Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a fun conversation about a documentary called My Omaha,
and joining us is the young man who has decided
to make this film. Nick Bollier, is joining us here
in the studio. Nick, first of all, thanks so much
for being a part of our show today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
All right, So let's first of all talk about your history.
So your local guy, like, how did you kind of
get yourself to be interested in filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
So my career started in journalism. Actually, I was UNO grad,
worked at the Gateway as editor in chief, interned at
the World Herald, was doing night I was actually on
the night sports desk, nice brinding it out there, and
I saw myself going down the traditional journalism path. But
the state of the industry was showing there weren't a
(00:46):
lot of job opportunities, to be honest with you, and
so I was thinking about a pivot and was seeing
that TV and film was still, you know, an industry
that looked viable, and when I looked for into it,
I kind of fell in love with it, and I
interned on a documentary in Los Angeles. It was my
first time actually really stepping outside of Omaha and being
(01:07):
in a different community and different culture changed my life.
And when I came back, I thought, Okay, I want
to make a movie about Omaha and about Omaha's untold stories.
Didn't think it was going to be an eight nine
year journey to get there and to finish it, But
that's that's what happened, and that's where we are now.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So yeah, how old were you when you went to
Los Angeles and kind of made this shift in the
way that you were looking at your career in your life.
I was twenty, okay, So I mean that's that's a
young man. That is somebody who's you know. When I
was twenty is when I first was like maybe this
radio thing will work out, right, you know so, and
I was doing something completely different. We live in an
era now, Nick, where you can really go and try
(01:46):
to achieve anything that you want, biting off a project
like this where you know you have a vision and
it takes you that much patience to actually complete it
the way that you'd like it to be. What was
that process? Like you talk about the genesis I want
to make a movie about Omaha, but then the execution
and what the vision is how did you kind of
(02:07):
formulate that?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it was a discovery process for sure. I mean
it started by trying to understand the quote unquote tale
of to Omaha's that I kept hearing when I got
to know people in other parts of the city. You know,
I grew up in West Omaha in kind of a bubble,
you know, I didn't really know many people like in
North Omaha or South Omaha until I got to U
and O. So I wanted to understand the segregation in
(02:30):
our city, and I wanted to understand why there seemed
to be disconnected about how people perceived the city. So
that was for many years that kept me going, was
that pursuit in that search. But you learn when making
a documentary that it's not as simple as just showing
up and filming things. And then all of a sudden
you put it all together and you have a movie.
You have to have a story, you have to have
a narrative, it has to have beats to it, you
(02:52):
have to have you have to show change and progress.
And you know, I'm lucky, actually, I think that I
started with as much of a naivete as I did,
because you kind of need it. You need to have
that kind of like blind ambition to get started because
it's such a grind and then eventually you reach a
point where there's just no turning back because you're so invested.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So yeah, well we're speaking with Nick Boller, local guy
who has put together this documentary called My Omaha. My
Omaha film dot com. You have a great website here
and it's got so many different you know, tabs in
ways that people can understand, and you guys have the
you've had the opportunity to you know, have this scene
(03:32):
and shown it's available to you know, you have a
trailer out that people can kind of get a taste
of what this is. It looks like you talk about
everything and here what would be the elevator pitch of
kind of what people will learn about a town that
many of these people have been to a lot or
they've lived in for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So when people see My Omaha, they're going to see
really kind of two intersecting storylines, and the first one
is a city grappling with race relations and with racial justice,
and it covers everything from you know, how the city
responds to sort of moments of violence early on from
twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen to you know, the protests
(04:13):
of twenty twenty after George Floyd's death and the activists
who are doing a lot of work to you know,
repair relations and to try to you know, flourish as
a community. You're also going to see a story about
a father and a son, and that being me and
my dad and our attempts to bridge our political differences
while he's going through cancer.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So it really is a portrait of Omaha and a
portrait of the times, and you know, it's really a
reflection of all the issues that it doesn't matter where
you live, if you're in America, that you're probably grappling
with as a person.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah. Very interesting here. So I'm going to ask a
couple of like, I'm morbidly curious about logistics. How much time,
like hours wise, do you think you put into this thing?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I mean, I think we're probably around that ten thousand
hour mark.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And it's so insane that people cite as like the
benchmark of like, you know, perfecting something or whatever. I
don't know how to classify that, but I mean to
give you perspective. You know, you fill out a grant
forum to get a doc that's you know, a dozen hours, right, Yeah, sure,
that's just what you know. I've filmed hundreds of events
over years of time. I edited the film for over
(05:25):
two years with many different editors. You know, you're I
mean it's countless hours, you know, So it's I really
can't even quantify it well.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And that's the other thing, Nick is, you know, everything
has a price to it, but time is like the
ultimate price that you pay for something like this, and
you want it to be everything you want it to be.
