Interviews
BROKEN Interview
by Jacob Sanders
“A gun blast, a flash of light,
and a young woman awakens to the comfort of her own bed.
Bonnie Clayton has it all, a great relationship, a challenging
career, and the burden of a dream the grows more vivid
and disturbing with each passing night. But when Bonnie
is abducted by a sadistic stranger and his colorful entourage,
she discovers that the key to her survival lies within
the familiar realms of her recurring dream.”
-BROKEN
A tale by Alex Ferrari
During all this time of stress
and rushing around for the holidays, I was able to contact
Alex Ferrari, Jorge Rodriguez and their team. Although I
know that they are not only busy with family, but also with
their projects, they were gracious enough to give me a little
inside perspective on the details of the creation, development
and production of this diabolical short.
The speaker is color coded throughout interview as:
Alex Ferrari - Director/Writer/Producer/Editor/Colorist/VFX
Artist/Production Designer
Jorge
F. Rodriguez - Writer/Producer/Production Designer
Sean
Falcon - VFX Superviser/SHAKE Compositor
Dan
Cregan - VFX Artist/Compositor/Storyboard & Concept
Artist
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JS -What
was your inspiration for BROKEN?
Alex: a.
I came up with the idea in college and kept it locked
away for years until I decide to resurrect it for BROKEN.
I wrote the original script for the short and then brought
it to Jorge to see if he wanted to put his "stank" on
it. Together we developed the final script for the short
and are currently working on the full screenplay. We
always had a vision of making this story to a feature.
The characters were just begging for it!
b. We
wanted to create an intelligent action packed thriller
and we were eager to prove that independent no-budget film-making
could reap more than the standard “talking head” short
film, so we set out to create a movie that not only had
depth of story, but would satisfy the senses with its action
and visual effects.
c. When
we started BROKEN I told Jorge I wanted a ton of rehearsal
and prep time. We set up about 12 weeks of rehearsals and
pre production. We all had jobs, so this was done at night
and after hours. Couple hours here and there. Storyboards,
concept art, location scouts, rehearsals, VFX tests, make
and wardrobe tests, etc. I needed to plan out every step
of the process. I like to have a battle plan before I go
into WAR and wanted time with the actors to beat the hell
out of the script with them. Also we wanted to have time
to do the VFX tests needed to make BROKEN a success. Both
Jorge and I want to push the envelop and I really want
to push what can be done with no money, MiniDV, a mac and
a dream..sorry it got away from me there for a second ;
)
Jorge: a.
Alex and I had been looking for something to work on for
quite some time. He approached me with a story he wrote
during his college days. He'd rewritten it and both my
wife and I thought it was really good. The he asked me
to take a swipe at it and he liked the way I went with
it. We then collaborated on it for a few months and Broken
was born.
b. Initially
we wanted to develop the piece as a calling card. To show
that we could create a 15 to 20 minute short that could
seamlessly replace 20 minutes in a bigger budgeted movie.
To create something that not only had kick ass action and
special effects but a story that would leave people wanting
more.
c. One
of the biggest obstacles, believe it or not, was for Alex
and I to learn how to collaborate. It took some time but
we found that writing alone then giving notes to each other
was what worked for us. As far as the budget and time were
concerned we worked on Broken after we got home from our "real" jobs
and on every chunk of free time we could find. And since
we financed it ourselves we really didn't have much choice
but to make this happen with the money we had. Quitting
and Failing were not options.
Sean: Alex
had approached me with the script a while back. We had
already been working together at my full time job, so I
new about his talent and that he was serious. Of course
I wouldnt get paid for this, but he was kind enough
to throw some freelance in my direction. This was great
because it gave me more material on my demo as well as
opening some new doors to a network of people. The main
focus from the beginning was quality vs time. We
knew that we didn't want to compromise the quality of the
project just because we were short on time. So we figured
out the best way to get the best quality product in the
shortest amount of time (and in budget). We did not want
to go with the "quantity approach", which is
like "lets see how much crap we can get done in 2
weeks". We really wanted to show that you don't need
millions of dollars to make something cool (although it
helps GREATLY), just skill and the dedication to do it.
