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Alex Ferrari, Jorge Rodriguez and Sean Falcon (Broken) Alex Ferrari and Jorge Rodriquez have done an incredible thing. Using their own money, they financed a short film that looks as good as any Hollywood blockbuster and twice as exciting. Broken is a 15 minute psychological action thriller that contains a staggering 100 visual effects shots, produced on an $8,000 budget that would make studio execs think they'd snorted fairy dust instead of coke.
But what is really astounding about Broken are the high production values, the stunning cinematography, the confident, professional performances and the assured direction of Alex Ferrari. Impressed, we had the chance to chat with Alex, producer Jorge Rodriguez and visual effects supervisor Sean Falcon to find out how it was all done.
 PIXELSURGEON: Please introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your backgrounds.
ALEX: My name is Alex Ferrari and I am the director, producer, writer, editor and a bunch of other jobs on Broken. I have been editing and post supervising commercials, music videos & features for about 10 years and been directing commercials for about 6.
JORGE: I am Jorge Flores Rodriguez one of the Writers and Producers of the short film Broken. I began writing prose at an early age, eventually leading me to the art of screenwriting. I have worked in Production for the past 5 years at every level and have Line Produced two Feature Films. I live in South Florida with my wife and three daughters.
SEAN: My name is Sean Falcon and I handled a lot of the compositing on Broken. I have a Bachelors Degree in Computer Animation and my weapons of choice are Shake and Maya. I've known Alex for a few years now. He told me what he wanted to do and I agreed to help him. I thought it would be a great learning experience. Those type of projects are always the most fun because you control the final output.
What were your aims in putting together Broken?
ALEX: We want to show the "industry" what we could do with little or no money. To prove that you can make a action/thriller that has high production value and that has a story.
JORGE: Our desire was to create a high concept action/thriller that incorporated both depth of story as well as visual and practical effects for a non-existent budget.
How did you cast the parts?
JORGE: The process took over three weeks of open casting, with talent coming from both web postings and local talent agencies.
The trailer seems to have incredibly high production values, how was this achieved on such a small budget?
 ALEX: I've been editing movie promos for years, so when I sat down to put a teaser trailer together for a project that I actually directed, together with my good friend producer Kyra Ozuna and Sound Designer Mark Roumelis, it was really cool. Most independent projects do not think about marketing. Marketing your baby with a trailer, website, posters, behind the scenes footage, press kits, etc is as important as making the film. There are tons of amazing projects out there that will never see the light of day because of lack of marketing and promotion.
SEAN: Alex can cut a mean trailer! His edits really have a good rhythm to them. The lightning played a great role in determining the look for Broken as well as the color palette. The muted colors and dingy atmosphere was very important in giving it an eerie feel. The location that was chosen was perfect. In the end its about people working together to achieve a goal, and when people put in their all, you get good results.
How did you raise the money in the first place
JORGE: We paid for the short out of our own pockets. We felt it was the best way to maintain creative control over-the-project.
ALEX: Both Jorge and I self financed Broken. And we swung deals with crew and cast.
Do you think you'll make your money back on the project?
JORGE: Our intention was never to make the money back as much as it was to show what we could do. We never thought the short itself would sell but now we have had offers to sell the short both alone and in a compilation of action thrillers. These were unexpected surprises.
ALEX: Some distribution companies, after watching the trailer, believed Broken was a feature and want to make us offers... that was CRAZY.
Could that be an important consideration for people wanting to make high production value movies outside the regular studio system?
JORGE: It may be for someone else, but we never thought about making our money back on this or any short. Now if this had been a feature with a substantially larger budget than $8,000 it would have been on the top of our list of priorities.
ALEX: What he said... seriously if we get the opportunity to make Broken into a feature, all the hard work will be well worth it!
Did the movie spring into life fully formed or was it shot over a long period in stages?
JORGE: The movie was shot over a period of five hectic days. But the script, its scenes, the production design, as well as all of the practical make-up and special effects planning was put together two weeks before in pre-production.
ALEX: I was prepping the film, on my off time for 10 weeks, with Jorge and our team. Couple hours here and there. Storyboards, concept art, location scouts, rehearsals, VFX tests, make and wardrobe tests, etc. I need to plan out every step of the process and then give the actors a well constructed playground for them to play in.
How did you support yourself during the production?
JORGE: We managed to save our money ahead of time so that the pre-production and shoot would not become a financial burden.
ALEX: I don't know what Jorge is talking about, I sold my body on the streets... tear. But that is a whole other interview (LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Mr. Ferrari did not sell his body on the streets, nor does he endorse young filmmakers doing so... stay in school)
What movies inspired you to make this one?
 ALEX: My major influences for Broken were Robert "the man" Rodriguez and David "screw the studio" Fincher among others. Both those guys make films their way and do it with a great amount of style and control. Se7en and Fight Club are on my top 5 of all time and pretty much almost all of Robert's films as well [Editor's note: that makes more than five films, but we'll let that slide...]. They have fun telling stories... this is suppose to be fun, if not we would get real jobs.
JORGE: Since we are both fans of the action film and the psychological thriller I have to say that our influences were varied. Films like Se7en, Fight Club, The Matrix, as well as Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Kill Bill, and La Femme Nikita are some of our favorites. Still we wanted to do things that we always thought would have been cool but we had never seen done.
