Sometimes It’s OK to Be Afraid – A Conversation with ‘Supercell’ Director and Co-Writer Herbert James “Jamie” Winterstern

Baseball-size hail, violent winds, and churning tornadoes make supercells deadly, and when William Brody was a boy, his father – a legendary storm-chaser – was killed by one. Now, the family business belongs to Zane Rogers (Alec Baldwin), a reckless tour operator who sees dollar signs where others see storm clouds. When his destiny arrives in the form of one of the most powerful storms on record, William leaves his mom (Anne Heche) and home behind to team up with his father’s ex-partner, Roy Cameron (Skeet Ulrich), barely surviving a tornado yet determined to chase one of nature’s most terrifying creations: the bear’s cage.

There is a time and place for feel-good, character-driven, adventure-filled movies with tasteful orchestrations that pay homage to films from yesteryear, and we get that, plus some beautifully rendered tornado storms, in director and co-writer Herbert James “Jamie” Winterstern's directorial feature debut Supercell.

Jamie recently spoke with Script about the seed of this story, writing from a personal place, his creative collaborations with his co-writer Anna Elizabeth James, cinematographer Andrew Jeric, and composer Corey Wallace, and why character always comes first. Plus, he shares real-world advice for first-time writer-directors.

Once you get the opportunity to watch this film, which is currently in Theaters and available on Digital and On Demand, the first title card before the end credits resonates even more after reading this interview with Jamie. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: This movie is such a wonderful throwback to the adventure films we grew up watching, and it was fun to be a part of the journey with these characters.

Herbert James “Jamie” Winterstern: Thank you! It's funny, I listened to Alec Baldwin's podcast and he had an interview with Cameron Crowe…and they were talking about his filmography, and Cameron said, ‘I want to make movies that are both universal, but also personal.’ And that's exactly the same thing that I just relate to. I feel like films today, they lack that. I don't know why. Studios for some reason, I don't feel like they're drawn in that direction. Because of maybe streamers, everything's getting more niche, direct to specific markets. And that was the movies that we enjoyed in the 80s and 90s, where you could be with your kids, your grandparents, you can go as a family - a community experience in the theater, and escape for 90 minutes to two hours. And that's exactly what I wanted Supercell to achieve.

Sadie: I think you did it. What was the initial seed for the story and your writing collaboration with Anna Elizabeth James?

Jamie: The seed and the idea stemmed from personal experience. In 2019, I took my fiancée storm chasing, and we did it! And it was incredible. I guess it was beginner's luck, because the first day we went out, we saw one of the most photogenic super cells that was recorded that year. It was this atomic bomb, massive cloud structure that you could see with the naked eye rotating, very similar to what ended up in the film. And after a couple more trips I guess that spring, I asked myself, ‘why hasn't there been a movie about the storm-chasing community since 1996? ‘And Twister was the big blockbuster of that year. And I just I felt like audiences could use an update on what's been going on for 25 years. And not that it was about necessarily the spectacle of tornadoes and weather, but about the community of people, scientists, meteorologists, forecasters. Those are the heroes in this story.

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And then another thing that I find interesting is we used to tell stories about real, relatable people, like astronauts, and firefighters - Apollo 13, Backdraft - now it's more superheroes, capes, and I miss being able to see an occupation on the big screen that's relatable to an audience. So, that was a driving force.

But ultimately, family is at the core at the center - my relationships with my mom, who passed, and my father, dealing with those dynamics that was at the forefront - the spectacle of tornadoes, it became more of a backdrop. And I think the best stories are character driven - character first, even if it's a tornado movie.

When I went storm chasing, and I thought up this idea, I'm not innately a writer, I feel like everybody has their strengths. My strength is always behind the camera. And more of a visualist; I see with imagery, I don't necessarily see right away with words. And I knew I had to team up with a solid writer. And I was very fortunate to pair up with an USC alum, we went to school together, Annie, I call her, Anna Elizabeth James. And I pitched her the idea. She's like, ‘Jamie, I want to be involved. I'm going to help you out. Fly out to Utah, we're going to bang out the script in 10 days.’ It was like a boot camp. And it was a beautiful collaboration, because she really taught me how to write. I mean, I always knew how to write, we went to film school together. I had written scripts in the past, not that they were any good, necessarily, but she knew this science of being able to tell a three-act structure, eight sequences, hitting all those milestones. 

Not only that, but she also knows how to write in a way that agents, producers, movies that convince talent to sign on. She understands the producer mind of filmmaking, which is so essential, because a lot of writers, they pour their heart into a script, but it may not be an easy read, or it may read more or less like a novel, but it doesn't read like a script. And you have to remember that the decision makers that are going to greenlight your movies, they're not going to read it like they read a book on a Saturday afternoon, they're gonna go through it pretty quickly. So, it has to just be simple. And it was a boot camp for me, we wrote the first draft in about 10 days, it was not very good. I guess Ernest Hemingway famously said, ‘every first draft is shit’ [laughs] I completely agree. And then over the course, I guess, after a year, I kind of took control of the script. And through my own science research education, I was able to update the script, and the dialogue, to make it to the producing script that we ended up shooting.