If you are that invested, you want this to be
great and you want people to see it. But be
honest with you, but know that you did good work
(05:56):
and you know that you made it what you wanted
to be. What have you heard so far about how
people have responded to the way that you put this together.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Reception has been great, and it's been great locally and nationally,
which is exciting. We premiered the movie at slam Dance.
It's a festival in Los Angeles that's very prestigious in
the independent doc world. In fact, Dan Mirvish is a
co founder. He is from Omaha, wh's very cool, and
we premiered it there and there's people from all around
the country that really responded well. And something that's caught
(06:27):
me off guard is a lot of people come up
to me after they've watched it and they're tearing up
or they're emotional because it's just that raw of a story.
I mean, you're talking about loss, and you're talking about
estranged relationships, and you're talking about these political issues. It's
so it's such a sore wound for people right now
that this story is touching people on that level and locally,
(06:50):
what means a lot to me is people are seeing
themselves and they're seeing their city represented in a story
that also gives some hope, and that means a lot
to me. The philosophy I took when making this is
that you know, films last forever. You know, yes, it
took many years to make this, but I want this
to be seen in ten years, twenty years, and to
(07:11):
hold up and for people to keep referencing it and
for it to be one of those movies that can,
you know, represent a period of time in Omaha, in
our country.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Nick Boyer is here. My Omaha film dot com is
how you can find more information, how can people watch
this thing?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So we're opening up at film streams in about a week,
which is super exciting. Our first showtime sold out, which
is awesome. That was October fourteenth, But starting October seventeenth,
Friday night, people can get tickets. It's gonna play all
that weekend and then it's going to play up until
the twenty third, and all of those are at the
Dundee Theater on around fiftieth Street.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I think, yeah, just down the road over here. Yeah,
I gotta tell you, this is so cool to have
somebody local telling a local story that can be relatable
to anyone. It really can be. And this is so
cool for you know, do you have a social media
account that people can, you know, kind of follow you
and your journey as well.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, so I'm on Instagram and Facebook. People just search
my name n I c K b e a U
l I e U. Our film has pages too. Would
love if people checked out the trailer, Share the trailer
with your friends and yeah, you know, if it bring
bring a friend or family to the movie, come find me.
I like talking with people about the movie and what
they're getting out of it, So I hope to meet
(08:28):
a lot of folks through this.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's so cool that you were able to see this through.
Congratulations on, thank you, good luck with the premiere coming
up here locally, and thank you so much for being
on the show. Nick.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm sure we'll chat again sometimes, so absolutely anytime,
This is a fun conversation about a documentary called My Omaha,
and joining us is the young man who has decided
to make this film. Nick Bollier, is joining us here
in the studio. Nick, first of all, thanks so much
for being a part of our show today.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
All right, So let's first of all talk about your history.
So your local guy, like, how did you kind of
get yourself to be interested in filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
So my career started in journalism. Actually, I was UNO grad,
worked at the Gateway as editor in chief, interned at
the World Herald, was doing night I was actually on
the night sports desk, nice brinding it out there, and
I saw myself going down the traditional journalism path. But
the state of the industry was showing there weren't a
(00:46):
lot of job opportunities, to be honest with you, and
so I was thinking about a pivot and was seeing
that TV and film was still, you know, an industry
that looked viable, and when I looked for into it,
I kind of fell in love with it, and I
interned on a documentary in Los Angeles. It was my
first time actually really stepping outside of Omaha and being
(01:07):
in a different community and different culture changed my life.
And when I came back, I thought, Okay, I want
to make a movie about Omaha and about Omaha's untold stories.
Didn't think it was going to be an eight nine
year journey to get there and to finish it, But
that's that's what happened, and that's where we are now.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So yeah, how old were you when you went to
Los Angeles and kind of made this shift in the
way that you were looking at your career in your life.
I was twenty, okay, So I mean that's that's a
young man. That is somebody who's you know. When I
was twenty is when I first was like maybe this
radio thing will work out, right, you know so, and
I was doing something completely different. We live in an
era now, Nick, where you can really go and try
(01:46):
to achieve anything that you want, biting off a project
like this where you know you have a vision and
it takes you that much patience to actually complete it
the way that you'd like it to be. What was
that process? Like you talk about the genesis I want
to make a movie about Omaha, but then the execution
and what the vision is how did you kind of
(02:07):
formulate that?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it was a discovery process for sure. I mean
it started by trying to understand the quote unquote tale
of to Omaha's that I kept hearing when I got
to know people in other parts of the city. You know,
I grew up in West Omaha in kind of a bubble,
you know, I didn't really know many people like in
North Omaha or South Omaha until I got to U
and O. So I wanted to understand the segregation in
(02:30):
our city, and I wanted to understand why there seemed
to be disconnected about how people perceived the city. So
that was for many years that kept me going, was
that pursuit in that search. But you learn when making
a documentary that it's not as simple as just showing
up and filming things. And then all of a sudden
you put it all together and you have a movie.
