Filmmakers scout Union County for Bigfoot movie locations
Zach Green and Devin O’Rourke spent a week scouting La Grande and the Grande Ronde Valley for Bad Day for Bigfoot, a project that could bring production dollars to Union County.
Zach Green and Devin O’Rourke spent June 23-30, 2025, in Union County scouting sites for Bad Day for Bigfoot, a feature built around a Bigfoot hoax gone wrong in the fictional Blaze County. The week put La Grande, the Grande Ronde Valley and other parts of the county in play as possible shooting locations.
The pair came to Union County through the Eastern Oregon Film Festival’s inaugural Filmmaker Field Trip, which was designed to welcome filmmakers, connect them with local organizations and help them evaluate where a production could work in and around La Grande. The festival described the visit as an immersive week of location scouting, local networking and creative discovery, a sign that the county was being sized up as more than a scenic stopover.
Green and O’Rourke were not new to the festival. Their sci-fi buddy comedy FOIL screened at EOFF 2023, and the new project kept them tied to the same region they had already shown interest in using. By August 2025, local reporting said the two were looking to film Bad Day for Bigfoot in Union County, keeping alive the possibility that the county could host another feature production.
For Union County, the stakes went beyond a one-off scouting trip. A film shoot would mean local spending tied to lodging, meals, transportation and access to shooting sites, with the biggest payoff coming if the county could turn a single visit into repeat business. Earlier local coverage in 2023 had already pointed to untapped film potential in Union County, and the June field trip showed how that case could be made in practical terms: by putting filmmakers on the ground in the towns and open spaces that could appear on screen.
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