Omaha native Randy Goodwin is among scores of Nebraskans working in Hollywood. The busy television actor (recent guest star credits include “Star Trek: Picard,” “NCIS” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”) also writes, produces and directs. Now he’s back to realize a mission of normalizing filmmaking in Nebraska, where few projects happen and few professionals find work. He envisions training local talent and building area infrastructure to grow a skilled workforce and year-round production that employs Nebraskans and stimulates economic impact.
Thanks to unprecedented state financial support for screen work, he now has the means to fully activate the ambitious Nebraska film and TV project of his Fallen Giant Films production company. In 2024 Fallen Giant was the recipient of a $5 million grant, among dozens of North & South Omaha Recovery Grant Program (NSORG) funding awardees. The vision detailed in his project plan won over the state Department of Economic Development, which approved what’s believed to be the largest single allocation for independent film production in Nebraska.
His plan envisions a self-sustaining film-TV production hub that prepares and employs a next generation of Nebraska film professionals and projects.
“My goal is to build Nebraskans into filmmakers, actors, etc., that get projects onto the big and small screen, instead of just a local film festival or watching their work at a buddy’s house. The goal is to earn a living doing the greatest job in the world,” Goodwin said.
Few Nebraska screen veterans return to bring aspects of their craft with them. Oscar-winning filmmaker Alexander Payne of Omaha has done so since the mid-1990s. In addition to shooting here (five of his eight films have shot entirely or in part in state) he facilitates cinema discussions and programs. Goodwin is another exception.
“I’ve come every year since 2004 to teach free acting, writing, filmmaking classes,” said Goodwin, whose family has been in the metro’s barbering and beauty business for seven decades.
Fallen Giant, whose team offices are in Blackstone Plaza, is already set up to make its own documentary and dramatic feature film projects. It has three documentaries in production this spring and summer. A narrative feature is slated to start shooting in the fall. A dramatic series is in pre-production. To accommodate a deep pool of projects in development and to lure projects not his own to shoot here, he’s eying land in northwest Omaha to build a multi-acre studio with state-of-the-art soundstages. Building the studio there would be apt as it is where the SkyView Drive-In stood. He also hopes to acquire the former Regal multiplex theater at 72nd and Sorenson Parkway for classrooms, screening auditoriums, film premieres and festivals.
“Basically half of the building will be an educational center under my A Sling and a Stone nonprofit,” Goodwin said about plans for the long closed theater. “Seven of the eight auditoriums on that side would be classrooms and suites for editing, line producing, etc. The other half would be Fallen Giant Films and remain a functioning theater. Every project we do here we’ll premiere it there.”
He suggested the complex could once again host the Omaha Film Festival.
“We would create another film festival to play there as well – like a Black film festival or Christian film festival,” Goodwin said.
In addition to few screen production facilities, Nebraska has, until recently, been at a competitive disadvantage with filmmaker incentives. For decades Goodwin and others hoping to spur more production have advocated for state film tax credits. In 2024 the Nebraska Legislature passed a film tax credit stimulus, The Cast and Crew Nebraska Act.
What happened next was unexpected and game-changing. It started with a call from Trevon Brooks – then-chief strategy officer with Nebraska Economy Recovery and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. Lobbying the state did not fall on deaf ears as Goodwin’s Nebraska Film and TV project plan hit at the right time and place just as recovery grant funds became available.
“I’m just thankful that Trevon called me when he learned of my plan,” Goodwin said. “Trevon said, ‘I’ve got $10 million to give away and I think I can help you.’ I told him, ‘Okay, but whether anyone helps or not I’m building this. I’m a true believer in if you believe it they will come.’ We hung up. I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve heard so many stories.”
A meeting with then-DED consultant Daren Waters followed. A week later, Goodwin learned his ship had come in.
“Tre calls me and says, ‘Hey, man, I’m sorry I couldn’t get you $10 million, but I got you five.’ ‘Seriously?’ ‘I got you five. I’ve seen what you’ve been doing, I believe in you, and I just showed (the recovery grant committee) your plan,’” Goodwin recalled.
Overnight, Fallen Giant became Nebraska’s largest independent screen production entity.
