Filming by TNT’s television series Leverage on campus during winter term’s finals week sparked several complaints from students about restricted space, limited parking, added stress and rudeness from the film crew. While there were complaints, the show’s filming also sparked excitement within the Portland State community and brought in additional revenue.
Filming by TNT’s television series Leverage on campus during winter term’s finals week sparked several complaints from students about restricted space, limited parking, added stress and rudeness from the film crew. While there were complaints, the show’s filming also sparked excitement within the Portland State community and brought in additional revenue.
Leverage crew arrived on campus March 16, the Friday before finals, and they were gone by end of finals week. Actual shooting was only done from March 20–22. Filming occurred at several locations on campus, including the basement of the Fourth Avenue Building, the lobby of the Academic and Student Rec Center and on Urban Plaza.
According to Scott Gallagher, PSU director of communications, the complaints he heard mostly concerned the inconvenience of having to go around the urban plaza instead of cutting through it. However, he said that there were also those in the campus community who were excited to have the show filming on campus.
“Finals week actually has fewer students, faculty and staff on campus than normal,” said Gallagher. “It is actually easier to film during finals; there are more opportunities because classrooms are less utilized. They did not film in classroom areas.” He added that during the week, there was plenty of parking available because there were not as many people on campus.
Some students, however, found the opposite to be true. Psychology senior Ryan Grassmann expressed his frustration at the lack of parking when he arrived on campus to attend his internship near Southwest Fourth Avenue. “There was nowhere to park and there were Leverage trucks everywhere,” Grassmann said. “I looked around all of the PSU parking structures and they were full—so were the parking lots directly around campus.”
Though Grassmann was not on his way to take a final, he expressed concern for the students who had to experience the extra pressure of finding available parking before taking their finals. “The most upsetting thing was that every time I pulled into a PSU parking place there were signs that said ‘crew,’” he said.
According to Gallagher, the academic mission of the university is first and foremost and is not to be interrupted. While on campus, film crews are restricted from filming in certain areas and during certain times, including residence halls, classrooms in use and the Center for Student Health and Counseling.
“I can understand how filming on Urban Plaza can be an inconvenience when trying to get from one side to another, but the crew was not barring finals or classes,” Gallagher said.
One graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, said that filming “was pretty disruptive,” and that some Leverage crew members didn’t treat students with courtesy. “The crews were really rude as students were trying to walk through ‘our’ campus. It was frustrating to be yelled at by the crews—they would say, ‘No, you can’t go through here!’ and then [you] go where they told you to go—then get yelled at by another group of crew members.
“I think it was really disrespectful of students who are trying to learn and finish up their classes,” the student said.
The university did make some money from the show’s visit. Commercial companies filming at campus are charged $2,000 per day while different rates apply for other types of filming. Student filming is free. The university also received revenue from parking that the film crew used.
“I like that they’re adding to the economy,” Grassmann said, “but just get them out of campus. They don’t need to be there.”
Filming done on campus is actually fairly infrequent. As PSU is located near several large companies like Nike, most of the inquiries to campus are for commercials and print advertisements. PSU receives about 10 inquiries per year, and most filming usually only lasts a single day.
While Leverage, Portlandia, and Grimm are all filmed in Portland, PSU still does not have much commercial filming done on campus. This is the second time Leverage has been to PSU in its five-year run, and while Grimm had expressed interest in filming at PSU, it has not yet done so. One major motion picture was filmed on campus several years ago called Music Within.
“This is an emerging industry in Portland; it is creating jobs and we have a film department at PSU,” Gallagher said. “Part of our responsibility as a member of this community is to help the industry to be successful because we want our students to be successful. This is a good partnership between the university, the industry and the city. We want everybody to succeed.”
When film crews want to film in Portland, they are required to send notifications to local business and neighborhoods at least three days prior to shooting, including contact information for questions.
“Frankly, we are very excited about this fledgling industry in Portland,” said Shelley Midthun, liaison at the Mayor’s Office of Film and Video. “Honestly it has gotten very big in the last few years. It seems to me there is usually a pretty high rate of satisfaction with advance notification.”
Formal documents covering codes of conduct for film crews are being developed, but Midthun said there is an understanding with the film crews that they are to treat the neighborhoods they film in with the utmost respect.
The city makes some revenue off visiting film crews, as they are required to purchase permits from applicable bureaus to rent certain areas or streets for shooting. Midthun commented that this does not make the city much money, providing a couple hundred dollars for permits.
Ann Mangan, senior communications coordinator for the Portland Development Commission, added that the real benefit of having these film crews is that they support the community by spending millions locally at businesses and restaurants. “The city is filled with a lot of creative people, and these kinds of projects provide a lot of jobs to local folks. A lot of money pours into the local economy every time one of these projects shoots in Portland,” Mangan said.
She added that now that there are processes in place to make film times and locations clear and explicit, the experience is much more positive and complaints are minimal.
As of now, there is no future filming scheduled at PSU.
