Jonathan W. Hickman "Broken" is a great "how to" disc. While the short film is cool, it really works better in conjunction with the DVD that offers great insight into how to make your own action/thriller on a small budget. Made for reportedly $8,000.00, director Alex Ferrari has crammed in some 100 special visual effects shots. And it looks terrific leaving you wanting more.The story involves Bonnie who wakes up in her darkened apartment to be abducted by strange and dangerous folks. Skip forward to a warehouse or secret facility of some sort where Bonnie is strapped to an antique wheelchair surrounded by even more dangerous killers all of whom want a piece of her. But she doesn't know why. And neither do we. In time, she will be killed but the sadistic bastards want to have fun with her first.More of a teaching film, "Broken" serves as the platform for special effects talent, director, and co-writer Ferrari to educate us on how everything is done. The amazingly power packed DVD is extremely instructive and even fascinating. Use of split screen showing the rehearsal and the finished scene is interesting and Ferrari humbly provides insight into the workings of making a action/thriller with little money.I especially liked the recipe offered for making your own "guacamole gun." For those of you not familiar with this gun, it's a device that simulates what happens when a person is shot by a gun. It's gross and funny to see the experimentation process for the creation of this useful device.Anyone who is thinking about making an action/thriller ought to have the "Broken" DVD in their library.The Disc A must for anyone intending to make their own low budget action/thriller or anyone whose just curious about the subject.Picture Quality: 10/10 The transfer is crisp and the picture lush. There is a portion of the DVD devoted to making DV look like film.Sound Quality: 10/10 Sound was even good on extras shot during rehearsals. Of course, there is a portion of the disc devoted to sound and syncing.Extra Features: 10/10 A teaching disc that includes fantastic extras.The Final Word:I liked the short movie fine, but when combined with a dynamite DVD loaded with extras that are content rich, this should be a essential part of any independent filmmaker's library.Jonathan W. Hickman - http://www.einsiders.com

PLAY Magazine Director Alex Ferrari and producer Jorge Rodriguez, a film-making duo that hails straight from Hollywood - Hollywood, Fla., that is - recently joined the wave of ultra-low-budget proto- Spielbergs with their short film Broken, an action/sci-fi piece complete with explosions, automatic weapons, and a stylish, neo-noir look that isn't all that far removed from its main stylistic inspiration, the Matrix trilogy. The pair sent a copy our way, and we were so impressed we had to chat with them about how their dark little tale came to light.Pre-productionBroken began as a story concept that Ferrari developed as a college student (these days, he runs a post-production facility called The Enigma Factory), which he pulled out of the drawer and brought to his partner Rodriguez in the hopes of collaborating on a complete short script. Ferrari says the project was sparked by a viewing of famously cost-conscious action filmmaker Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico - "He's one of my main inspirations, and when I saw what he did with that film - a fairly low-budget action movie that looked as good as one much more expensive - and I said, 'I could do that.'" As the pair began to further develop Broken, they tailored it specifically to allow for the best-looking special effects they could design and afford. "Through the entire process I was already thinking about the visual effects," Ferrari says, "I was writing around visual effects that I knew we could do."One early coup for the filmmakers was finding a location that not only suited the story Ferrari and Rodriguez already had, but also allowed them to develop some cool-looking scenes they hadn't originally envisioned. Broken was shot at the A.G. Holley Hospital in Lantana, Fla., the oldest continually-operating sanitarium in the country (it now serves as a tuberculosis hospital), where the film's crew was granted unlimited access to the expansive abandoned sections - a maze of frightening industrial corridors and open spaces perfectly suited for a sci-fi thriller. "We had free run of the place," Ferrari says of the hospital, which he discovered while scouting locations for an earlier project. ProductionKnowing they'd have limited time and resources to get the film done, the production team did extensive storyboarding and conceptual design, so they'd know exactly what was needed visually when shooting actually began.But, according to Rodriguez, not quite everything went according to plan. "The week before we were scheduled to shoot, we were hit by a series of hurricanes, and one of them went all the way up where we were shooting ... it was an old building to begin with, and the hurricane just