“I think what Randy is doing is absolutely phenomenal,” Brooks said. “It’s something we’re definitely excited about.”
Goodwin’s aware the windfall has upset critics. One asserts he’s a carpetbagger taking undeserved credit and benefiting from others’ work. Goodwin, whose team works closely with DED on grant compliance, deems the criticism unfounded, even slanderous.
“I’d like to highlight that I was approached by the state and awarded this opportunity,” Goodwin said. “I am not going to allow someone to misinterpret the intent of the award, which is to bring economic development to Omaha. We will do exactly what we were asked to do – what I said I would do. Many people have known about me coming back yearly to push this industry. My work does speak for itself. The people it mattered to recognized what we’re trying to do and they stepped up to help.”
Between the state’s new incentives package and the grant award, Goodwin’s gone all in, moving his base of operations from the west coast to his hometown.
“It feels good to be home,” Goodwin said. “I still have to go to L.A. 20% of the time, but I’m here 80% of the time now. We’ve been shooting and running and gunning.”
Long before the grant, Fallen Giant was producing projects. A 2021 dramatic feature Goodwin wrote, directed, starred in and produced, “The Job,” was meant to shoot in Nebraska, but lack of tax credits made that cost inefficient. Even with the state funds earmarked for building his plan out, he’s still funding projects himself.
“I have zero investors. I’ve been in Hollywood for 31 years – I’ve done very well,” Goodwin said. “All those years I kept coming back it was out of my pocket and I didn’t care. I will always make money, that’s never an issue. I’ve had it, I’ve lost it, I know I’ll make it again, so I use it to help young people.”
He is meeting with realtors and financial advisors about what it will take to build the studio and acquire the theater. He will also be seeking Nebraskans to invest in upcoming film projects.
Of the in-progress docs, one is personal to him. It is an intimate look at the late soap opera star, Kristoff St. John who gained fame on “The Young and the Restless” playing Neil Winters. Goodwin was close friends with St. John. They even roomed together for a time.
“Everyone thought we were twins,” Goodwin recalled. “He was troubled, went through a lot. Before he passed he said the bright time of his life was when we lived together. He was clean, I was going to AA with him, not because I was a drinker, but to make sure that he went.”
Another doc follows the remarkable ascendance of a petite Bellevue teen, Jaiya Patillo, who is a record-breaking sprinter with multiple state and national championships and on the web is a trending social media influencer, model and author.
“This little girl is phenomenal,” Goodwin said. “She is so fast, so talented. I have a team following her at every meet.”
The idea he said is to follow her all the way to her ultimate goal of the Olympic Trials. Jaiya’s father, coach and manager, Kevin Patillo, “is like King Richard” (the driving paternal figure behind tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams), Goodwin said.
Patillo is not the first athlete Goodwin’s featured. He took over a documentary on former Husker receiver-kick returner Ricky Simmons, who went from Scoring Explosion glory, to drug addiction, to getting sober and becoming an inspirational speaker. After Simmons fell out with the original producers Goodwin stepped in to finish “The Ricky Simmons Story.”
The rising fortunes of newcomer school Westview High’s football team is a key storyline of yet another project. Three of Goodwin’s nephews play for the team.
“One-Eighty” is a drug and alcohol rehab drama in pre-production. The one-hour series revolves around the travails of a former sports talent, Addison Free, with a troubled past and unsettled present. He’s admitted to a treatment facility under court order by his estranged father. After resisting help, Free eventually learns to face his past and start the process of healing.
A dramatic film in the pipeline is inspired by the close bond Goodwin enjoyed with his dog Pal. Noting the popularity of movies about humans and their canine friends, he believes this will be the first featuring a Black child and dog. He’s scouting locations in northeast Omaha where his community activist uncle Dan Goodwin made his Spencer Street Barbershop an institution.
Goodwin knows all too well that timelines are relative in the industry, as projects often have a long gestation period or get delayed due to rights, talents, schedules, backers getting sorted out.
“People don’t understand how long it takes to get a movie made sometimes,” he said.
