this up so that we can’t we can’t forget how we got here,” says Boss. “DJ OG One is an extremely busy person, but he was also so accessible. He had every reason to set me aside or do something more peripheral, but he really gave me room and space to tell the story. I think it was just one of those things making sure that the story I was telling has a line to something meaningful about Portland’s Black evolution and revolution.”

Piliafas is currently working on securing funds for the third episode of the series. She s ys when Boss came to her with the idea for the series, she thought such a series would lend itself well to a larger conversation.

“It felt so story-driven, so emotional, and human-driven, and woven into it was the politics of Black Portland, which is essentially the politics of the city and the ways and places in which we need to do better. But in it there is a thriving genius that is still there and still moving around Portland within Black community,” says Piliafas. “I think the more we got into what he was building and the story, the more we realized that this could also be a place to have conversation around Black economics and to have continued conversation so we kind of built from there.”

Piliafas called the two episodes “prototypes” and says the future of the series depends on the production company’s ability to generate more financial support from the community.

Large-scale film production has stopped completely in Oregon, due to the Writer’s Guild of America strike, according to Tim Williams, executive director of the Oregon Office of Film & Video.

More than 11,000 people are currently on strike with the WGA, leading scripted series and late-night programs like The Tonight Show and Last Week Tonight to halt production. While the most dramatic impacts have been in California and New York, Williams says the strike has also put an end to productions in Oregon.

As of mid-July, the writers’ strike had dragged on for more than two months, and performers’ union SAG-AFTRA was poised to join writers on the picket line. SAG-AFTRA had already voted to strike beginning July 1, but pushed back the strike date to July 12. If the union fails to reach a deal by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, actors will join writers on the picket lines — a move likely to disrupt even more productions. It would be the first time screen actors have struck since 1980.

Williams did not say how many Oregon film and television productions shut down when the WGA strike began in May, but a look at last year’s numbers can give a sense of the potential impact.

The Oregon Film Office recorded $117 million in film, television, commercial and media production spending during the fiscal year 2021-2022, producing more than 30 film projects through Oregon’s film incentive, which includes any project spending $1 million or more, supporting 3,000 jobs and bringing  out-of-state money to local vendors.

“We have had a few smaller indie productions but even those are wrapping up and/or delaying their starts now,” Williams told Oregon Business over email.

---

---

He says Oregon’s animation studios don’t appear to have been impacted, since animation’s long, meticulous process means scripts are locked earlier in the development process. 

David Cress, producer of Oregon-made TV series Shrill and Portlandia, confirmed the strike has shut down production of all  scripted series in the state. And he’s not optimistic the strike will end any time soon. He likened the ongoing strike to a yellow flag in race car driving – putting the brakes on studio spending and leaving steaming services all a chance to profit without having to compete.

“The strike is like a yellow flag for these new streaming services to start profiting from the service but not laying out any new big expensive shows,” Cress tells OB over email. He says this profit period means streaming services can take a break from fierce competition without losing any market share, which may draw out negotiations and work against writers. 

Cress says television networks’ rush to start their own streaming services compounds the situation. He says new streaming operations are under tremendous pressure by stockholders to prove they can be profitable,  and that film production was ramping down prior to the strike.

“It’s hard to see the immediate incentive the studios and streamers have to resolve this quickly,” writes Cress.

Strikers are concerned about the changes streaming services like Netflix have made to the industry, including not paying writers residuals, the portion of money writers traditionally receive when their shows rerun on television. Other concerns include career development opportunities for newer writers, some of who claim they can’t make a living wage writing for television.

---

---

Oregon filmmaker Jason Wilkinson says the writers’ strike has made him reconsider career paths, veering away from screenwriting and towards directing. Wilkinson currently makes his income from commercial shoots, and it doesn’t make much financial sense to continue as a screenwriter given the landscape.

“It seems like writers are not getting the attention or the deal that they need to make a living at it. Just going over the issues, it’s compelling. They’re clearly in the right.” says Wilkinson, who adds that he has empathy for the predicament studios are in as well.

“I understand that everybody’s having this weird crunch. People across the industry are getting laid off, not just as writers,” says Wilkinson. “It’s just convenient all this is happening at the same time. It very much plays into that cliché — when it rains, it pours.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has launched an emergency fundraising campaign, saying it needs to raise $1.5 million by June or will be forced to cancel the season.

On Tuesday, the Ashland-based theater company announced the launch of The Show Must Go On: Save Our Season, Save OSF. According to the website, the organization needs to raise $2.5 million total — $1.5 million by June — in order to continue performances this year.

The press release says OSF’s financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic and recent Southern Oregon wildfires created a gap in OSF’s funding between May and July of this year, and needs to raise additional funds to prevent closures and layoffs.

---

---

“OSF is launching several efforts to save the season and ensure that the company reaches its 90-year anniversary in 2025, and beyond,” says the press release.

In January the festival announced the departures of its executive director David Schmitz and director of development Amanda Brandes, plus 12 staff separations, seven furloughs — and a hiring freeze for positions that had previously been open.

At that time The Oregonian/Oregonlive reported that the organization had been struggling for several years to adapt to a combination of environmental problems and changing audiences and had ended the 2018 season with 26 shows either canceled or moved indoors, with $2.3 million in losses and 16 layoffs. Departing executive director David Schmitz said attendance for the 2022 season was 46% lower than for the 2019 season.  

---

---

Following last week’s announcement, the newspaper reported that the board of directors, which has taken on administrative duties for the organization, is working to sort through accounting issues that date back several years.

The organization says it is leaning heavily on donors to ensure its survival amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including a $10 million multiyear gift from the Hitz Foundation, $2 million from The Mellon Foundation has given $2 million. OSF has already secured $5 million in individual pledges towards stabilization, and the OSF Endowment Board released $4.5 million Endowment Funds in December.

“Through these campaigns, OSF is calling on benefactors—past, present and future—to help secure the company’s legacy by investing in its future,” said artistic director Nataki Garrett in the release.

---

---

OSF’s board of directors has also pledged $170,000, with  $50,000 coming from board chair Diane Yu.  