Sadie: There’s a lot to navigate in terms of character development and point of view, especially their relationships. We watch William go on this journey and chase this idea of this man he thinks his father was, similar to Zane and Roy. And the real driving force is his relationship and lack of understanding of who his mom is and was. It’s not all just about chasing tornadoes.

Jamie: I've been looking at some of the reviews and it's been more or less mixed or positive. Obviously, the tough thing is, people expect Twister, but Twister had about 100 times the budget. So, if you're going in expecting a spectacle, you may be disappointed, because this was always more or less a family adventure. And I feel like people who go in without expecting a disaster movie, they're going to be rewarded.

I grew up idolizing my father, I love my father. He was always somebody I looked up to, but I always felt that he represented more of a traditional sense of what a man was, you know, strong masculinity, and a provider. And in a weird way, I was a little intimidated by that because I never quite felt that way. And my mom, on the other hand, she was always there. She was a stay-at-home mom. She did our laundry, she cooked for us - I took her for granted, and I didn't realize I was doing that. And I was fascinated with my dad because he went out and he worked hard. He'd come home and the time with him was more exclusive. So maybe that played into the way I saw him as this kind of mythical figure.

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And then that's the interesting thing is this is all kind of matched to what William's journey is not that I lost my father as a kid, I ended up losing my mom as an adult. I lost her to Alzheimer's a few years ago. And then I guess what happened was when she passed, the themes of mortality and death, they hit me hard, they still hit me, questions like, where do we go when we die? Will I ever see my mom again? And then it was at that moment, I realized that my mom is special. And she may have not been the one bringing home the cheddar, or however you want to call it, but because of her, I believe my father had the confidence to be who he was, she was kind of the force that I didn't recognize at the time.

And in a similar way, that's what Quinn is, she's the sacrificial force. And in a way the script mirrors kind of the evolution of how I've seen my parents over the last few years since my mom has passed. And it's where I've been able to express all that was through this story. So Zane’s character is a cowboy, Roy's character is a timid scientist. To me, they're like two different forms of masculinity, that are jockeying for attention from William. But the truth is that and this is kind of the lesson of the film I hope young boys take from it is that you kind of have to be your own man. And that may be Zane, it may be Roy, but it may be something else. And when you're able to step into your own self, that's when you can start seeing the truth of how things are. And at the end, William is able to see the truth of his mother, very similar to how I'm able now to see the truth of my mom.

Sadie: Yeah, absolutely. And that makes me recall a line from the film when Quinn says, ‘sometimes it's OK to be afraid.’ And I feel like that just resonates thematically for the whole film and those relationships and the individual characters. Now, the musical score to this film is also one of those throwbacks to films from yesteryear. You’re utilizing emotional music cues that are reminiscent of a John Williams score - using orchestrations to build the world and the mood. What was the creative collaboration like with your composer Corey Wallace?

Jamie: Yeah, so Corey Wallace is another USC alum that we went to school with, somebody that I've collaborated with since my short films at USC. The concept of doing a storm-chasing film, music is probably the strongest force when it comes to creating – and I create a playlist on Spotify. And I listened to all these scores on repeat…so, obviously, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, John Williams. I was just really pulled into that classical love letter to those films of the 80s and 90s, scores that made you hum, or scores that you remembered humming when you walked out of the theater. And I don't know why, again, why films have steered away from that, because it's such a powerful storytelling tool. And I knew that this movie was always going to have this big orchestral score, because it just played into the tone of what I wanted to achieve.

So, I called Corey before the script was even written. And I didn't have money because we didn't even have a script at that point. And I didn't have to do a lot of begging, he was really intrigued. And he would set aside time and he would send me cues or he would send me motifs or melodies. And I would say, ‘I don't know if I feel that one.’ And I think we worked for a solid year, not constantly, but every few months, he would throw me some themes. And then I remember on one particular day, he ended up sending what is the Supercell theme. And as you know, when you hear something that just clicks, it just works. And that ended up being the theme that is called, I guess, the Supercell theme.

The fun thing about orchestral music is when you develop the language of these melodies or motifs, you get to sprinkle them throughout a movie. So, then you develop a relationship with sound, so that when you hear it again, and maybe it's just a single flute, or it's played with brass, it starts to change the meaning of what that motif is. It's so much fun. And I just don't know why movies don't take advantage of that anymore. But we definitely took advantage. [laughs]

Sadie: In terms of casting and getting them attached to the project, how much if at all, did you go back to the page with them to kind of refine some of the character development or how they spoke or carried themselves? I keep thinking of Anne’s character Quinn and her little nuances like smoking cigarettes, or Zane’s attachment to his hat – little things like that.

Jamie: Yeah, it's interesting. I will say when we started writing, it's not that I had any particular cast in mind, I just wanted to express this story. I knew that I represented William. I was writing myself for William and my mom for Quinn and my father for what ended up being a piece of Zane and a piece of Roy. The casting process is interesting. How this works in the independent world and the financing world, pre-sales - you get that one movie star, and then everything happens, like within a month. And before you know it, you're shooting.