Dan: Well,
Alex and Jorge met me when I was on an animation panel
with a fellow digital artist named Ken Robkin at HD Fest
in Ft.Lauderdale (A film festival for high definition films)
and they approached us after it was over and asked if we'd
be interested in doing some work with them. I didn't know
how serious they were but a few days later they let me
read the script and later that day I was doing my first
piece of concept art. Ken and I ended up splitting the
preproduction process of work, with myself focusing on
concept art and storyboards and Ken doing the character
designs. For me it was a chance to work on an action film,
something I had never done before and it really turned
out to be a labor of love. It was exciting but exhausting
because at that time it was only a month to the shoot and
Alex wanted to storyboard and plan everything out down
to the last detail. I think all the preparation really
shows in the final product. I'm still trying to recover!
JS
-When developing the story, did you sit down with
each other and write out scenes and sequences, or did
you each write separately then combine them and work
them in together?
Alex: We
worked together, in the same room for a while after I brought
Jorge the original script I wrote. We refined the script
in three months after I had worked on it for about four
myself. I was storyboarding the shots in my head as we
were writing the script. Once we got the ball rolling I
wanted to treat this little short MiniDV film like if it
were a $100 million flix. We might not had had the$100
million in the bank but we acted as if we did. Let me explain,
in order to gather the talent that we did, we needed to
project a professional image. Storyboards, concept art,
character designs, etc. Everyone believed we were making
a big budget film because we acted as we were. With the
help of Dan Cregan (Storyboard/Concept Artist) we storyboarded
almost every single shot in BROKEN. He finished having
a 55 page book of storyboards. I think you need storyboards
at a low-budget level indy because we were attempting to
do some complicated camera moves, set ups, and action.
The crew needed to have a clear idea of what I wanted and
I believe that that prep work really paid off. At the budget
we were working with ($8000) we had NO breathing room.
Jorge: We
would toss ideas around, then when we found one we liked
we would scrutinize it until by the time it came out the
other end it was either good enough for the script or the
scrap heap. Once Dan Cregan came on board his concept art,
and storyboards helped solidify what we originally envisioned.
The one concern I had was where we were going to shoot
it. We knew the location would have to have all the elements
we needed for the script with few company moves. Alex assured
me he knew of a place and that he had written the original
script around that location. When we finally went to scout
the location I could not believe my eyes. He was right.
It was everything we could have wanted or needed and all
in one place. We worked the subtle differences into the
script and A.G. Holley State Hospital became home to Broken.
Dan: As
far as the concept art goes I was shown the location footage
and was generally asked to "set the mood" for
the scene. I was concerned with giving Alex a possible
color palette to think about. Alex had a very strong vision
of what he wanted on screen so he would draw me these stick
figure sketches and say this is the angle I want but make
it look better! We had to do over sixty pages of storyboards
for a twenty minute short film in a couple of weeks while
we all worked day jobs. The short deadline was the hardest
part but the shoot was already locked in so we had to get
it done.
JS-How
did these interesting characters manifest?
Alex: It
was our attempt to push a short film passed what it usually
is, talking head flixs. We wanted to create characters
that were memorable, even the extras in the background
that have no lines. Just trying to push the envelope.
JS-With
these dynamic special effects, did that make the production
harder, or more interesting and enjoyable? Or both?
Alex:
It made it more interesting as we explain:
Adding
in effects for muzzle effects and explosions...
Sean: We
knew this was going to be an issue before we even started
shooting. It had to be done right or it would all be for
nothing. So I spent some time playing with different looks
for the muzzle flashes. I tried many different approaches,
from hand drawn to 3d to procedural. I found that a happy
mix between hand painted and procedural yeilded the best
results.
I started
with a very basic flame shape (which was actually a rotoshape
in Shake), and began layering in different warps. These
warps were significant because they really had to sell
the look of the flame. I found that using a few different
types layered together really gave some nice edge distortion.
These were kind of 'global warp nodes'. The reason why
the word 'global' was so important to me was that I needed
to have a way to make this as 'automated' as possible.
One real time saver was that warp setup.