“OSF is a national treasure, and the Board is hopeful that this campaign will produce the needed funds to enable us to keep offering world class art to our audiences,” Yu said in the press release. “We are facing difficult scenarios based on a post-pandemic reality, but we are doing everything we can to prevent these scenarios from happening. Our hope is that everyone whose lives have been touched by OSF and values powerful theatre-making will help ensure its survival.”

“OSF has existed for almost nine decades for a reason,” interim director of development Kamilah Long stated in the press release. “This is an economic anchor for the Rogue Valley, a beloved theatre throughout the industry, and a beacon for innovative theatre-making. The Show Must Go On: Save Our Season, Save OSF campaign is just that: A way for everyone who loves OSF to come together, save this theatre that we all love so much, and make sure that OSF shows can go on.”

---

---

The company also announced it would scale back its productions. That includes the cancellation of It’s Christmas, Carol! so OSF can focus on  the 2023 repertory season.

Planning for the 2024 season is on hold, pending the results of the fundraising efforts.

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

As she said herself upon being introduced as the Portland Timbers and Thorns FC CEO, Heather Davis has worked in a triumvirate of male-dominated industries: politics, big corporate law firms and sports. That included a stint working for then-U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and nine years as senior counsel for the National Football League.

Davis first joined the Timbers and the Thorns as general counsel in the spring of 2022, and she now takes over after a tumultuous several years that began with a report by The Athletic about sexual misconduct and harassment by former Thorns coach Paul Riley (and the team’s failure to report it at the time). That ultimately generated two different investigative reports (one commissioned by U.S. Soccer and led by former Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates and another by the National Women’s Soccer League) — and resulted in the departure of longtime Timbers and Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson, as well as president of business Mike Golub. It also prompted team owner Merritt Paulson to resign as president and CEO.

Davis was officially introduced as CEO on Jan. 25; two weeks later, Oregon Business spoke with her about her love of both Oregon and professional sports, what it means to “do the work” and why Paulson will continue to own the Timbers even as the Thorns are up for sale.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

So what made you come work for the Timbers and the Thorns initially?

Well, I’m a fourth-generation Oregonian. I came back to be closer to family during the pandemic, with remote work, and then my husband and I decided to relocate. I always wanted to work for the Timbers. And so when they started looking for a new general counsel, I got introduced to them through friends at the league office. I’ve spent my career — legal career, at least — primarily in sports. So this was really my dream job, to be able to come back here and work for this brand.

Had you followed them enough from afar to have a “most memorable moment” watching the teams?

Well, I lived on the East Coast, so much of that time it was a little bit difficult to have followed closely. But last year’s [NWSL] semifinal game here at Providence Park was, I would say, the most exciting live sporting event I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to quite a few Super Bowls.

You not only worked for the NFL but were involved in their deal with Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League. What’s different about the business of running an American soccer team compared to the NFL or European football?

Well, there are a lot of similarities. [But] the NFL is a juggernaut. Here in the U.S., soccer’s still very much in growth mode, which I think makes it really exciting. There’s so much more possibility for innovation, and the Apple TV deal is a really good example of that. You get to be on the cutting edge of some things that the more established leagues are sometimes a bit later to adopt.

You’ve talked about how a city’s sports team is something of a public trust.

Oh, absolutely. These are community properties. People feel so passionately about their local team. It is an asset that everyone feels very invested in, and [everyone] has a very vested interest in their success. And I think that’s true of sports in the U.S. in general.

Of course, what’s interesting about the Timbers fan base is they’re not just going to tell the coach how to do his job, but they’ll also have strong opinions about the team’s role in the community. I have one colleague who’s even suggested the front office would be happier with just a run-of-the-mill fan, and if they didn’t have to deal with supporters groups in quite the way you do.

Oh, gosh. It wouldn’t be soccer if you didn’t have the supporters group. That’s what makes soccer soccer. We have a very passionate fan base, and it’s the magic — the secret sauce here. We wouldn’t trade that.

---

---

You talked in the introductory press conference about some of the changes that have happened with the team and about “doing the work.” Can you articulate what that has meant on a day-to-day basis?

It’s a journey. There’s no silver bullet for any of it. I think we continue to learn and evolve. One thing that we’re doing right now that is proving to be really impactful is our task force, [which] kicked off work in January. We have a group of people from both inside and outside the organization that are looking at the league investigations and our own policies and practices, and talking through what we need to do in order to comply with those recommendations in the league investigation. And also getting feedback, including from the Thorns player representative on the task force, about how these investigations can be done differently. What some pain points were, and questions they have. I think it’s going to be really useful for us here at the club, and useful for the league as well when we get to the end of that.

Who is on that task force?

It’s led by an attorney named Laura Sack [of Davis Wright Tremaine], who is based out of New York and has extensive experience in employment-related practices. We have Beth Flagler from Providence, who’s obviously one of our partners. She’s their head of human resources but also participated in college-level sports. So she brings a really interesting perspective. And then internally we have Stephanie Ludwig, who’s our head athletic trainer on the Timbers side. And then [goalkeeper] Bella Bixby is the Thorns’ player representative, and she’s been a great addition as well.

More recently, and separate from the Sally Yates and NWSL reports, Thorns head coach Rhian Wilkinson resigned after self-reporting a relationship with a player, while an assistant coach was fired for inappropriate and unwanted contact with a player. Disheartening as that was, would you say that is a sign of progress in a way?

Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s what accountability looks like. This is a club that is focused on compliance and player health and safety. And, you know, we followed all of the policies and processes and took the right steps. And I think that’s what the players expect of us. It’s what our fans expect from us, and I think it is absolutely progress.

One thing that I think people are struggling with is if Merritt Paulson had to remove himself from day-to-day operations, why is it still OK for him to own a team?

Well, he didn’t have to remove himself from day-to-day operations. That was a decision that he made that was entirely voluntary. He’s made that decision for his own personal reasons, and it wasn’t forced. He remains engaged as an owner, and we’re all supportive of him in that way, and he’s supportive of us and our vision for the club.