You have to have a story, you have to have
a narrative, it has to have beats to it, you
(02:52):
have to have you have to show change and progress.
And you know, I'm lucky, actually, I think that I
started with as much of a naivete as I did,
because you kind of need it. You need to have
that kind of like blind ambition to get started because
it's such a grind and then eventually you reach a
point where there's just no turning back because you're so invested.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So yeah, well we're speaking with Nick Boller, local guy
who has put together this documentary called My Omaha. My
Omaha film dot com. You have a great website here
and it's got so many different you know, tabs in
ways that people can understand, and you guys have the
you've had the opportunity to you know, have this scene
(03:32):
and shown it's available to you know, you have a
trailer out that people can kind of get a taste
of what this is. It looks like you talk about
everything and here what would be the elevator pitch of
kind of what people will learn about a town that
many of these people have been to a lot or
they've lived in for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So when people see My Omaha, they're going to see
really kind of two intersecting storylines, and the first one
is a city grappling with race relations and with racial justice,
and it covers everything from you know, how the city
responds to sort of moments of violence early on from
twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen to you know, the protests
(04:13):
of twenty twenty after George Floyd's death and the activists
who are doing a lot of work to you know,
repair relations and to try to you know, flourish as
a community. You're also going to see a story about
a father and a son, and that being me and
my dad and our attempts to bridge our political differences
while he's going through cancer.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So it really is a portrait of Omaha and a
portrait of the times, and you know, it's really a
reflection of all the issues that it doesn't matter where
you live, if you're in America, that you're probably grappling
with as a person.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah. Very interesting here. So I'm going to ask a
couple of like, I'm morbidly curious about logistics. How much time,
like hours wise, do you think you put into this thing?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I mean, I think we're probably around that ten thousand
hour mark.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And it's so insane that people cite as like the
benchmark of like, you know, perfecting something or whatever. I
don't know how to classify that, but I mean to
give you perspective. You know, you fill out a grant
forum to get a doc that's you know, a dozen hours, right, Yeah, sure,
that's just what you know. I've filmed hundreds of events
over years of time. I edited the film for over
(05:25):
two years with many different editors. You know, you're I
mean it's countless hours, you know, So it's I really
can't even quantify it well.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And that's the other thing, Nick is, you know, everything
has a price to it, but time is like the
ultimate price that you pay for something like this, and
you want it to be everything you want it to be.
If you are that invested, you want this to be
great and you want people to see it. But be
honest with you, but know that you did good work
(05:56):
and you know that you made it what you wanted
to be. What have you heard so far about how
people have responded to the way that you put this together.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Reception has been great, and it's been great locally and nationally,
which is exciting. We premiered the movie at slam Dance.
It's a festival in Los Angeles that's very prestigious in
the independent doc world. In fact, Dan Mirvish is a
co founder. He is from Omaha, wh's very cool, and
we premiered it there and there's people from all around
the country that really responded well. And something that's caught
(06:27):
me off guard is a lot of people come up
to me after they've watched it and they're tearing up
or they're emotional because it's just that raw of a story.
I mean, you're talking about loss, and you're talking about
estranged relationships, and you're talking about these political issues. It's
so it's such a sore wound for people right now
that this story is touching people on that level and locally,
(06:50):
what means a lot to me is people are seeing
themselves and they're seeing their city represented in a story
that also gives some hope, and that means a lot
to me. The philosophy I took when making this is
that you know, films last forever. You know, yes, it
took many years to make this, but I want this
to be seen in ten years, twenty years, and to
(07:11):
hold up and for people to keep referencing it and
for it to be one of those movies that can,
you know, represent a period of time in Omaha, in
our country.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Nick Boyer is here. My Omaha film dot com is
how you can find more information, how can people watch
this thing?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So we're opening up at film streams in about a week,
which is super exciting. Our first showtime sold out, which
is awesome. That was October fourteenth, But starting October seventeenth,
Friday night, people can get tickets. It's gonna play all
that weekend and then it's going to play up until
the twenty third, and all of those are at the
Dundee Theater on around fiftieth Street.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I think, yeah, just down the road over here. Yeah,
I gotta tell you, this is so cool to have
somebody local telling a local story that can be relatable
to anyone. It really can be. And this is so
cool for you know, do you have a social media
account that people can, you know, kind of follow you
and your journey as well.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, so I'm on Instagram and Facebook. People just search
my name n I c K b e a U
l I e U. Our film has pages too. Would
love if people checked out the trailer, Share the trailer
with your friends and yeah, you know, if it bring
bring a friend or family to the movie, come find me.
I like talking with people about the movie and what
they're getting out of it, So I hope to meet
(08:28):
a lot of folks through this.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's so cool that you were able to see this through.
Congratulations on, thank you, good luck with the premiere coming
up here locally, and thank you so much for being
on the show. Nick.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm sure we'll chat again sometimes, so absolutely anytime,
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