Location Tips – Nebraska Film & Photography Locations

Hello Friends, Colleagues, and future Visitors –

After many years and miles of location-scouting Nebraska, I am sharing my Locations Library.

NebraskaOnLocation.com is for Inspiration, Education, and Collaboration. Visit. Do get inspired, explore, engage, opine — and ask questions. Expand on your original vision, consider multiple options, view with a wider lens. Ask more questions.

Of course, the larger hope here is for NebraskaOnLocation to serve as a long-overdue marketing space for the State being a viable filming Location. Pictures, as they say, are worth a thousand… well, you know.

NebraskaOnLocation.com IS a photo folders and galleries based platform. It ISN’T a traditional website. A simple hint; when in doubt, tap or click on any photo and / or scroll. To get back or escape, go back or escape or open a new page.

I recommend starting at Welcome to Nebraska and the Welcome Messages. There are suggestions about search, navigation, and collaboration. Or jump in anywhere. Tap and scroll. Visit random folders. Get lost. I find locations like that all the time.

If you’re new to this type of platform, here are a few quick navigation hints.

Click or tap any Folder.
Click or tap again on any Gallery.
In a Gallery, click or tap on a photo to enlarge.
Arrow or swipe to scroll gallery.
Esc to see full Gallery again.
Consider a new window for NebraskaOnLocation or Home or Back or tap the Tiny House in the upper left corner.

Select Folders are Regions which are from my Nebraska State Map (Map button at top of site).

The star here is NEBRASKA Big Picture a.k.a Categories. A great place to “get lost.”

Second to the fun ride of Categories and worth exploring, is the folder named Small Towns in Nebraska. No, all of them aren’t here but you’ll get the general idea. Sorry to any missed. It might be as simple as I haven’t got to your photos – yet.

Anywho, there it is. It’s a start. Please know it is a constant work-in-progress. Just entering keywords and meta data to help with search is arduous and ongoing. Let me know what you think. Be kind. Have fun. Stay safe.

– Jamie

All photos are copyrighted and protected. IF you choose to share, do so via Folder or Gallery link. IF you choose to grab screen shots, please do so thoughtfully.

If your project is green-lit and fast-tracked—reach out ASAP for fast answers via my contact info. or this form.

Client and work project folders are always sent privately. Your project is embraced with discretion—until after airing.

Location Scouting is a professional process which happens long before any filming begins. It is mostly an unnoticed craft and hardly ever credited. If you are unaware of this key position in motion pictures; please read my blog post about LOCATION SCOUTING Definitions, Process, Collaboration, Respect. Warning: it is my POV. It isn’t personal, it’s just business.

This site and NebraskaOnLocation.com created, designed, and maintained by Jamie Vesay, a thirty-years experienced professional Filmworker. He is a Location Scout / Manager, Producer, Fixer for commercial motion pictures. He has worked on almost every genre / format / category of motion pictures and in virtually every position in filmmaking, including Special FX Coordinator, Art Dept., and on-camera Talent. Here is his Resume.

Visit NebraskaLocation.com for more intel and education. Follow on IG @NebraskaLocation or FB.

Thank you.

DISCLAIMER: This post is not about how we should shoot (anything) again within Covid-19 guidelines. I present the information below from point-of-reference health and safety experiences on past shoots at commercial hog barns – long before the pandemic. Many of these actions parallel current discussions about establishing new universal on-set guidelines.

I’ll never forget my first creative call with an Agency about an upcoming shoot—at a hog facility—and that moment near the end of their long list of guidelines, “…and the crew will need to shower in and shower out. The location will provide inside clothes, boots —and underwear. It’s all for the safety of the animals.” I silently paused, raised an eyebrow, and may or may not have muted the speakerphone, “Ok. Nobody on another hog (pig) shoot or their equipment less than two weeks prior to our shoot. Clean gear ahead of time. If any of the crew is sick they shouldn’t be on set. The PPE is for the pigs. And — underwear?”

You see, out here in farmland USA, us production people who collaborate with agricultural-related clients often find ourselves in wacky scenarios — while addressing health protocols and taking safety steps specific to the product, service, and / or location.

A commercial hog facility and the land around it are biosecure locations. Many basic shoot procedures and crew positions are eliminated by default. The biggest adjustment is pace of work. Imagine any set you’ve been on but moving methodically SLOW.