---

---

OK, obviously you can’t speak for him, but he also seems to be saying that, because of what happened, he has to sell the Thorns, the women’s team, but the same standard doesn’t apply to the Timbers, the men’s team.

We made the decision to sell the Thorns because we think that they need a fresh perspective at the league level. It was not any more complicated than that. This is a league and a team that’s going into the second decade. It is a league that’s undergoing a significant amount of growth and change. And there has been a cloud over them over the last year. We felt like giving them a fresh start was the right way to go. It doesn’t have to do with being capable or qualified to manage the team at all.

So ticket sales are trending back up?

Yeah, we’ve had a great off-season of ticket sales. On the Timbers side, the home opener is expected to have more fans than in 2022. All of our early matches are outpacing those same matches last year. And group sales are really coming back to pre-pandemic levels. Obviously, there have been a lot of challenges for live sports over the last three years, and we’re finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel there. The Thorns start about a month later than the Timbers, so some of that is still just picking up, but we’re expecting to hit, I think, 10,000 annual memberships by the start of the season for the Thorns.

---

---

So do you read Twitter? Do you stay away?

I stay away.

Does someone read Twitter for you?

My husband occasionally reads Twitter for me. But I told him he is only allowed to tell me the good things. So I do not get a lot from him.

What would you say was formative for you about working for the Clintons?

It was very unique and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, working for people with the leadership skills and talents that the Clintons had. And I have found myself, over the last six or seven months since I’ve been here, really thinking back a lot on what I think Hillary taught me: her resiliency and that ability to stay the course. You asked if I look at Twitter, and I said no, and that’s true. But that doesn’t mean you don’t hear all of that. The ability to just keep doing what you think is right, and tuning out some of that other vitriol and noise, is something that she obviously had to spend a lifetime doing. I have tapped into a lot of that sort of resiliency and courage and integrity over the last few months.

Merritt Paulson, owner of the Portland Thorns and Timbers football clubs announced Thursday morning that he plans to sell the Portland Thorns.

Paulson said he would not relinquish ownership of the Portland Timbers and that Peregrine Sports, the company he co-owns that currently owns the Timbers, will be a “key partner” to the new Thorns ownership group.

In the announcement, Paulson said it would be “in the best interest of the Thorns to have a new owner so that the Club can operate at the league level with a fresh voice to be a driving force for the NWSL.”

Paulson stepped down as CEO of the teams Oct. 11 in the wake of sexual abuse and coverup scandal involving former Thorns coach Paul Riley.

---

---

In September 2021, more than a dozen players accused Riley — who coached the Thorns during the 2014-15 season — of sexual abuse and coercion. The accusers included two former Thorns players.

Shortly before Paulson’s resignation as CEO, the United States Soccer Federation released a report detailing Paulson’s role in covering up the abuse and encouraging other teams in the league to hire Riley.

The 2021 revelations sparked protests at Providence Park, which continued this season, particularly following the release of the USSF report this fall. The latter also drew criticism from public figures, including Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who said that anyone who “knowingly covers up allegations of sexual abuse should have no role in professional soccer.”

---

---

The report also prompted the teams’ two fan clubs, the Timbers Army and Rose City Riveters, to formally demand Paulson sell both teams.

In October The Oregonian named two prospective buyers for the Thorns: a group of women led by former Nike executive named Melanie Strong, and a group of fans called Onward Rose City that says it has, so far, raised $9.3 million to buy the Thorns. Last week Willamette Week reported that Peregrine Sports is asking somewhere between $30 and $50 million for the team; on Thursday the newspaper quoted an anonymous source saying Paulson is seeking $60 million.

“I am fully committed to doing all that is necessary to ensure a smooth transition and the continued success of the Thorns, including providing favorable usage terms for Providence Park that will enable the Thorns to continue to capitalize on their popularity in Portland,” Paulson said in Thursday’s statement. “Additionally, in evaluating the new owner we want to be certain that our ongoing efforts to secure a top-flight training facility continues for the team.”

---

---

Paulson also pledged $1 million toward a NWSL-led effort to establish a player safety office.

“I support Merritt Paulson’s decision to sell the Thorns, his commitment to aid in a smooth transition for a new ownership group in Portland, and the $1M contribution to the league,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in a statement issued shortly after Paulson’s Thursday announcement. “This money will be used to launch a new NWSL Player Safety Department – coming out of this chapter in the NWSL’s history we will emerge stronger than ever before and make this a league the players are proud to play in. The Thorns, its players, its dedicated fanbase and the entire Portland community have played a key role in our league’s first decade and are critically important to the future success of the NWSL. We will continue to work collaboratively to ensure the players and the club have everything they need to be successful on and off the pitch.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

Beneath the swaying branches of Pier Park in North Portland, Vin Shambry watched his younger self with one hand over his heart.

He was surrounded by a full film-production crew, but his gaze rarely left Karter Halliday, the Portland actor who plays the 12-year-old version of Shambry in Outdoor School, an autobiographical film he helped write and produce, shot in Portland this year.

On the September day Oregon Business visited the Outdoor School set, the crew shot what Shambry said was a particularly painful scene to revisit. In it, young Vin shoves his sister (played by Zion Howard, another Portland-based child actor) to the ground for scuffing his favorite — and only — pair of Nikes.

Young Vin, played by Karter Halliday, at right, and his younger sister, played by Zion Howard.  Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

The scene is meant to capture the anger and frustration the younger Shambry felt as a child, and the movie as a whole portrays a painful episode in the writer’s past. When Shambry was 12 years old, his mother woke up him and his 4-year-old sister in the middle of the night with blood pouring from her mouth — the result of abuse by Shambry’s father — and told them it was time go.

The family left their home in North Portland and spent the nights sleeping in Portland’s Irving Park under a 50-foot-tall tree with branches that hung so low the family was covered as they slept. They couldn’t sleep in a shelter for fear of being separated, and they developed a nightly routine to avoid police patrols. They took showers at a local swimming pool and ate free breakfast at school, so Shambry was able to conceal his living conditions from his classmates.

