Sundance 2008 Interview: Sean Ellis (The Brøken)

IONCINEMA.com is proud to feature the rookie and veteran filmmakers showcased and nurtured at the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. This is part of collection of emailer interviews conducted prior to the festival – we would like to thank the filmmakers for their time and the hardworking publicists for making this possible.]

Sean Ellis

Can you discuss the genesis of this project – how did the initial idea come about? 
The idea came from the thought of seeing yourself drive past on the street. I had also always loved the Edgar Allan Poe story of William Wilson and ended up using a quote from it at the front of the film. 

Can you elaborate on what kind of work went into the pre-production process (how long you’ve been working on this project prior to pre-production and what specifically you did to prepare, and were there specific people involved in this process that are worth signaling out?
I started writing the script in 2001. So really it’s my first film as I wrote it way before Cashback. It went through many changes as financers came on board but I eventually completely re-wrote the script the way I thought it should be just before I started shooting Cashback. At that point and to the day I shot The Brøken the script was in its purest form. The French studio was happy for me to run with it on the strength of Cashback. 

Would you care to share with us why Broken is spelled with this ∅?
Well the O has a straight line through it in the title sequence. It represents, in some ways, the mirror. The only trouble is that on a normal keyboard the slash through the O is slanted but it just stuck and everyone started typing it out like that. 

As witnessed with your fluid filmmaking style in Cashback – you’re particularly creative in terms of the visual facets of a film. What aesthetic decisions did you make prior to shooting?
Everything has to be planned before shooting. This film was very much in my head so it was long conversations with production design, cameraman and costume to make sure that the images in my head found their way safely onto film.

If you could name just one – what stands out as your most favorite experience you had during filming?  
I think the fact that there is emotion through visuals. I want to feel moved when I see a film. It’s hard to experience when it’s your own film but I think the film blends a dark nightmarish atmosphere with that of the emotional realization of the lead character.

Anatomy of a scene: What was the most difficult sequence during production?
I think the car crash was the most difficult thing to achieve. I wanted it to look like nothing I had ever seen before, so it was well planned, and not to mention our most expensive day of filming. We had six cameras running at 1,500 frames a second and crashed four cars.

What was the most challenging aspect of the production?
Any film is challenging. It’s a very difficult thing to do well and even then sometimes you don’t know why something is working or not. It’s like one large sleep deprivation experiment.

At what part in the timeline did you and Lene (Bausager) consider submitting the film to Sundance?
As we were nearing the final editing stage it looked clear that the best platform for the film was Sundance.  We submitted a work in progress screener and then we were lucky enough to get selected. We finished the film two weeks ago so it was a close run thing. It’s not only its world premiere in Sundance but it will be the first time it has played in front of an audience completely finished. I am very interested to see how we did. 

The Brøken is part of the Park City at Midnight section at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.