Broken

I eagerly awaiting the DVD availability of Broken after viewing the trailer. The trailer was awesome and the editor made the most of the high production value of the film. However, I was someone disappointed with the "other" aspects of the film. The acting was decent on all sides as was the direction, but the story itself was lacking, too conventional and sometimes longwinded. N one can deny the high production value of the short. The filmmakers undoubtedly spent a lot of time, energy and effort to take the production value out of the low altitude budget range low budget film-making and into the stratosphere. they succeeded on all levels. And with the inclusion of over three hours of behind the scenes, how they did it footage, the DVD is worth a buy.

Alex Ferrari is the king of what i'll call "turd marketing", an olive oil salesman, passing himself as some kind of filmmaking guru. The truth is that Mr. Ferrari is so skillfull at BSing and marketing his turd movies and products that people are actually fooled into thinking they are good. He now has a "podcast" where he tries really hard to sell himself as a "hustling" filmmaker and director.. and yet in his "20 years of experience" he only made a few horrible shorts.... which is really a good thing, because the world is already cluttered with too much garbage..

His first short, "Broken" is so laughably bad, that i thought i was watching a parody or a comedy. The directing of the actors is non-existent.. the actor's performances are so cheesy and over the top, and the plot is so juvenile, that the whole thing could pass for a freshman filmschool project. The action scenes are laughable.. the only thing that saves this cheesefest from being a complete wreck is the fact that Mr. Ferrari colorized the whole thing to give it a more professional look.

I felt bad for whoever got taken by this turd salesman, and the five star reviews left here by his sockpuppet accounts and purchased this piece of garbage on DVD...what a ripoff.. I have seen teenage film students put out better and more interesting shorts than this laughable waste of digital bits.

The other two shorts done by Mr. Ferrari feature more-of-the-same horrible overacting and juvenile plots.. so obviously this genius hasn't learned poo-poo in his "20 years of filmmaking" Mr. Ferrari is an inspiration to everyone, because if such a talentless hack like him can pass himself as a "filmmaker" ; anyone has a chance!!!

To top it all off, the ever fat and lazy Turd salesman is now selling a "film school" video series in Udemy, that is comprised of ten-year- old, outdated, rehashed and recycled "behind the scenes" and "making-of" videos of his cheesy shorts and his idiotic podcast videos, so anyone can now learn the difficult art of making terrible, overacted movies with amateurish plots.. with plenty of guns and cheesy FX, of course! You too can now learn the secrets of the turd marketing!!

Remember kids.. no amount of turd marketing, special FX, stunts, guns and props, concept art and iphone apps are going to make up for competent actor directing, having a good story and an interesting plot. Mr. Ferrari's horrible shorts and failed career as a "filmmaker" are living proof that there is no replacement for real talent.

Wow-- now allow me to introduce you to the truth. I don't know if the guy that posted the last comment is related to this Alex Ferarri hack, or maybe is the hack himself, whatever. It was as if he was reading the press sound-bytes off the back of the DVD--- all bull$#!t if you ask me, and a few others on this board with any common sense will agree.

Broken does not look like Sin City. I don't know where that vicious rumor started up, but it is nothing more than that-- a hyped up rumor probably brought about by the film-makers themselves.

As an indy filmmaker, I have seen countless short films that cost far less than this and looked far better. Of course-- Broken did get a fairly wide DVD distribution deal here, which I will take my hat off to. These guys are great business men, I'll give them that. They got lucky. VERY LUCKY!! But they should take this and run the other way with it, never rearing their ugly wannabe-film-making head again.

Lets start with the image quality, of what some have compared to HD. It looks like garbage!! I have shot with the Panasonic DVX myself and managed to produce a far better result with a much more film-like look to it on the 24p setting. I don't know if they forgot to turn this feature on or what-- but to me, it looks like 30fps dv. The cinematography itself is formula and gets old quick. There is nothing new here in terms of image.

I don't know where all this Sixth Sense....Sin City....Matrix crap is coming from. I'm not crazy about either of the three, but the opening credit sequence of either of them is far better than this 20 minutes of bland, constipation inducing torture.

I'm tired of the hype folks. The stupid muzzle flash gunshot effects look so damn hokey-- my seven year old son pointed them out to me and asked if they were real shots. I said no, just very very bad store-bought animation. And that explosion effect when the girl is thrown back!! Holy God!! Who would put that into a final film?! I would've reshot it and just done the effect practical with a little smoke and fake debris. The animation was on par with first year students at art school.

I would not have so many complaints if these guys were a bit younger. If some 18-19-20 year old showed me this film, I would say, "Oh cool. Good job." But not these 30+ year olds, smacking their faces all over the special features just to go on and on and on about how great they are. And 8,000.00?!!! Where the hell did that go?! I hope they had really good catering or something.