tore the place up." And by the time they did finally win their prized location back, FEMA had set up shop there to provide aid for thousands of hurricane victims, and many of the areas they'd planned on shooting in were severely damaged - so they again made changes to the script to incorporate Mother Nature's impromptu "set design." Fortunately, when shooting finally got underway, things went much more smoothly. With Rodriguez handling the day-to-day minutia that are the producer's stock in trade, Ferrari says he and cinematographer Angel Barroeta were able to shoot a rocket-quick 125 to 130 camera setups per day for the 3.5-day shoot. And while many of the film's extensive visual effects shots were created in post-production, there were still quite a few practical effects that had to be done on-set. Post-production and beyondOnce shooting wrapped, the film was rushed into post-production, in the hopes that Ferrari and Rodriguez would be able to shop it around at the upcoming Sundance festival - though they'd missed the entry date, the filmmakers hoped to show their short to as many festival goers and vacationing Hollywood players on the fly as they could.As Ferrari put his post-production skills to the test editing and color-correcting his footage, visual effects supervisor Sean Falcon set about creating the film's plethora of digital effects. Ferrari and Rodriguez agree on what they think is Falcon's most impressive work - an outdoor shot in which a clear sky was digitally replaced with turbulent, explosive nightmare weather, with an indistinguishable digital tree composited in the foreground.Another complex digital effect was the film's realistic firearm muzzle flashes - although there's a copious amount of gunfire in the film, Ferrari says not a single shot was fired on- set. Instead, Falcon digitally animated each frame in which a weapon appeared to be firing - "I think what Sean did with the muzzle flashes was revolutionary," Ferrari says, "He created muzzle flashes that change in every single frame - he did it all dynamically.""Jorge is an amazing networker," Ferrari says, "We actually ended up on VIP lists... I was hanging out next to Paris Hilton and Elijah Wood. We carried a laptop around and showed the film to whoever wanted to watch it."He laughs, "We're just a couple regular guys who went out there and maxed out our credit cards. I had Alex as a good friend and a business partner, and we were just able to motivate each other enough to do this."Broken, the short, touches on that question and many others, and the mysterious, foreboding vibe it oozes throughout makes for a pretty captivating viewing experience - it packs a visual punch that really ups its value, too. Viewers won't feel cheated by its great-looking action shots and its fairly intriguing narrative development, but there are definitely a lot of questions about Broken's world and its characters that we'd really like to see answered... luckily, now that Ferrari and Rodriguez have a crack at spinning it into a feature, the film's fans will get to see exactly what the short's tantalizing 20 minutes are setting up.Nick R. Scalia - PLAY Magazine

Duane L. Martin Once in a while, a film comes along where all the pieces just fit. The production is first rate, the acting is incredible and both visuals and sound are something special. Now a film like that doesn't come along but once in a blue moon, and certainly it's a rarity to see something of that caliber coming from the independent film community, but a special film such as this has finally graced the stage. That film is called Broken. It's a short film, coming in at around 20 minutes, and I hear tell that there's a feature length version in the works.Now Broken is an absolutely gorgeous movie visually. The way it was shot, the editing, and the entire feel of it puts you in a completely separate world. Now you'd think that with such gorgeous visuals, the acting or the action or any number of other things would come up lacking, but that just isn't the case. The story is incredibly intense and action packed, and you never know what's going to happen from one minute to the next. I'm not going to get into the whole story here because that would give the whole thing away, but basically it's about a girl who's kidnapped by a cadre of baddies who she apparently really ticked off for some reason or another. There's also a surprise ending, that should catch most people off guard.Every actor in this film, with the exception of maybe one did an outstanding job. The main bad guy was creepy as all get out and eccentric as hell and you never knew what he was going to do next. He also had this really gnarly scar on the side of his face in some sort of a strange design that really lent to his creepiness. The main actress played her part beautifully with all the emotions coming out that you'd expect in the situation she had been placed in. Surrounding them were a whole host of other baddies, each with their own distinct characteristics that made