Because
Shake is node based, it gies you a great amount of control
over th image, so I easily have the warp only effect certain
parts of my script while covering the entire frame. This
permitted me to create an effect that never produced the
same looking flame twice. In the beginning I figured that
I would just create a library of flame images that i could
randomly switch through. This became incredibly time consuming,
and there was no guarantee that you would not see the same
flame more than once in a shot (there was a lot of shooting!!).
Plus if
Alex wanted the flame to come on 3 frames ealier, I would
have to go back and change a good amount of settings on
alot of nodes. Thats why I took the approach that I did.
The other way that I saved time was by using expressions.
Shake has a scripting language (like Maya's mel scripting),
which allows for total flexibility when needed from the
app.
After
arriving at a muzzle flash that everyone was happy with,
I decided to make a template script based on the type of
gun that was being fired. For instance, we had Christian's
gun that produced a multi-flame flash, and Tony's gun was
a single shot burst. I set it up so that the flame and
all atmophereic fx were controlled by one side of the script,
and the color treatment for interactive lighting was controlled
by the other side. This made for quick and easy swap-outs
of the footage serving as the main plate. The use of expressions
came into play heavily on these shots. I basically had
a flame "fader" which controlled when the flame
was visible. Linked off of this fader, were expressions
that controlled how much interactive lighting was reflected
off of the face of the person and surrounding envrionment,
as well as controlling the glows, smoke, dust and camerashake.
This was
all accomplished by moving only 1 slider instead of 35.
since the warps were constantly changing on a frame by
frame basis and the flames only lasted 1 frame, I was assured
to have a different effect any time it was visible. I had ton
of these shots to complete in a very short amount of time,
so these types of setups are instrumental in completing
complicated or tedious tasks in a much shorter amount of
time.
The explosion
was kind of a surprise for me. I knew we were going to
have that kind of effect, but I didnt get to see the plate
until post. We went and got a stock footage CD that had
all sorts of fire and explosions, the CD also had some
muzzle flashes, but they were very basic and restrictive
as to their integration into many different scenes.
So I did this shot over the weekend starting early Saturday morning, and finishing
Sunday night. I wanted the effect to have 'Impact' to it, so I knew the blast
would have to be fast and fierce. So I started laying in the explosions, while
having to do ALOT of retiming. That took a little while because these elements
were high res an over 35 seconds long for some of them. I needed these things
to fit in a 35-frame window. We didnt have any good smoke elements so I had
to color correct one of the explosions to look like smoke.
The main
thing to keep in mind when doing VFX composites is that
its all in the details. Little things like faint lens flares,
subtle camera shake and atmosphere help to sell any shot.
thankfully the explosion was not supposed to break the
light housing apart, so that saved me a lot of paint work.
JS-What
can you tell us about the awesome 'Shaking Things Up'
scene -- complete with 3D composite?
Sean: The
'shaking things up' shot was a fun one. Alex talked
about it early on, but we saved that one for one of the
last shots I would work on. Luckily I had a clean
plate to help with my roto work. I told Alex not to worry
too much about shooting it a certain way, just make sure
I have my clean bg. After recievveing the plate, i
rotoscoped
out Bonnie from her bg, and layered her into the new one.
Then i took the clean plate and completly cut it apart.
This plate worked really well for this type of shot because
there were tons of items in the back that I could really
shake the hell out of. I spent some time trying to figure
out a fancy way to do this shot, but I soon found out that
cut-and-shake method provided the nicest interactivity.
the shot had a HUGE amount of layers after i was done with
the surgery part.
I didnt
want to just shake eveything uniformly, so this is where
I made good use of expressions. Since almost everything
we do as visual fx artists has its roots in math one way
or another, you can finally put all that trigonometry and
algebra to good use. implementing some basic trig functions
into the expression allowed for some cool movement that
would be very tedious to do by keyframe, and even worse,
having to make a change to a hundred different nodes!!
So i just categorized the movement into 3 or 4 different
shakes (i use that word alot), and then made a few master
nodes that controlled the 100+ transform nodes inside the
script. This in turn allowed for better isolation of different
movements and the ability to quickly make changes to many
layers while only having to worry about a few nodes.