Shambry says being homeless meant he had to grow up fast, and he never got the full experience of being a carefree kid. Then he took a trip with his sixth-grade class to Camp Collins in Oxbow Regional Park as part of Oregon’s Outdoor School, a statewide program meant to teach schoolchildren about nature firsthand.

---

---

Shambry says the trip was transformative. While he was initially excited to have all his meals cooked and a bed to sleep in, the experience of connecting with nature made him unashamed of his living situation. His time spent in the wilderness helped him realize his place in the world — as a son, a brother and a protector of his family.

“It made me realize that I had always been enough,” he tells OB. “I was a camper even before I had ever gone camping. Even though I was sleeping under a tree in the park, I was still a part of it all.”

Producer Ifanyi Bell (right) on-site. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

When Shambry developed Outdoor School with Portland director Ime Etuk and producer Ifanyi Bell, the group had two goals in mind: to share his story with a broader audience and to develop Oregon’s film-crew workforce by giving training and on-set experience to film-crew workers of color.

The filmmakers hope the project will serve as a catalyst for diversifying Oregon’s film-crew talent pool — and make the state a more attractive place to shoot.

After graduating from Grant High School in 2001, Shambry left Portland to attend the University of Wyoming, and ultimately received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York in 2005. After graduation, he acted on Broadway, taking roles in Rent and Miss Saigon before returning home to Portland in 2011. He’s a resident artist at Portland’s Artists Repertory Theatre, and his account of his Outdoor School experience was published in Occasional Magic, a 2019 collection of stories from the popular storytelling series “The Moth.” The book is a New York Times bestseller.

Shambry met director Ime Etuk in Portland on the set of a Secret deodorant commercial that aired during the 2017 Super Bowl. The pair immediately connected and began discussing ideas for a collaboration.

Director Etuk at work. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

When Etuk heard the story of Shambry’s childhood, he knew he had to bring it to the world.

“When I heard his story, I knew it was amazing,” Etuk tells OB. “I didn’t know his story had been a New York Times bestseller or anything like that. I just knew I had a production company, I had a few cameras, and that I needed to tell this story.”

Etuk founded Laugh Cry Love Entertainment in 2012; his directing resume includes the 2009 feature Hurricane in the Rose Garden, as well as a slate of commercials and short films. He’s also worked on film and television sets for more than 20 years, primarily as an assistant director, with recent credits including the FX docuseries Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur as well as Hulu’s Shrill and Showtime’s 2017 revival of Twin Peaks.

The two then contacted Ifanyi Bell, executive producer of Open Signal, a Portland media-arts incubator. Bell’s organization had a development program for Black film projects, and after raising the movie’s budget from local Black businesses, Outdoor School began shooting in August, with Etuk as the director.

Bringing Shambry’s story to life wasn’t enough for the filmmaking team. They wanted the business side of the movie to be as forward-thinking as the subject matter. They understood too well how difficult it was for film-crew workers of color to find work in the industry, and they wanted their project to address racial gaps present in filmmaking.

---

---

As part of the preproduction process, Etuk founded Lion Speaks, a nonprofit dedicated to giving people of color more opportunities in the film industry. His nonprofit’s first project was to staff the Outdoor School crew, which the organization did in collaboration with Open Signal.

Lion Speaks and Open Signal staffed 25 of the film’s 113 paid crew members. The crew positions mean more than just a paycheck: Film credits are the most valuable way to get another job and into the local International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 488, the film-workers union representing Oregon, Washington and Northern Idaho. More than 70% of the Outdoor School crew are either BIPOC or women.

Outdoor School boom operator Rachel Saldivar. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

“For me, it’s about more than just making movies,” Etuk says. “We said, ‘What if we used this thing to help elevate up-and-coming Black filmmakers and give people an opportunity that they maybe haven’t had yet?’ We are blessed to be working in these environments, but there are not a lot of people that look like us. We aren’t reflected. So we are going to do our part to elevate the next group of folks.”

A 2021 industry report from McKinsey & Company found people of color were “significantly underrepresented” on film sets. Despite being 13.6% of the U.S. population, only 6% of film directors or producers were Black, and only 4% of writers. Film crews faced similar disparities, with only 8.2% of film-crew workers identifying as African American.

The industry remains predominantly white (87%) and male (63%) — and that’s not good for business. The report estimated that by hiring more people of color and women, the film industry could increase its annual revenue by $10 billion — a 7% increase from the assessed baseline of $148 billion.

The model of recruiting and training crew through a nonprofit helps the film’s bottom line. Etuk says half a million dollars — 25% of the movie’s overall budget — was raised through donations to Lion Speaks and Open Signal from community partners. Donors include Meyer Memorial Trust, the Miller Foundation, Moda Center and Portland General Electric.

Bell says that even after the movie wraps shooting, Outdoor School will continue to pay dividends by creating a better-trained, more diverse film talent pool in the state. He also hopes to re-create the nonprofit-partnership model for other film projects.

---

---

“I’m hoping that once it’s done, we can start to replicate this model and refine it to the point where what we’re doing is no longer trailblazing and new. We want producers to see how valuable this process of hiring film crew through nonprofits can be, to the point where it’s no longer a foreign concept to them,” says Bell.

“There’s always excuses about why representation hasn’t been more common within the filmmaking [industry] in general, but at the end of the day, it comes down to money, ownership, representation and access,” he adds. “That means taking the time to reach out and find people to help you tell stories that are accurate, rather than stories manipulated by bias, misogyny and all things that, quite frankly, Hollywood has been known for doing.”

Production assistant Pasqueale JeVon Eddinger. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

For production assistant Pasqueale JeVon Eddinger, working on Outdoor School has meant the revival of a dream he thought had passed him by. Eddinger was recruited for the film by Lion Speaks, giving him his first film credit. An electrical engineer, Eddinger received a full day of training from the organization before his first day on the job.

“This experience has been so much more than I expected. I had always dreamed of being on a movie set. I was really involved with media in high school, and I got to wake up this morning and be on a movie set,” says Eddinger. “It’s kind of a miracle.”