the whole thing feel like they were a bunch of characters from some video game.The thing about this film is that it basically comes down to being the last twenty minutes of a bigger feature. It picks up in a spot where you know things have happened earlier on, but there's some mystery as to what those things were. In many films, that would be detrimental to the overall story, but in this case, it really didn't matter. The mystery surrounding the things that transpired earlier only added to the story that was presented, and allowed the viewer to fill in the blanks for themselves as the story progressed.The most shocking thing about this film is that as gorgeous as it is, and with over 120 effects shots, they managed to pull it off for a mere $8,000. Now if Hollywood had tried to make something with the same look, they'd have probably ended up spending eight million dollars, minimum. That's what's so incredible about the current state of technology. It allows independent filmmakers the freedom to bring their visions to life without having to spend a fortune in the process.I look forward to seeing the full feature version when it's completed. Writer and director Alex Ferrari and his team of highly talented individuals have made something really special here, and it's definitely worth your time to check it out.Duane L. Martin - Rogue Cinema

PIXEL Surgeon UK Broken is a mystery, a thriller and an action movie, but more than anything, it's like a slice out of a big-budget Hollywood flick. I say slice because Broken is actually a short, coming in at only 15 minutes long and cost a paltry $8,000 to make. Most short films aspire to art and experimentation or are hamstrung by financial constraints, but Broken is really none of these things. It was designed from the ground up to be an action film, almost like a trailer for a movie that has yet to be made. Unlike a trailer, however, it has self-contained story arc and develops the characters as reasonably as can be expected in the time available. It's a stunning achievement. The movie begins with Bonnie Clayton (Samantha Jane Polay) roused from an apparent nightmare and stumbling into her kitchen. There she's confronted by the mysterious Duncan (Paul Gordon), lurking in the shadows. She's knocked unconscious and wakes up gagged and tied to a wheelchair in a disused hospital basement. The harmonica-obsessed Duncan, with a distinctive scar on his face, explains why she was abducted. It seems that she is some kind of secret operative (for whom it is not explained) and "the management" want her replaced. But the confused Bonnie has no recollection of who the hell Duncan is and just wants to go home. Nor does she recognize any of his colorful and bizarre entourage, which includes the sexy flame-haired assassin Marquez (Amber Crawford) and a handful of musclebound henchmen who look like they're itching to blow her apart. Duncan confirms our worst fears: "Everyone here, even the fellow wearing that ridiculous little hat, came here for a reason and one reason only: to kill you." Meanwhile, a masked agent, armed to the teeth, stealthily creeps into the basement to save Bonnie, but it seems that Bonnie still has a couple of tricks up her sleeve... With a movie this long there are bound to be problems. The thugs are underdeveloped and seem to be there simply as cannon fodder for the gun battle at the end. The plot feels truncated and begs to be extended and expanded, and there are curious touches—such as Bonnie's glowing eyes—that I would love to see explored. Put simply, there are too many ideas to be locked into a 15 minute running time. The good news is that The Enigma Factory, the production company behind Broken are in talks with several interested parties about financing a full length version of the film. At the end of the short, there's a knowing look to the camera by one of the characters which I'm not convinced belongs in the film because it's a little too long and obvious. Aside from that it's all gravy. The film represents a new benchmark in self-financed movies. While Star Wars fan films have often excelled in the visual effects department, they've sometimes been let down by hokey acting or leaden editing. But Broken excels in just about every department. It exudes quality and high production values that simply belie its budget and must be a torchbearer for the new revolution in digital film-making. A quick mental calculation would seem to imply that a two hour movie could be made for as little as $64,000, which doesn't even cover the hairdressers' trailer on some Hollywood productions. The website is worth checking out for some great visual effects features from Sean Falcon, like the extras you find on DVDs. There are also storyboards, galleries, posters and interviews with the writer/director Alex Ferrari and writer/producer Jorge Flores Rodriguez. It's a pretty attractive package for an intriguing thriller that's the movie equivalent of strapping yourself to rocket and lighting the fuse. Pixel Surgeon UK