BROKEN
Article about the 2006 Accolade Film Competition
The Long Strange Trip Getting BROKEN to the Screen
An Accolade Best of Show Winner
By: Ben Marcus
When I heard from, Jerry Wayne, Producer of Broken, he was at home in Hanalei, Kauai, working on the theatrical release of the movie project that had taken up five years of his life and close to two million dollars of his own money.
“I’m excited to announce the upcoming schedule for the theatrical release of BROKEN. It has been a five year journey for me...developing the screenplay, producing the film, and now marketing and distribution. Truly Indie will be taking the film out theatrically beginning October 5th in New York. ... As you know, with today’s market, it is extremely challenging for a small independent film to make it to theaters. But, Broken will get its chance! Mahalo to all who have supported me and the film! I am very proud of the picture, as it has been most gratifying to see its reception in the festivals.”
BROKEN is truly an Indie movie, produced and paid for by Wayne, a movie with a multi-million dollar look and cast, but put on the screen for far less. Written by Drew Pillsbury and directed by Alan White, the movie stars Heather Graham as Hope and Jeremy Sisto as two heroin-crossed lovers in a battle with their own souls. Broken is the dark side of the journey to the Emerald City. Like Dorothy, Hope is a young woman from the Midwest who leaves home to find her fortune in the big city. But where Dorothy was aided and abetted by Courage, Brains and Heart, Hope’s path leads her to Will who drags Hope away from her ambitions and introduces her to the Wicked Witch of the New West: Heroin melts in water, too.
Wind the clock backward and Jerry Wayne is a kid in one of his first jobs, making popcorn, taking tickets and driving around in a Cadillac convertible announcing show times on a PA system, “Shows tonight at 7 and 9. Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde.” Later experiences included on-camera work for commercials. He later started his own commercial production company. “I loved the process...writing concepts, developing scripts and storyboards, and seeing it through to the final product was very rewarding. … There’s something magical about it. Maybe that’s when the seed was planted, ‘you can produce a movie.’”
The five year journey of Broken started as a treatment that Wayne optioned. Four drafts later everything had changed. The only thing that resembled the original idea was it was still about a young transplant from the Midwest who goes to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming a rock/pop star and hooks up with a psycho boyfriend. Wayne met with Heather Graham who loved the script, even though she had never done anything quite like it. “She seemed very passionate about it and really wanted it,” Wayne said. “ Actors want to act and that’s why we see them depart from large studio productions to do small independent film.” At that point the writer introduced Wayne to Alan White, who had directed two films in Australia. “We had dinner, discussed script and at the end of the evening, Alan said, ‘I’m the bloke to do this.’ It seemed a good fit.”
Wayne now had Heather, Alan, casting, the script, but needed a financing partner. “I then met another company who said they wanted to co-produce,” Wayne said. “Again, when it came time to write the check, they didn’t deliver. It was at a point when it was all going to fall apart. But something happened to me personally. Early in the development stages, I was at Mayo Clinic for a routine physical. I was told I was in the 108th percentile for my fitness level at my age. The next day I was told they had found an abnormality in my heart and wanted to do an angiogram. So the following day, I had the procedure and they found I had severe blockage in my arteries and needed a triple bypass. No symptoms. .. I was shocked! I was told I was a walking time bomb. I guess, growing up in the ‘meat and potato’ Midwest, 50-plus years of living, and the stress of being a small business owner caught up with me. The next day, Friday the thirteenth, I was first in line for surgery. When you have your chest cracked open, you take a little different view of life, and realize that you are not invincible. I decided that producing a film was always something I wanted to do and I may never have the opportunity to do this again. Call it mid-life crisis or just plain crazy; I decided that I would produce this film ... period.”
Wayne reduced the budget. He and White went through the script, page by page, and soon figured out that, as Alan put it, “we’re surfing the same wave.” Both subdued their egos and acted as collaborators. Wayne said, “It was refreshing. I was finally starting to have some fun. It was the same with the casting. Again, more fun. It was all starting to come together.”
It was two years and four months of development hell before the camera was rolling. “There are always challenges on any shoot, but … cast and crew were into it, and everyone was working in harmony,” Wayne said. “It was especially refreshing, because the film is dark and not an easy subject matter. Everyone was having fun ... and that’s not easy when you are dealing with temperatures in the 90’s and working in small areas. I remember stepping on syringes in the parking lot across the street from our downtown Los Angeles location. It made for a certain reality to the film. We shot the film in a fast three weeks.”
Editor Jay Nelson had a difficult task; a non-linear storyline made it hard. “Technology is so amazing;” Wayne said. “at one point, when we were fine tuning scenes, Jay was in Santa Monica, Alan in Australia, and me in Hanalei. Jay would post a QuickTime movie on his website and we would all look at it and jump on the phone to share notes; different time zones … in fact different days!”
When the film was wrapped, Wayne sought a film rep. “My thought from the beginning went along the lines of, ‘If I build it, they will come, or ‘cream rises’. We had a good film. I decided on a rep that wanted to get the film into a festival running in conjunction with a film market; Broken premiered at AFI on November 4th, 2006, to a sold out audience. I was just plain excited to see it on the big screen. About two-thirds of the way through the film, Jay walked in with a big box of popcorn and a drink as I was standing on the side of the theater. He had this grin on his face ... he was enjoying it too! I leaned over and whispered, ‘I never thought of this as a popcorn movie’. Later I grabbed a cigar and sat by the rooftop pool. The night couldn’t have gone better! … Sunday I crashed. ... Monday morning I woke to the Broken poster art on the cover of the Hollywood Reporter and a solid review in the same issue. Heather was on the cover of the AFI Daily News and we had a good feature spread inside. The buzz was beginning!”
Lots of buzz did result from AFI, but Wayne still had to sell the film. “Unfortunately, people who buy films, more often than not, don’t see them on the big screen in front of an audience. So out of a couple of dozen of all the big and some small distributors, we had several offers, but no offers for a theatrical. Too dark ... not mainstream enough ... too risky. So it goes.”
Wayne said, “When I set out to produce this film, I had three things in mind. I wanted to produce a quality film. I wanted to see it in theaters, if only for a limited release. And, I didn’t want to lose my investment. I had validation the film was good, but I didn’t produce a film to go straight to the DVD shelf. I decided to self-distribute with Truly Indie, a company set up for small films like Broken. They like the film and it fits their model. On October 2nd …it will premier in NYC and open on the 5th. Broken will also play in Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin and Los Angeles.”