This type of shoot is different from the moment you arrive at location. You get to park but DO NOT GET OUT OF YOUR VEHICLE until met by a Location Rep. They give you shoe protectors (plastic booties) BEFORE YOU STEP OUT and the instructions to cover your shoes are precise. After you have the covers, open your vehicle’s door BUT STILL DON’T STEP OUT unless the cover is over your shoe. DO NOT PUT THE COVERS ON INSIDE YOUR VEHICLE. The idea here is for no strange surface material to touch the biosecure surface. Only when shoe-covers are on should you move on to the property (still guided). This is one list of guidelines for one procedure. Keep in mind, we’re not even near the front door yet.

No pressure, but hogs are high-risk to catch infections. If one animal gets sick, they can infect the entire facility.
Hogs can get a virus from people and vice versa.
Hog shoots require more pre-production discussions and a different type of scheduling IF you want to attain any storyboard and shot list.
You’re at the mercy of the protocols and process. Again, everything is slower than usual.
Gear doesn’t touch the ground on load-in but there is another phase of wiping it down before crossing into the pens.
The only way to walk inside is through the shower stall. Yes, it is a thing. Your clothes and shoes with those covers on stay behind in the entryway. You use their clothes (jumpsuit or Tyvek suit) – including socks and underwear.
On a shoot last year, we were permitted to keep our own underwear; which was welcomed. Yes, it is very strange. And by the way if there’s a mix of sexes on the crew; whole other discussions are required in pre-production.

Once inside the pens, us pros dab Vicks vapor rub under our nose. You know, like pre-autopsy you’ve seen in movies. Prior to your mind conjuring the stereotypical image of a pig pen, know they are way cleaner than you’d think. Before you get to to shoot anything in a hog facility, there’s a brief walk-through / mini tech-scout because – this is the first time seeing the space.

Hogs are the talent who happen to live at the location but you still have to “cast principals.”
If shooting humans – such as Livestock Producers (their proper title) or employees or veterinarians – they also come with the location but you’ll be seeing them for the first time too.
Livestock Producers and Farmers are great collaborators and some of the kindest, hard-working humans on the planet.
When meet-and-greets are complete, vanity checks (for pigs and people) done, final misc. prepped, the shoot begins…

After a few set-ups and shots are captured; the crew, client, and pigs get comfortable working with each other. This is a job and hey we’re professionals but like all properly pre-produced shoots, you can work hard and still have fun, learn new things, interact with curious animals, and smile at some of the things we get paid to do for a living.

When wrap is called, figure at least one hour to repeat your steps just to get back to the door. This process is SLOWED further to clean gear (pro tip: less of anything with cords = good). Beyond the shower stall, getting dressed, loading up gear, and driving away – there’s still a bit of work to do. You should shower again asap — and launder your clothes. If you’re at a hotel, do the former and bag your pig clothes and throw them in the production vehicle.

Ok, done for the day. Your title on the shoot will reflect your next project-related tasks but one thing not on your calendar for the next two weeks is shooting in another hog facility. It’s yet another guideline and health measure—for the hogs. Need more irony? Our clients on these shoots make vaccine for livestock. We shoot them getting their shots.

Before I go, a few more related side bars about these newly suggested Covid-19 guidelines:

You touch your face 100 more times more while wearing a MASK versus without one.
Wearing latex GLOVES is senseless without simply being trained how to remove them.
There are large fans on hog barns which allow INTAKE of fresh air and OUTFLOW of heat, moisture, and gas (yes, that kind). I’ve heard the word VENTILATION mentioned in Covid-19 chats and listed on guidelines. Aside from many questions such as what specifically does that look like to is that pumping air out or in — or both (?) — my first reaction was: Is it a good idea to be moving any extra air on a set with mostly people which may contain a respiratory virus?

Funny, not funny. The upside to shooting with a few hundred pigs is you can smell and see the obvious… Covid-19 is odorless and invisible.

I share these experiences of working on a hog shoot to suggest possible new roads you may be traveling on toward future shoots. The one commonality will be the slowing of all actions in every department. In an industry of “gotta go” and chasing the light and we need it yesterday – we’ll have to see how that works out.

My personal motto on any shoot is: pre-production saves lives. On a Covid-19 era shoot, this will be literal.