Hippo - News and Culture Weekly

Losing Jerry, a film about three guys whose common interest in the Grateful Dead leads them along a 15 year path of friendship, loss, love and growth, will begin shooting this fall in New Hampshire. Producer Mark Constance, who has worked on dozens of films, and his team have even secured rights to the band’s music.

“We met with the Grateful Dead Corporation — each surviving member has to sign off — and the music has been signed off. It is the first time they have agreed to allow their music [to be used] for an entire soundtrack,” Constance said.

The story of Losing Jerry is written by Mitch Ganem, a Wolfeboro native who now lives in New York. The film’s co-producer is Tracey Becker, who produced Finding Neverland.

Ganem has injected some of his own experiences as a Deadhead into the script. On the night of Jerry Garcia’s death, Aug. 9, 1995, fellow band member Bob Weir was giving his first concert with his newly formed group, Ratdog, at the Hampton Beach Casino. Mitch Ganem was in the crowd and remembers Weir stopping the concert to speak about the death of Garcia. The film culminates on that night.

“The speech he gave that night — Mitch has taken a lot of dramatic license — so when he [Bob Weir] played in Concord, we met with him and he’s agreed to do a voice-over for the movie,” Constance said.

The film has a $6.3 million budget and the money is in place to begin shooting this September, he said. The film is expected to be entirely shot in the Granite State, mostly on the Seacoast though Manchester will be used quite prominently. Locations slated for filming include the Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, the Veterans Administration Hospital and a record store. The movie will need a lot of extras for concerts scenes.

“We’ll be needing 400 to 500 people a day as extras when we film the concert scene,” Constance said. All extras who work the full day will be paid. Casting for the three lead characters is taking place in Los Angeles.

“Right now, none of the actors we are looking at have won any Academy Awards, but they are A-list film actors and there will be people, I guarantee you, who will say, ‘Wow,’” he said.

Constance grew up on the Seacoast and left in 1989 to work in Los Angeles. He moved back to New Hampshire with his wife to raise their two children. He said there’s no reason for Hollywood not to make films in New Hampshire and he hopes, that with if Losing Jerry is successful, other filmmakers will be encouraged to come to New Hampshire to make movies.

“This will probably be one of the biggest movies fully shot in the state since On Golden Pond,” Constance said.