There
was also a sky replacement shot in there too. This involved
clouds that I shot on a stormy South Florida day (a.k.a
June-November), color correction, interactive lighting,
a digital foreground tree via Maya Paint Effects, and some
roto work to enable to pass in front of the sky. There
was a unseen speedbump in that shot. The blacks were pretty
dark as was the night sky, so when the hero character dressed
in black walked in front of the sky, he completely disappeared.
Thankfully he wasn't moving wildly so the roto from the
previous frames seemed to match quite well. Some digital
lightning and a slight camera move finished off the shot.
JS-How
did the knife-throwing scene work?
Dan: Doing
the digital weapons replacement and the scope view came
pretty easy but the hardest part in post was doing
so many spark hits and the destruction caused by weapons.
What seemed like something that would be be easy turned
out to be very time consuming and hard to realistically
pull off. First we tried to build our own sparks with Photoshop
but after a couple of attempts we decided to use an existing
stock special effects package that we had at The Enigma
Factory for post work. Alex wanted to show off the film
at The Sundance Film Festival so we really only had about
two and a half weeks to pull off all of the effects, but
we got it done.
And the
treatment for Bonnie's blue eyes.
Sean: Bonnie's
eyes originally were keyed. I ended up using a Shake's color
wheel, warped and color-corrected to get the eye in the final
comp. Then they were tracked into the plate. I wish we could
have had more of those shots, but it took too much story for
it to make sense. Hopefully we'll see that in the feature...
JS-The
look and feeling you get from BROKEN is so different and
powerful than your average run-of-the-mill film. Where
did that come from?
Alex: We
hired an amazing young DP named Angel Barretta. We have
worked together in the past and I knew he would be able
to keep up with my shooting style, which is very fast.
We average 110-130 setups a day in the basement. We discussed
the look I wanted and told him to shoot it straight. No
filers, no gels, no in-camera tricks.
I wanted
a clean image that I could manipulate in post. The lighting
was keep, especially in Mini DV. The camera's spectrum
of light is limited so I told him to pump a ton of light
in and I'll pull it back in post. The final total was 14
hours on two cameras, but I love to let the camera roll
so I could capture some magic from the actors when they
were not looking. You get some really cool stuff that way.
I
edited the first cut in 2 weeks. then started sending
out VFX plates to the guys so they could start working.
After the FINAL CUT was agreed by Jorge and myself I
began color timing the short to get the look I was going
for. As for the color correction, the filter packages
I used were Magic Bullet, G Film, Stib's Simple Levels
and a FCP's color corrector. I found that Simple Levels
helped me crush the black in a way that the entire image
wasn't affected. I also used garbage matte to cut out
sections of the frame and color correct them individually.
The key
is good lighting and having a design in mind before going
into post. I did a lot of experimenting and layering techinques
in FCP to get the look. I wanted to get three very distinct
looks (Bonnie's Apartment, The Basement, Hospital) for
the short. I used all my departments (waredrobe, production
design, lighting and post) to achieve the final looks.
I made her apartment more blueish for the lighting storm
vibe. The basement I wanted dark, crushed blacks, high
contrast and overall a very unsettling feeling. The hospital
I want a puke green. Very unhealthy vibe.
Sometimes
I look back and forget how I got there. I just play around
ALOT with the tools. Many independent films do not take
the time for design their stories, I did not want to fall
into that trap. It also took about 35 hours of rendering
all the filters to get the final look for BROKEN (on a
Apple G5 Dual 2 GIG, w/4 gigs of RAM and 1 terabyte of
storage).
Sean: The
biggest challenge for me was doing this project in a 2
1/2 week timeframe, while having a full-time job that took
me 1 1/2 hours to get to. for me the muzzle flashes took
the longest as a whole, because of the amount needed. The
quickest shot for me was probably the shaking things up.
Because we planned it out, and I had the idea for a speedier
workflow, things moved at a nice rate.
Alex: The
biggest challenge for me was finding the final look for
BROKEN. It took me three days of playing and experimenting
to finally get a look I was happy with and could show Jorge.
