Sasquatch comedy filming in Oregon

Location shooting by the creators of "Napoleon Dynamite" will continue through early July

Monday, June 13, 2005

Portland, OR ,USA

By STEVEN AMICK

The Oregonian

The Hollywood team that created last year's offbeat hit "Napoleon Dynamite" chose the Portland area to film a comedy about a Bigfoot hunter to be released next spring.

Producers of "The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang" filmed this month in Oregon City, Gladstone, Estacada and West Linn. They will continue working in Oregon until shortly after July Fourth.

The movie, written and directed by Tim Skousen and produced by Jeremy Coon, follows a group of young friends who discover large footprints in the woods.

Carl Weathers, ("Arrested Development," "Predator," "Rocky") plays Dr. Artimus Snodgrass, a world-famous Sasquatch expert trying to determine whether the prints are Bigfoot tracks.

During a break in Friday's filming at Mary S. Young State Park in West Linn, Weathers said it feels good to be back in the Northwest.

For a decade before he moved last year to Venice, Calif., the former Oakland Raiders football player lived and raised cattle on Washington's Whidbey Island.

"I appreciate the beauty and serenity of the woods here," said Weathers, 57. "Also, Portland is a magnificent city. Since I was first here, in the mid-'70s, it's been transformed; the culture, the diversity, the architecture."

Bob Schmaling, project manager for the Oregon Film and Video Office, said "The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang" is a relatively low-budget motion picture. "They'll spend under a million dollars in Oregon," Schmaling said. Much of that money, however, is providing jobs for Oregonians.

About half of the 60 or so members of the principal cast, as well as about 500 extras, are local.

Actors Justin Long and Joey Kern enjoyed an evening along Portland's Northwest 23rd Avenue on Thursday night.

"Joey and I both lived in New York for a long time," Long said, "and parts of downtown Portland are very much like New York."

Kern nodded. "People here," he said, "are a lot more alternative than I thought."