My point is, this film is not great. It is actually on the verge of being horrible. There are so many short indy films out there miles ahead of this. Maybe not packed with all the visual effects and corny tension music-- maybe something with an actual story, some depth to the characters, something to like?!! Is that asking too much. This Ferrari guy has seen his 15 minutes of fame smolder into muddy ash. I just want him to go away and shut up, and I want to urge people to stop buying this movie and contributing to bad independent film. By all means!! Rent it first!! PLEASE!!!

Recently Alex Ferrari sent me a copy of the short movie he's just completed along with his co-writer/producer Jorge F. Rodriguez, called Broken. Going by the trailer I'd seen on the site I wasn't sure what to expect, it looked slick, it looked high budget, but it was cut really fast making it difficult to gleam much from it other than style. In a fifteen minute short, I guess that is to be expected of its trailer.

Ferrari is someone who comes from the conventional film making routes but became bored and disillusioned with the whole process, and I would presume industry. He turned his back on this high budget, overly engineered process and looked to see if he could make an independent movie for a small budget and still make it look and feel like a Hollywood movie.

The question is did he succeed? Well I think that's slightly unfair to ask so early on, so let's just look at the short first and then we can make a decision.When I started to think about this review I looked at the different elements of the short. The story is pretty simple and is connected to two simple ideals, Kafka and Hitchcock. It looks at someone who is taken from their normal surroundings and existence and pulled into a world they don't understand with events spiralling around them. It's a classic and effective tale to tell, and also quite stunning to get across in a mere fifteen minutes, but they do. The paranoia and confusion that you see throughout Le Procès (The Trial) and North by Northwest is there, and tangible.

What does strike you throughout the movie are the high production values. The lighting is superb, dark, tight and claustrophobic. The effects are very visual and don't fail to impress when you realise the budget involved and the products and process used.

For me there were a couple of jarring moments that took me out of the movie briefly, and they were all down to some of the actors in a more action sequence just not committing themselves totally and therefore slightly missing the mark. There's also one stock moment that slightly disappointed me because up to that point it had all felt so fresh and unique.

Not that much I'm sure you'll agree, and definitely not so annoying that your experience will be marred by it. You're likely to see much more of these in any fifteen minutes of a Hollywood movie with hundred times the budget and production possibilities, and much, much less style and passion.

For me the bad, or is it good, guy played by Paul Gordon is the winner in this piece as far as the actors go. He's slow, deliberate and doesn't give out too much. There's enough brooding badness to suit and yet a touch of something more hidden in the background...we'll never know, the fifteen minutes are up and you're left with your imagination and many questions, and that's a big win in my book. Unlike most Hollywood movies when the credits role and you start to think about the trip home, what's for tea, work tomorrow, this filled you with questions and a desire to work out who, what, why.

So, does it manage to do it? Without a doubt. The camera work, editing, restrained writing and likewise performances bring it all across wonderfully. With a little more on some of the actors more action performances and effects you would never have realised it wasn't a full budget Hollywood short.

Ferrari, Rodriguez, Gordon and the rest of the team are definitely people to look out for.

Before we continue to point out all the limitations of "Broken" or any of Mr. Ferrari's (is that his real name?) productions, we must understand the limitations of said video- grapher. First, Mr. Ferrari never attended a real film school where they teach content, story, history or originality. He went to a technical film school called "Full Sail" in Florida, know as the APEX Tec of film schools. His films have a juvenile fascination with technical feats and special effects. Stories, characters and ideas never rise past a 10th grade comic book reading level. Like some one pointed out "Broken' would be cool if a 18 -19 year old made it. Having a lack of education in film and literary history allows him to fall into every cliché and stereotype with out knowing it's already been done. Like a teenager he gravitates to violent action with no story. Everything is a stereotype, nothing is deep. He sites his hero's as Tarrintino and Robert Rodriquez, two supposedly self taught filmmaker. Well, Tarrintino is a film scholar in his own right, and a gifted artist. Mr. Rodriquez did go to film school in Austin and has a sense of humor which Ferrari has none. All Mr. Ferrari and his collaborators do is make inferior hack versions of movies they like. When looking at his reel it feels like a bunch of stunted 30 something year old males got together and made home movies like they are 12 years old. He's more excited about a muzzle flash or squibs then the story. The other thing that is annoying about Ferrari is that he calls himself a filmmaker. The guy has only shot a few feet of film for that abortive film trailer, and a spec spot or two. Now that video is available to everyone, we have to deal with a high volume of garbage. Real film has become the currency of serious filmmakers. Robert Rodriquez makes HD films now, after shooting miles of real film. Ferrari and company should keep their money on shooting a 35mm short that has a story, real actors, a brain, and no cheesy childish gags or gimmicks. Mr. Ferrari's ego dose not allow him to be anything but a "director". But his talents indicate he should be a special effects supervisor. Alex, please leave the directing to those with vision, originality and talent.