Tim Williams, executive director of Oregon Film, the state’s film office, says the Outdoor School project model is exciting for the industry’s long-term prospects. He says diversity, equity and inclusion work is top of mind at many networks and production companies, and the ability to hire a diverse film crew to meet DEI goals will give Oregon’s film industry a leg up on the competition.

“It has taken a while to get there, but the networks and the greater film industry are getting really serious about DEI work,” says Williams. “In the short term, the Outdoor School project is going to get us a great movie, but it’s the long-term inclusion work that’s the really exciting part of the project.”

The Pier Park film set of Outdoor School. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

In 2020 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences set representation and inclusion standards for films to qualify for the 2024 awards. In order to be eligible, films must have either a lead actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, 30% of secondary and minor roles from at least two underrepresented groups, or a storyline or subject matter centered on an underrepresented group. Films that want to be considered for the award must also source at least 30% of their film crews from underrepresented groups.

Williams stepped into his role at the state film office in 2014. Under his tenure, Oregon has punched above its weight class as a movie state. Recent hits include Top Chef, which filmed its 18th season in the City of Roses, Shrill (produced by David Cress, who also acted as a producer on Portlandia) and the Nicolas Cage film Pig.

The Oregon Office of Film & Video brought $103 million in film, television, commercial and media production spending to the state during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. This spending supported more than 3,000 Oregon jobs, according to Oregon Film.

The office currently offers a 25% rebate on goods and services, 26.2% rebate on labor, and 25% rebate for purchases or rentals from Oregon vendors to any film project shooting in Oregon with a budget of at least $1 million. This year Oregon increased the state’s tax incentives and rebates program’s cap from $14 million to $20 million.

But Oregon’s incentive program still lags behind Washington, California, and Ontario, Canada. Washington offers a 30% rebate on in-state expenditures and has a lower minimum spend. California’s cap is $330 million — more than 16 times the size of Oregon’s.

For Shambry, no part of the recruitment process meant more than finding the young actor meant to portray him as a child. When local film producers want a child actor capable of carrying a lead role, they often bring in out-of-state talent. Shambry assumed his production would do the same, until he met Karter Halliday, who approached him while Shambry was auditioning for another part at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Northeast Portland.

Vin Shambry and Karter Halliday, the young Portland-based actor who portrays him in the film. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

“We were there looking for little Black girls to play my sister, and this boy Karter came up to us, sat down next to us in the cafeteria and introduced himself,” Shambry says. “He said he wanted to be a performer, and he asked if we like chicken. I said I was a vegetarian, but I saw the hustle. I saw the glint in his eye, and I said, ‘I see myself in this kid.’”

Shambry says the process of bringing Outdoor School to life has been inspiring. He even brought his mother to the set, where she got to see the story of her family as it was being brought to the big screen.

“I called her up and she was like, ‘When is that play going to happen, Junior?’ And I told her ‘No, Mom. It’s not a play, Mom. It’s a real movie,’ and she got so excited,” says Shambry. “She’s all about it.”

Halliday as young Vin and actor Cycerli Ash, who plays his mother. Photo by Jason E. Kaplan

Shambry says Outdoor School is a story of endurance, and that seeing so many Black creators working on a project together has been inspiring.

“This isn’t just my story. It’s a lot of people’s stories. It’s the story of Black Portland in the ’90s. It’s a story about the perseverance of Black women, and what they endure countless times without no one ever seeing it,” says Shambry. “This project is about something much bigger than us.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

When Gov. Kate Brown announced a ban on public gatherings in March 2020, Misty Marquam had just two days to organize a fully virtual auction. The event was an annual fundraiser for the Catlin Gabel High School, and had consistently raised $350,000 in the previous years. 

School administrators were counting on the funds raised by the auction. Marquam. founder and principal auctioneer at Marquam Auction Agency in Portland and Bend,  recruited students from the school’s audio-visual club and seniors taking technology courses to help with the auction house’s first livestream auction. When the event began, there was a high degree of uncertainty around how much attendance, and revenue, would be affected. 

“We had no idea if this was going to work. We didn’t know if anyone was going to watch the darn thing,” says Marquam. “We had to figure it out as we went because it had never been done before.”

A livestream auction event at Marquam Auction Agency. Credit: Marquam Auction Agency

The event exceeded expectations, raising more than $1 million for the private school. It also paved the way for a new auction house business model, which integrates in-person and online attendance. 

Since the pandemic shuttered large in-person gatherings, Marquam and other auctioneers around the state have incorporated digital elements into their auctions. Following in the footsteps of livestreamers and online content creators, auction houses have added more video content, animations and prize giveaways to attendees in chat as a way of engaging both live and at-home participants. 

Marquam says the COVID-19 pandemic “annihilated” her previous business model and forced her to reimagine her company’s events. The success of her first auction led her to develop new engagement strategies. 

Acrobats perform at a live auction event. Credit: Marquam Auction Agency

“We have been perfecting the art of the virtual event,” says Marquam. “We had people who were speaking too long and for no reason. We had to make it much more succinct and cohesive. We added a lot more video and graphics, GIFs and design. We’re very educational, and use lots of lots of graphs and statistics that tell the story.”

Moving into the digital space has allowed Marquam to include more information about the charitable organizations it supports, allowing remote and in-person attendees to learn where their money is going. Another innovation has been the use of text alerts when a user has been outbid, letting buyers participate in an auction by phone. 

For Terry Mangum, co-owner of Capitol Auction & Estate Services in Salem, adopting a hybrid model has brought in a younger generation of customers, as well as collectors from across the country. 

Preparation for a livestream auction event at Marquam Auction Agency. Credit: Marquam Auction Agency

Capitol Auction & Estate Services does not use live video feed for its hybrid auctions, only audio. But the online elements of the business have reshaped the company.

“As opposed to a general auction where you show us and see something and say, ‘Oh heck, I’ll bid on that,’ now people browse an online catalog describing and picturing the items. Now we get pre-bids weeks in advance,” says Mangum. “It’s changing from being more of an event to being more about people who are looking for particular things.”

