Written by new-contact on Dec 11, 2013. Posted in On Location

Alexander Payne boosts local economy filming Nebraska in namesake state

Filmmaker Alexander Payne boosted the local economy in Nebraska in the central US by filming his namesake movie locally. Nebraska tells the story of a father and son travelling from Montana to Nebraska to claim an apparent lottery win.

Payne spent 30 days filming in Nebraska itself and, as an Oscar contender, it’s expected that the film will help promote the state beyond the local production spending.

“A typical day of filming on location for this size budget could range anywhere from USD40,000 to USD60,000,” said Laurie Richards, film officer with the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.

“If this is averaged out over the course of 30 days of shooting in Nebraska, approximately USD1.5 million of new money was infused into the local economy. Not only that, but consider how significant the impact on Norfolk and surrounding towns in terms of the number of local residents hired, purchases of food, lodging and hardware, in addition to location fees, truck and car rentals, gas, and other sundry items necessary for physical production.”

The film was a big hit at Cannes earlier this year and Richards hopes continued success will also benefit Nebraska as a place.

“Not only does this bode well for Oscar nominations coming out in 2014, but it's the best free publicity we could ever hope to generate for Nebraska. We may not have Hollywood knocking on our door, but we definitely have piqued the interest of independent filmmakers and companies,” Richards added.

Nebraska is not known as a production centre in the US, but offers basic filmmaking infrastructure. The landscape is dominated by the vast Great Plains and Nebraska is in fact one of the least-populated states in the US.

To read more about filming in Nebraska click here.