Bill Kingsbury and Jason Smith met in their first weeks at Emerson College in Boston. They soon became college roommates, and have been a filmmaking team ever since. Smith would come up with the ideas, and Kingsbury would figure out how to pull them off.
Following college, they moved to Los Angeles to work in film. They got their first job through a friend of a friend, working at the bottom of the ladder on a low budget feature. But their excitement at this new prospect turned to dismay when they saw the movie's behind-the-scenes problems.
"Nobody ever stopped complaining, fighting, talking behind each other's backs," says Kingsbury. "Everybody had a chip on their shoulder."
"It starts to rub off on you," recalled Smith. "One day I looked at Bill and said, 'It doesn't have to be like this!'"
They decided to prove it.
The two set out to make a movie with three goals in mind. The first goal was budget. "You hear a lot about making movies at used-car prices," says Smith. "Well, we decided to keep our used cars and put them in the story. We vowed to finance the whole thing ourselves."
The second goal was to make a movie with "no jerks." They sought out a cast and crew they thought would get along well, people who would work for the love of making movies and not whine about the little stuff.
The third goal was to get back on the road. They both loved to travel, and knew instantly their story should to be about the freedom of the American highway.
"We decided to tell a story about escape, a movie about getting away from the daily grind and the crap you put up with because you're expected to. A story about people taking control of their lives and getting a move on."
Smith wrote the script based on an idea he shared with Kingsbury and actors Steve Sabellico and Bob Canning. They formed Burnin' Vernon Productions with other people who shared the same idealistic vision. With a final draft and a team in place, the journey really began.
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