---

---

While there has been a dip in sales from regular attendees who prefer the old way of doing things, the new model means the auction house now has bidders from across the country. Despite losing a handful of auction purists, the new business has mostly made up for their absence. 

“We’ve always had an online presence but when COVID happened we went 100% online. There was a dip in sales at the beginning but overall I would say our numbers are similar. It’s just changed the way we operate” says Mangum. “Just like COVID has.”

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.

There are six film productions currently shooting in Oregon — three of which would be affected if film crews strike, which the union voted to authorize this week.

And according to cdavid Cottrill, business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 488, Monday’s strike authorization vote was driven in part by a desire to improve working conditions in growing film scenes like Oregon’s.

Typically, studios and unions have worked with two contracts during negotiation: the Hollywood Basic Agreement, which covers 13 West Coast studio locals, and the Area Standards Agreement, which covers 23 locals outside Los Angeles. 

Adiy Bryant and Luka Jones pose on the set of Shrill. Photo: Allyson Riggs ©2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Both are at issue in IATSE’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Deadline reported this week, with IATSE officials saying AMPTP has failed to address issues such as unsafe and harmful working hours and failure to provide reasonable rest during meal breaks. 

Union officials say those working in the lowest paid crafts make “unlivable wages” and that workers on “new media” streaming projects get paid less than their counterparts on productions intended for theatres — even for streaming projects with blockbuster budgets. 

The union says the contract needs to ditch the new media exception, but streaming services have been fighting to keep it.  

“One of the reasons these deals went sideways is because of the influence of Amazon and Netflix,” Cottrill says. 

That discrepancy is of particular importance in Oregon, which has hosted a number of shoots for streaming services in recent years — most recently Hulu’s Shrill. 

 
Tim Williams (center) with writer/director Gary Lundgren (right) and actor Jesse Borrego (left) of “Phoenix, Oregon”Photo: Anne Lundgren

“There’s been a corporatization effect. It used to be that these film executives would be film directors or other people who came up in the industry. Now studios are being run by lawyers, not film professionals,” says Cottrill. 

“We have a very large content industry. At some point in time I don’t know if that’s going to be sustainable. I don’t think there’s going to be a crash but there is going to be an adjustment,” says Tim Williams, president of Oregon Film, the state agency tasked with promoting the state’s film industry.

One fear for Oregon film producers is what will happen if streaming services start producing fewer shows. Lower operating budgets are part of the reason streaming services expanded into Oregon quickly, according toTim Williams.

---

---

Williams says the union’s support of smaller, Oregon-led projects has helped Oregon’s industry develop, and called the the IATSE a “critical partner” to the development of the Oregon film industry on every level, and has meant less of a disparity between union and non-union work. 

“In other states there can be a big divide between union and non-union film work. Sometimes people take big stands for one or the other. Here that’s not the case.” 

Cottrill said non-union work served as a “proving grounds” for people who want to make it in the industry, rather than a viable alternative for larger studios. 

---

---

The strong presence of the IATSE Local 488 in Oregon has meant better working conditions for crew at every stage of production, on both union and non-union film sets, Williams says. 

“There’s a desire from small projects to use the boundaries set by the union and can end up going above that. People set meal breaks even when they don’t have to. It helps the crew members and educates the producers about union standards,” says Williams.

---

---

Oregon’s film industry has grown over the last five years, bringing outside money to shooting locations across the states. Williams also said that the rise of the delta variant has actually made production companies more interested in Oregon as a shooting location. This is possibly due to Oregon’s relatively strong COVID-19 restrictions — and its lower infection rate relative to other shooting states. 

Filming has also brought business to restaurant and hospitality businesses hurt by the pandemic — and legislators have taken notice. This year, Oregon increased its tax subsidy for out of state film shoots from $14 million to $20 million, according to Williams. 

Oregon’s increased tax incentive could help offset the cost should streaming services scale back production.

Cottrill says the vote — in which 98.68% of the 89.66% of members who weighed in on a strike authorization voted yes — showed solidarity between workers in vastly different film economies, and is sure to send a message to film industry executives who know film production will grind to a halt without the union’s go-ahead.

---

---

And for Local 488, the strike authorization serves as an opportunity. 

Union activity on the whole has seen a rebounding nationwide over the last five years, with Oregon locals leading the charge in negotiations with Nabisco, Kaiser Permanente and Kroger Foods. 

Cottrill is not worried about the threat of scabs, saying there was a crew shortage in the state even before the strike. 

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

As theaters and concert halls light up once again, new protocols — and new technologies adopted during the pandemic — will mean audiences will return to an arts scene that has both struggled and leapt forward.

Some venues will be requiring proof of vaccination for live performances, and have sought third-party certification assuring their venues are as safe as possible for audiences.

And while many arts organizations hastily pivoted to offering digital performances at the onset of the pandemic, some have decided to continue livestreaming events for the long haul.

“It’s a major moment right now for all of the arts,” says violinist Emily Cole at a Sept. 15 demonstration of Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall’s new sound system.

---

---

The new sound system will both enhance live performance and smooth sound for audio recordings — a sign of the times as arts venues both return to the stage and continue with newly popular digital offerings.

Cole and her fellow performers expressed gratitude for their ability to return to the space for the symphony’s fall season, set to debut Oct. 2. Several got tears in their eyes as they spoke with Oregon Business, and one musician described returning to the stage as “elation.”

Installation of the Meyer Sound System was planned before the venue shuttered last spring due to crowd-size restrictions. Robyn Williams, executive director of Portland’5 Center for the Arts — which manages the Schnitzer as well as Keller Auditorium and the Winningstad, Newmark and Brunish theaters — says the installation of the system was a “silver lining” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Management decided to go ahead with the installation despite an uncertain financial future.

Portland’5 executive director Robyn Williams.  Photo: Sander Gusinow

“There were too many community partnerships involved. To pull out would have been to lose too much money. We made the decision to carry on,” says Williams.

City and federal funding carried the organization for the last two years. The $3.2 million from the CARES Act and an additional $8 million in the form of a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant — made possible by the American Rescue Plan — meant the venue could continue to comfortably lay dormant.

