Behind the Scenes of “Extraordinary is Ordinary” – Travel Oregon

By Jen Anderson

After journey grinds to a halt for 2 years throughout COVID-19, how do you bounce again?

Journey Oregon needed to remind guests and residents of all that’s extraordinary within the state by getting again to its roots – fairly actually. “Extraordinary is Bizarre,” which launched in early July 2022, provides a whimsical tackle three ubiquitous components in Oregon — rocks, water and soil.

“We’d completed ‘Solely Barely Exaggerated’ for 3 years, displaying the landscapes, all animated,” says Megan Riehl, Wieden + Kennedy model director. “What we missed was a few of the actuality.” The outcome: A year-long effort to create three quick movies that showcase a number of kinds of studio magic – all impressed by real-life areas in Oregon’s seven areas.

Right here’s a peek at the way it all got here collectively – and also you simply is perhaps impressed to observe it many times to catch the numerous layers.

One of many components of artistic artistry for Extraordinary is Bizarre was the live-action footage of Oregon in addition to the filming of “actual” individuals and wildlife layered into the mixed-media scenes,  says Kyler Spickler, Wieden + Kennedy model supervisor. The household of hikers strolling by the Malheur Nationwide Forest was additionally shot on a studio set with actual individuals and timber introduced in.

The second – and most seen — layer of the movies makes use of the enjoyable and magic of old-school animation methods like puppetry, Claymation and stop-motion animation. (Enjoyable truth: Claymation originated in Portland on the former Will Vinton Studios, as you may bear in mind from the California Raisins’ iconic “Heard it from the Grapevine.” The Portland Area continues to be a world chief in animation, with Laika Studios primarily based in Hillsboro.)

Among the stop-motion and puppet scenes, just like the Timberline Lodge scene with the snowboarder doing a flip , took a full day, Spickler says. A 12-hour shoot sometimes ends in about 3 seconds of footage. Dozens of animators – a few of which did earlier work on Wes Anderson movies — did this painstaking work to convey the Claymation and miniature figures to life.

“It was so particular seeing the eye to element and care they put into every puppet’s motion and the main points on every set we created,” says Nick Stokes, Wieden + Kennedy artistic director. “The complete manufacturing group and animators had been simply as excited and keen about this challenge as we had been, which was additionally actually particular to see.”

Homegrown manufacturers are represented in a number of of the scenes  together with Trew Gear, Columbia and Pendleton. The bowl of ramen relies on the signature dish at Portland’s Afuri restaurant, and the beer is an precise beer from Beaverton’s

Lastly, the final layer of the artistic is the digitally painted units – known as “matte work” in TV/movie productions, as producers use them for set design. The internationally acknowledged artist behind the work is Simone De Salvatore, who has labored on lots of the matte work seen in reveals like “Recreation of Thrones” and in Wes Anderson movies like “Grand Budapest Lodge,” which gained an Oscar in 2015 for greatest manufacturing design.

The geography featured in these swoon-worthy matte work ties again to the extraordinary areas this marketing campaign selected to function. The “Rocks” finish card options the long-lasting peaks of Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson, two of the three peaks of the Three Sisters, Timberline Lodge and the awe-inspiring Blue Basin space of the John Day Fossil Beds.

The “Soil” finish card paints an idyllic sunset-toned compilation of Jap Oregon’s Carman Ranch and Wallowa Mountains together with Marys Peak on the Coast Vary, Analemma Wines within the Columbia River Gorge and Detering Orchards within the Willamette Valley.

Lastly, the “Water” finish card is probably essentially the most dramatic of all, displaying the artist’s view of the tag line “There’s water throughout.” A number of of Portland’s iconic bridges take middle stage, however look nearer and also you’ll see that Mt. Hood, Paulina Falls, Crater Lake, the Willamette Valley and the Rogue River additionally seem within the background.

In the event you’re a fan of lovely font sorts, Brett Stenson is a neighborhood Portland artist and designer who created the customized “Extraordinary is Bizarre” kind lockup. “We felt fortunate to work with him, and even luckier to collaborate with an Oregonian,” Stokes says.

Copies of the three Extraordinary is Bizarre end-card scenes as postcards and posters can be found to the general public at Journey Oregon Welcome Facilities throughout the state, in Ashland, Portland, Oregon Metropolis, Seaside, Brookings, Ontario and Klamath Falls.