It took me two weeks to cut the first rough cut of BROKEN
(after hours and weekends) and took me another two weeks
to get a final cut that both Jorge and I were happy with.
The VFX took the longest to get organized and done. We
had to schedule the VFX around our work schedules. I was
a challenge. The shortest was probably shooting the short
itself.
JS-Did
you plan to turn BROKEN into a feature, or did that come
after the outstanding response you got from the short?
Alex: We
always had a feature in mind when we made BROKEN.
Jorge: Alex
brought the original story to me, and after collaborating
we developed the concept for a feature. Since we did not
have the money to make a feature we decided to take an
excerpt from Act1 and Act2 and shoot a short film.
JS-With
such a response, does that motivate and push you even harder
to make the feature that much more compelling?
Alex: Truly
shocking and amazing. We never excepted to get such a positive
response to our little short. We hope to make the feature
film version of BROKEN and are working feverishly on adding
the finishing touches to the script. We are also releasing
BROKEN on DVD with over 2 and a half of extras on how we
made it. But really, we want to make a comic book movie,
Jorge and I are comic geeks at heart.
Jorge: We
never expected anything like the attention and accolades
we have gotten for "BROKEN". When we told people
we were going to The Sundance Film Festival they thought
we were crazy spending our time promoting a movie that
wasn't even in the fest. But let me tell you the response
was overwhelming, from both industry professionals and
the public alike. Plus the amount of contacts we made just
by going to the parties and screening of other films led
us to other festivals as well as interest in making the
feature film version of Broken a reality.
Sean: Very
positive thus far...and a big thanks to you guys for acknowledging
our work.
Dan: So
far it's been overwhelmingly positive, I never dreamed
we could get this much attention! I hope it leads to bigger
things, being a movie addict it has always been my dream
to work on films that are seen by large audiences. Don't
get me wrong, I like art films as much as anyone but what
I really want to do is work on films that effect many people
on an emotional level and take them on a visual adventure.
You can't do that without having a bit of mass appeal.
The most rewarding thing by far is to hear an audience
react to work that you have been a part of creating.
JS-Will
you use the same cast and crew for the feature?
Alex: We
will do our best to get all the original cast in the feature
in one way or the other. Due to the "business" of
show business, if someone is giving you $4 million to make
a feature they need some security that they will get their
back. Unknown actors can't be in the lead roles at that
point, unless you are Lucas, Scorsese, Speilberg, etc.
JS-Do
you have a planned shooting date, or is that all still up in
the air?
Jorge: It's
still up in the air but sometime early to mid next year.
Wish us luck!
Alex: I
just wanted to say something to any young or struggling
filmmakers out there in la la land. I wish you all the
best luck in your future projects. Before you make you
first project, LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT THE CRAFT
OF STORYTELLING!! The more you know, the more dangerous
you become...BE DANGEROUS. Just do it!! Stop talking about
it and just do it!!! Push the envelope and do something
new and creative. Tell your story, no matter what!! VIVA
INDY FILM...I MEAN VIVA INDY STORYTELLING IN WHAT EVER
MEDIUM YOU CHOOSE, DIGITAL OR FILM. ; ) Good Luck!
Jorge: My
advice is that no reason or excuse is big enough to stop
you from making your movie if you really want to make it.
Educate yourself and find like-minded people who are looking
to do what you want to do, they are out there, waiting
for someone to tap them on the shoulder and say "lets
do this together." So get up off your ass, write your
story, then rewrite it another 30 times, get organized,
and find those people. Then, go make your movie with whatever
money you've got. Because the only limits you have are
those you impose on yourself. Good luck.
Sean: Get
out there and do it, challenge yourself. As for the directors,
if you want to use VFX, learn a little bit about the process,
a little bit goes a long way. You will have a much easier
time in post which will in turn, produce a nice fx shot
(and a much happier crew!!!!).
Dan: Learn
as much about the process as humanly possible and then
surround yourself with people who can do multiple tasks
and wear many hats. Special effects are now available for
everyone right out of the box, you don't need to be able
to afford ILM or Weta Digital.
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