Williams was not coy about the challenging financial situation, nor how difficult the last two years have been. She estimates it will be three years before audiences return to normal levels and revenues stabilize.

For that, Portland’5 is doing everything it can to keep audiences virus-free. All visitors must show proof of vaccination or a negative test, and all buildings have been accredited by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council, an international network that certifies facilities to prevent, respond to and recover from outbreaks and biohazard situations. Staff needed to be retrained, which was an additional cost.

“But things are looking good for P5,” says Williams, who mentioned an upcoming performance by humorist David Sedaris was nearly sold out. “People are hungry to come back.”

---

---

While audiences readjust to live performance, performing arts companies have already made the foray into offering digital content.

In Ashland the Oregon Shakespeare Festival welcomed back audiences in July, one year after the launch of O!, a digital platform which aired its first-ever livestream production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The move was part of a grander strategy to give the festival global reach. For a $15 E-ticket, audiences can stream OSF’s content from the comfort of their bedroom.

For Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, the pandemic meant a new, digital direction for the company. Artists Rep had created digital content before the pandemic, but COVID-19, along with a rebranding campaign with Grady Britton, gave the company a chance to reimagine what it means to be a performing arts company. Artists Rep produced a collection of 21 short films, digital performances and audio dramas through the Mercury Company, an artist-led collective tasked with creating content accessible under pandemic conditions.

Dámaso Rodríguez, artistic director of Artists Rep, says digital offerings have led to inspired, unexpected success.

“There has been a lot of play development work that has happened just in Zoom rooms,” says Rodríguez, who expects blending digital and live performances to be part of the company’s strategy moving forward. “The works can be unconventional. They can be digital, they can be in person, they can be hybrid. We are trying to capture the creative spirit of the online performances we did.”

On Oct. 22, Artists Repertory Theatre will premiere The Chinese Lady, the company’s first indoor live performance since COVID-19. But from September 18 to 25, the company performed Campfire Stories, an outdoor, site-specific version of a storytelling series created during the pandemic.

Across the country, theater companies have found success with digital audiences, especially newcomers. A JCA Arts Marketing study conducted last year and released in March found 43% of people who watched a live digital performance last year had never attended an in-person performance at the theatre hosting the event.

Artists Rep will continue to create short film content to make available online. Rodríguez also wants high-quality, multicamera recordings of live performances for online audiences. Online audience members will be offered tickets to these shows on a sliding scale — sometimes free — to grow awareness of the company nationwide.

The organization has also begun to offer online theater classes and workshops, and plans to continue to do so.

---

---

“We’re not going to let go of what we learned from working across disciplines. It’s very encouraging to keep thinking this way,” says Rodríguez. “Why are we often told theater isn’t for everyone? Because prices go up every year and the audience base doesn’t grow. This is a chance to grow and diversify our audience.”

Performing arts spaces are also taking precautions to ensure the safety of audiences and performers.

The company joined more than 50 performance venues, including the Oregon Symphony and the Oregon Ballet Theatre, to create the Portland Performing Arts Vaccine Coalition. The coalition ensures protocols are in place to prioritize the health and safety of audience members, artists, staff, volunteers and the greater community.

One of the essential requirements, that all audience and performers show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, has been met with some pushback. For some Oregonians, requiring vaccinations and masking up are political red flags.

“I’m not going to lie, we’ve gotten some hate mail,” says Williams. “But staying healthy is the priority. And I’m not sure those people would be coming to the performances anyway.”

Portland Center Stage has also felt the pandemic budget crunch. Instead of reviving The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — which opened Feb. 29, 2020, and shuttered in mid-March — has decided to produce a one-woman show based on the life of Frida Kahlo, using the Curious Incident set as a backdrop.

Cynthia Fuhrman, managing director of Portland Center Stage at the Armory, says her company learned a great deal about the online space during the pandemic. Online theater classes will become more prevalent. The digital space also offers audiences the unique opportunity to interact with performers in real time without derailing the show, something the company will capitalize on moving forward.

Inspired by this concept, Portland Center Stage will perform a “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style theater piece, where audiences will be able to choose certain elements of the performance as they watch in real time. The company will also expand digital talkbacks and digital happy hours.

Fuhrman was clear, however, that the theater will be focused first and foremost on live performances.

“We’re not sure how much we can support digital work,” says Fuhrman. “The live-theater experience is irreplaceable.”

“Over the last several years, our society has been conditioned to be able to access incalculable amounts of video content for free or for very low cost,” says Oregon Symphony president and CEO Scott Showalter. Though he expects the online offerings to continue, the symphony’s primary source of earned income will always be live performance.

Smaller venues, too, are beginning to offer digital productions on a permanent basis. For the Very Little Theatre in Eugene, the pandemic provided an opportunity to remodel, as well as launch the Virtual Little Theatre, an online platform of video and audio performances with content for children and adults.

The online platform was a success in bringing its members together, many of whom could not attend live shows due to mobility challenges. Additionally, the new virtual offerings have encouraged viewership from members’ families on the East Coast.

The company’s reopening ceremony on July 11 was also a livestream event.

“Before the pandemic, monthly membership was dwindling. People had mobility issues or scheduling problems. Now our member meetings are full,” says Jessica Ruth Baker, development coordinator of the Very Little Theatre. “The lesson we learned is that you have to meet people where they are at,” says Baker. “This has really changed the fabric of who we are.”

Actor Jean-Luc Boucherot performs in Danse Macabre:The Testament of François Villon. Photo: Sarah Marguier

For director Štĕpán Šimek, creating theater now — and performing in front of a live audience — is as vital as ever.

On March 12, 2020, his production of Danse Macabre: The Testament of François Villon through the Hand2Mouth theater company in Portland was shut down on opening night. The close was so sudden, the company had to have members on-site turn away audiences at the door.

On Sept. 16, 2021, the show received a resurrection.

“We just sort of came to the decision: ‘For crying out loud, we cannot let all these unvaccinated people decide how we live our lives,’” says Šimek. “We have got to start living again.”

