BEST SCREENPLAY and GOLDEN ORBS--No Dance Film Festival

PRODUCTION NOTES

    Upon graduating from college in 1997, Writer/Director Jeremy Lerman took his diploma, sealed it in an envelope and filed it at the back of a drawer. He recalls, “I was thinking ‘I know this is supposed to serve me well in the future, but today I’m just feeling unemployed.’” Lerman began writing a film set in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, about a group of guys at the same post-college crossroads where he found himself. He says of the similarities: "The story deals with three guys who finish school and must decide on a path where you can’t see around the bend. When you're in college, you're always moving forward toward the goal of graduating, but then one day you've achieved that. If you have ambition, now you've got to make a whole new plan. It can feel like you’re starting all over. And some of the film is fart jokes." 

    While continuing to write the screenplay, Lerman enrolled in New York University's “Sight and Sound” course, an intensive, hands-on filmmaking workshop. He says of the experience:  "It's four months of non-stop movie making, covering most aspects of production. I wanted to be sure that I could handle the basics of any position on the Nebraska Supersonic set because I was pretty sure the crew wouldn't be too experienced. As it turned out, I ended up as D.P. (Director of Photography) by default because I was the only one who knew about lighting and the technical side of shooting."

    After returning to Omaha in the summer of 1998, Lerman was joined for casting and shooting by Florian Schura and Ash L'Ange, two Brits Lerman met at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996. Lerman says of the meeting: "We met in line where we were all trying to scam producer's credentials for better passes." Also joining the team was Associate Producer, and Lerman's classmate from the University of Pennsylvania, Matt Wasowski.

    The production office, crew housing, transportation department and craft services all shared one location: the house of the director's mother, Judge Lindsey Miller-Lerman. Lerman says of the production's homemade style: "No-budget movies are obviously nothing new, but I think we're coming to some kind of second wave of the cheapie movie. Filmmakers like myself have the advantage of studying a sizable body of no-budget work like El Mariachi and Clerks, determining their strengths and then hopefully adding a few tricks of our own.” Lerman points out that Nebraska Supersonic might be on the end of one no-budget trend: “We shot on actual film, not digital video.   It’ll be interesting to see if do-it-yourselfers all choose to shoot DV.  I’ll risk indie blacklisting and say I’m still a fan of film.”

    Filmed with minimal, erratic equipment (some rented, some borrowed, and some “extra borrowed”) and a lean 5:1 shooting ratio, the shoot lasted just over a month, including a demanding three week stretch of 14-18 hour days without so much as a morning off. 

Locations used: over 50. 

Actors: over 90. 

Crew: 6 (on busiest days). 

Oldest crewmember: 24. 

Cost of getting the production in the can: $16,000. 

Number of times crew stopped by police: 6. 

Number of cops who are fans of Easy Rider and “indie films”: 1. 

Number of times crew detained at an Air Force base: 1. 

Resulting arrests/tickets/fines: 0/0/$0.