Fallen Giant also lends production-marketing support to homegrown projects, including public media educational children’s show “Mister K’s Clubhouse,” whose creator-host is Omahan Kerron Stark. Stark started it out of his basement before moving to KPAO studios.
“We love his vision,” Goodwin said. “His lessons for young people are important. We want to take the show’s production values to a national level and bring more eyes to it.”
Nebraskans looking to prepare themselves for the industry have been limited in-state to the film studies program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, screenwriting courses at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, sporadic workshops and interning on random film projects or at TV studios. Meanwhile, Nebraska has few production opportunities or professional crew to fill them. Fallen Giant is addressing those issues with internship-shadow programs and by hiring local.
“This is a business that to a lot of people is magical and unattainable,” said Goodwin, who’s giving Nebraskans an intimate look at how within reach it can be with the right opportunities. “My goal is to use as many Nebraskans as possible.”
That goal extends to another feature, “The Innkeeper.” Goodwin hopes that Oscar-winning cinematographer Mauro Fiore, an Omaha resident, will lens the pic. Fiore isn’t the only Hollywood A-lister maintaining a residence in Omaha. Writer-director Alexander Payne does. So does producer-talent manager Abe Hoch.
“It’s crazy how many people who work in Hollywood live here,” said Goodwin, including himself.
Mindful of cultivating a diverse roster of trainees and new hires, he’s working with North Omaha workforce development strategist Sundiata Menelik.
Goodwin’s using a limited experimental series, “The Foundation,” to vet area crew.
“The first two episodes we had to scrap because they weren’t that good,” he said. “Some people are good, but they’re not Hollywood good. Some people took offense to that but it is what it is. I know what’s good and what ain’t, and if you have an ego that’s not going to allow you to learn from a Mauro Fiore that I bring in, then I will send you on your way. Others who want to learn are welcome on the set anytime. Our goal is to show the state that we can educate and elevate anyone interested. The education aspect is honestly the most important to me.”
Making it in the industry takes commitment.
“It’s a really cool business but it’s a very hard business,” he said. “It is work. At the end of a work day you are tired. Not everyone is built for it. I was built for it, so I knew I was going to make it (even when unemployed and homeless early on).”
For every on-camera industry job, there are several more off-camera or behind the scenes jobs He is in talks with Metro Community College and its trade programs for getting students versed in set construction.
Certain things can only be acquired in the field. Intern-shadow participants learn techniques and tricks of the trade from pros. Goodwin has mentored several writers over the years and now he’s pairing young people with himself and other veterans to learn directing, editing, lighting, sound and more. One intern, Husker defensive back Ceyair Wright, is a Los Angeles native with Hollywood screen acting credits. He’s interning with Fallen Giant to learn other aspects of film-TV work.
Goodwin said Wright noted how creative adjustments happen on set.
“Oh yeah, all the time,” Goodwin said. “I don’t storyboard because I’m not beholden. Most directors want to stick to their shots. I’m fluid. Figuring things out on the fly is par for the course.”
Not every intern or shadower will end up working in the industry, but the skills and confidence they learn will serve them well in whatever field they enter, Goodwin said, who’s glad to give back where his own path started.
“Doing it back home makes it all the more meaningful. I’m about Nebraska. That’s why I came back and moved my company here,” Goodwin said. “I tell them, ‘You’ve got me for life if you want to utilize me – I have a lot of connections. If you’re serious about this business then I’m serious about helping you.’”
Should his vision of a fully-outfitted studio become reality at the site he currently has in mind – the former Sky View Drive-In – it will mark a full circle moment because it’s where his father took him to see his first movie, a Bruce Lee martial arts flick.
“At 8 I said I want to be an actor and was told you can’t,” Goodwin recalled. “There was no one in the industry doing here what I’m doing. My parents said no because they heard bad stories about Hollywood. They were being protective.”
Goodwin studied architecture and served an Air Force stint before breaking into the business. Largely self-taught as a multi-hyphenate screen talent, he’s forged a successful career and is leveraging his expertise and experience to make film-TV a closer reality for more Nebraskans.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
The post Randy Goodwin entering uncharted territory for Nebraska film production with Fallen Giant Films appeared first on The Reader.