I will say for a very long time we were thinking, because the producers had a relationship with Dennis Quaid, he seemed interested in the Roy part. And I think at that time he was doing Reagan, which was being filmed in Oklahoma. And there was a big waiting game on him; he was going to be the carrot that starts the whole process. And then I don't know I think after a few months, he ended up passing. And we were getting into Berlin of 2021 and there was pressure to find an attachment. I'm very fortunate, through my producers and through Alec Baldwin, his producing partner Anjul Nigam - who's in the film, he’s part of the second tour, he plays one of the Indian passengers - he was able to get the script in front of Alec and Alec read that and he wanted to sign on. As soon as we got Alec, things happened so fast. And then our casting director, Tracy Kilpatrick, she's great, she started floating different names by us. And then I remember obviously names like Anne [Heche] and Skeet [Ulrich], and I was just drawn immediately to them. And of course, when you get your talent, you start to understand, OK, now I'm working with this artist, and I know what I like about the artists and how they're going to season the role.

So yeah, of course, writing is rewriting, and we're rewriting up until calling action. I will say Skeet is a great storyteller. I remember doing some rehearsals with him in his hotel room with Daniel Diemer. And his binder of notes, he had almost more ink on his script than I did as a director, which is amazing devotion to the story. Daniel Diemer is another interesting situation when we talk about script revisions. So, I'm writing myself for William and I was a small kid, I was always short - I was a late bloomer. And then I remember watching Daniel's audition. I was so blown away by him. I knew immediately he was the guy but as in auditions, they slate after they do the read. And he mentioned he's six foot four. It put me into a tailspin. And I remember I talked to one of my producers, Nathan [Klingher], I was like, ‘Is that OK? Can you be too tall?’ [laughs] Because traditionally actors are short -you want them short for some reason. And Jordan Seamón’s she's like five foot one, five foot two, that dynamic is going to be another reason why she steps onto the diving board so their mouths would line up, which was Skeet's idea. I'll give him credit for that. But I wanted to have fun with his height. He's so strong, he shoves Roy - you add these fun little silly lines, like ‘what has your mom been feeding you?’ You find opportunities to mold the story once you have your cast. So yeah, we took advantage of that.

Sadie: I’m curious because you have a cinematography background, what was the decision to not shoot this yourself? And what was the collaboration like with your DP Andrew Jeric?

Jamie: I do have cinematography credits, but feature filmmaking is a whole different breed. As a DP, I may have done commercials, shorter-form content. But as a director, I really want to focus on that - that is unbearable weight at times. I really envy and don't understand how some directors like Robert Rodriguez, there are directors that can operate the camera. Maybe after a number of films and I get my confidence up and things are happening, that might be something I could consider.

But Andrew Jeric, again, another USC alum, I went to school with, we worked on many projects together, we have a shorthand, he understood the requirements for this project. And, as a director, I'm very technical, because I do understand the camera. Composition to me is my bread and butter.

Obviously, my biggest influences are the greatest at moving the camera, right? Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, go to a generation before them with John Houston, David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock. I do understand the language of camerawork.

So, for me, I storyboarded the entire film, mostly because I had so much anxiety that I wanted to over prepare for the job. Sadly, when you get 20 days to make a movie, you don't get all your shots. And I learned very quickly, I probably needed 10 times the budget to shoot the movie that was in my mind. So maybe I shot 12% of my boards, but that's a different conversation.

Andrew, though, he got the message. We wanted to create a love letter to, in my opinion, the greatest era of filmmaking, which meant haze, backlight, flares - and also the production designer Travis [Zariwny], I gotta give him credit because he dressed these environments where you can taste the screen. And that was something else that the attention to detail, we lose that too in cheap short schedule filmmaking which you get a lot with pre-sale movies. I was not going to let that deter me. Andrew, fantastic, talented cinematographer. He won the award at Newport Beach Film Festival, he won the Jury Prize which surprisingly, we got for Supercell - he won again at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival - he's a great storyteller. I would say that a lot of us USC alum, we all go to school to study filmmaking so we're all storytellers. Just because I'm the director doesn't mean I am the end all be all storyteller. Everybody, all the departments are storytellers. And it just makes for a stronger movie.

Sadie: Any advice for first-time writer-directors?

Jamie: Yes, I guess the biggest thing, fear is your friend. It's normal to be scared. I was terrified. I mean, I think it took me about 15 of 20 days to overcome that fear. It's not something you want to share with anybody. [laughs] It is good, though, if you have a spouse or a best friend, or a producing partner, or in my case, it was my cinematographer because we have history together. We could vent after a very difficult day, and I could be vulnerable with him and tell him I don't know how I'm going to do this. This is during COVID. It's a $50 million movie we're doing for $5 million. It's special effects. It's big actors. It's normal to be afraid. Just embrace the fear. Just trust and believe in yourself. And you know what, you just got to get it done - at any cost, you just got to tell your story. Everything will work itself out. It's normal to be afraid, so don't let that discourage you.