Was the plot and genre determined so as to be as popular as possible with a potential audience, or is this a genre you love and would like to make a career in? For Sean, I can't imagine there's be too many visual effects in a love story...
ALEX: Dude, I think I can speak for everyone involved with Broken, we just wanted to make a KICK ASS flix that would blow away your senses and actually make you think a bit.
SEAN: What he said. Though I do like Steel Magnolias and Beaches... GOD I love Bette Milder... did I say that out loud?
JORGE: We made the type of movie we like to see. And since we like a mixture of genres its most likely that our movies will have influences from action, thriller, sci-fi, and horror.
Sean Falcon's compositing movies are incredibly interesting and informative; what made you decide to put these online?
SEAN: I always loved seeing how VFX shots are done (I still do), so this was a chance to show other people what we have done. It shows some cool things that can be done in a relatively short amount of time.
ALEX: We wanted to show off Sean's amazing work and give people an inside look at how we did it. To show you do not need a lot of money to tell your story. BTW, Sean had only two weeks to complete over 90 effect shots. We were rushing to have a finished copy to take to Sundance so we could being promoting the project. The rest of the effect work was done by Dan Cregan and myself.
What software have you been using for grading and compositing?
SEAN: All of the compositing was done in Apple's Shake. Shake is really a great tool for compositing. It really helps you understand the fudamentals of compositing. Once you understand that, you can apply that knowledge to any package on the market today.
ALEX: Grading was done using Final Cut Pro's Color Corrector, Magic Bullet and a few other filter packages.
Is there any relevance to the Dabbit character we see on Bonnie's nightshirt that we should be aware of?
SEAN: Who's Dabbit???
JORGE: We approached Conceptual Artist Dan Cregan with the idea of a character on her shirt that would hold some secret to her past and plays a larger role in the full length version of the story. And the half dog, half rabbit, Dabbit was born.
Have you finished editing the movie?
ALEX: Yes, and you should have a copy of it in your mailbox any day now. [see our review here]
Has been creating this movie ad you expected? Were there any unexpected surprises or disasters?
 ALEX: Jorge can take this one.
JORGE: Where to begin. The week we were scheduled to shoot Hurricane Jeanne struck our location. We shot the entire film at one of the oldest operating Tuberculosis Sanitariums in the US. The facility had massive damage but we incorporated that into the script and shot the following week. That week my wife gave birth to my third child so I was up the entire night before. When I arrived at the facility I learned that FEMA would be using the facility to dispense Hurricane Aid to Florida residents during the entire week of the shoot. They were expecting about 50,000 people and ended up seeing close to 200,000. Traffic jams and crowds caused late starts and even later nights. But with the help of a creative crew, we were able to get the movie in the can in less than one week.
ALEX: The Post Production deadline for the over 100 VFX was nuts too! But I knew Sean could pull it off.
SEAN: The deadline was a little scary. We wanted to have it done by Sundance, so we had to jump right in. I also have a full time job, so this was a night shift job as well. It was a good challenge to do though. Deadlines run this industry, so it felt good to finish it on schedule.
ALEX: On the post side, the edit, sound mastering, DVD authoring had to be done before we left for Sundance. Sean is being modest, what both him and Dan Cregan pulled off in two and a half weeks was amazing. Over 100 VFX shots... nuts! Makes you wonder what they could do if given more time.
SEAN: I wonder...
There seem to be more and more low budget, high quality productions being made. What accounts for this new wave of filmmaking?
ALEX: The tools are finally becoming affordable. Knowledge is not a kept secret anymore. Laserdiscs... I mean DVDs have so much information about the process of filmmaking now, it's sick! With programs like Final Cut Pro, Shake, Photoshop, Maya, Digital Performer and cameras like the Panasonic DVX 100A being so inexpensive, there is no excuse for not telling your story. We used the same software The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix used to do our effects. The playing field is leveling out and there seems no end in sight. Thank God!
SEAN: The price of software and hardware is becoming much more affordable. So now more people with good creative visions have access to tools that aid in a professional quality result.
JORGE: A combination of the advent of affordable technology and the marketing potential of the internet, gives the independent filmmaker the ability to get his ideas to a large receptive audience, consisting not only of other moviephiles but of increasing numbers of industry professionals.
Is the aim to ultimately move into larger budget filmmaking, using this movie as a showcase?
ALEX: ABSOLUTELY! Both Jorge and I are working on the feature version of Broken and are currently in talks with some interested parties about financing/producing the project. Wish us luck!
JORGE: The short is actually a portion of the feature film script. Currently we are speaking with 3 international entities as well as a domestic one that are interested in developing the project.
What would a larger budget have added to Broken?
ALEX: We would have been able to pay our crew better and we would had had more time to shoot. You can never have enough time to experiment and explore on-set.
JORGE: A couple of scenes at the most. Plus we would have hired out alot of the jobs we had to do ourselves. But because of the small budget we had to do alot of the work ourselves and therefore learned a quite a bit about all of the aspects of filmaking. An experience we wouldn't trade for a couple of scenes.
SEAN: More visual effect shots and possibly a paycheck... just kidding guys. I love working for free... no really, put your money away.
What has the feedback been like so far on the movie?
ALEX: AMAZING! The feedback has been very cool, positive and unexpected. People seem to enjoy Broken and that is all a storyteller can hope for.
JORGE: So far it has been well received by both the movie geeks and industry alike.
Read our review of Broken here
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