All performers and audience members for Danse Macabre are required to show proof of vaccination. The intimate staging, which seats people shoulder to shoulder, may already test some people’s boundaries. Audience members will have to assess their own level of comfort returning to the theater.

For Šimek, the decision to move forward was not just about his own show. As people grapple with the decision to reenter society, the performing arts have a responsibility to raise the curtains.

“The arts are going to be a gateway for people to start to have a normal life,” he says.

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here. 

In October 2019, Jelani Memory made a splash in the publishing scene with his “A Kids Book About” series, designed to introduce children to serious topics in an engaging way, and encourage family discussion. Topics range from racism to empathy, adoption, autism, feminism and climate change.

The company’s business model revolves around a direct-to-consumer ordering website. The series has been a smashing success, with books being ordered faster than they were printing. The company moves quickly to get good information about complex topic into kids’ hands, publishing a free digital book about COVID-19 in March of last year.

Now Memory is expanding his operation: A Kids Company About, which launched in August, adds podcasts and streaming video content for older children (10 to 15) designed to introduce them to career paths, passions, ideas and life skills.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to expand your companyinto a streaming service?

I remember the exact moment. It was August of 2020 and business was going bananas. We literally could not print the books fast enough. I wanted to keep things small and not raise more money, but I was looking at this little book business that I started and realized it wanted to become bigger. More important, it wanted to have more of an impact than I as a CEO am letting it have by not growing the team.

I took some advice and stepped back from the day-to-day of the business to work on vision. It hit me like a ton of bricks. What we were good at wasn’t books — it was storytelling. And there were all these other venues to tell stories.

The first step was audio. I’ve been a fan of [podcasts] since way back when you had to download them on your iPod. My kids love podcasts. They wait for certain stuff to come out. I thought, “Wow, what a great place to tell stories for kids.” Then I thought about the audio-visual skills I developed earlier in my career and put two and three together.

I also wanted to connect with older kids. I have three teenagers myself, and you can’t give them a big, heavy book and say, “Read this whole thing, then come back and let’s talk about it.”

Given the stiff competition with other streaming services, how will your media company distinguish itself?

I had started getting into MasterClass, and I thought about what it would be like if instead of teaching you how to cook, act or negotiate, these videos taught life skills. How to discover that thing you’re meant to do. How to be yourself. Content like this really hasn’t been created before.

I remember being [a kid], and you run into adults at that age who inspire you and motivate you and become a part of making you who you are. I thought, “What if we can put those kinds of individuals in front of kids from a career perspective so they can see what it’s actually like being an architect or a musician or a lawyer or an entrepreneur?” Not to let them know everything there is to know about the career, but to spark interest to go down that path if they choose to.

---

---

What was the process like of getting the company off the ground?

What has spurred the urgency of the content we’re creating is the trauma and collective upheaval of kids’ lives. They were used to doing things in a certain way, and all of that got changed overnight.

Our books, our podcasts and our classes went from “Oh, these are nice things to have” to “These are necessary things to have.”

Our first step was raising the capital and finding investors. For some investors it was a tough sell, but that was OK. We had our pick of the litter in terms of choosing people who believed in what we did, and saw the Walt Disney vision of what we were trying to build.

What is the process like creating the streaming content?

The name of the game was creativity and speed. For the podcast, I hired a career librarian and two other people, and the idea was: “Let’s go find people with incredible stories to tell, who have a strong voice but who have maybe never done a podcast before.”

The most expensive thing we do is buy equipment. But apart from that, there’s a lot of creativity involved, and we’ve gotten some great results from people so far.

Creating the video content is very different. I hired a friend of mine from college who likes to wear every hat in production. He likes to direct, act, write, shoot, edit. He’s the only person as crazy as me.

I’ve heard from the blogosphere that MasterClass spends a quarter of a million dollars and up on their classes, which makes sense if you’re hiring Hollywood directors and working with Samuel L. Jackson.

That’s not us. We’re finding our own-voice stories, first-person perspectives — not necessarily the most famous architect in the world, but someone who loves their job and is really good at it.

---

---

How does a media company like yours generate revenue?

We have three separate verticals, so we have three streams of revenue. Books, which is our main source of revenue; podcasts, which is the least profitable, but we expect some marketing there in the future. Last but not least is the digital recurring subscription, which is the golden goose for media companies these days.

With the podcasts, our monetary strategy is pretty simple: to grow our listenership, not necessarily to sell ads but to remonetize by linking back to our classes and kids’ books. It’s more about branding and we’re playing the long game. It doesn’t even need to break even, it just needs to grow.

For the classes, we are building up a library of content and retaining them. Our media platform will live or die based on if parents and teachers think our classes are a good fit for the kid or kids in their life — plus, if that kid doesn’t think it’s lame.

Over 90% of your investors are from Black-owned businesses. Why is it so important these companies are the backing behind you?

If I’m being candid, it’s about proving you can do things in a different way. Over half of our content creators are people of color. We didn’t just want to break barriers on one aspect of the business, we wanted to play the same hand and see it work across other dimensions as well.

We can’t say, “Oh, we have diverse content creators so we can slack off on the crew.” or “Oh, we have a diverse crew so we can slack off on investors.” You can say you’re about equity and diversity, but it’s only words until you put it into practice.

For us, it’s about being about what we say we are about and showing it can be done.

---

---

How do you ensure your content has a wide reach?

MasterClass has done a really great job, so that was a comparable for us. We already have a bunch of customers through our “A Kids Book About” series, parents and teachers, who all have kids in their lives that are growing up and aging out of the content.

It’s not like we’re going up against Netflix, Hulu or HBO Max. We’re fundamentally playing a different game. From a business perspective we’re sound, from a distribution perspective we’re sound. From a content perspective, I think we’re sound, but customers will prove that out.

What’s exciting to me is that we are genuinely just getting started. This is really the tip of the iceberg. Not just pie-in-the-sky stuff, things we are building and putting together right now, which is why we can say we are building the future of kids’ media.

To subscribe to Oregon Business, click here.