It’s Eternal Sunshine meets Richard Curtis in Julie Magnaudet’s conceptual romantic comedy Broken Hearts, the story of a hopeless romantic who’s regular at a hospital for those with, as the title suggests, broken hearts. This time, for her prescribed treatment, she’s given a rebound by the name of Charlie, who happens to be a love-cynical individual. Over the course of the film the two debate their opposing perspectives on love whilst maybe forming a connection of their own along the way. What struck us about Magnaudet’s short is how she’s able to balance a high concept with grounded character work, a tricky balance to achieve but one she does so effortlessly. With Broken Hearts having completed its successful festival run and now premiering online, DN sat down with the French-Swiss writer/director to learn more about the process of making the film during her time at London Film School and the ways she saved money on the production without sacrificing her incredibly ambitious vision.

Broken Hearts is a short film with a conceptual idea at its core. Where or how did that idea come about?

The first spark of the idea happened while I was still in film school. We were in a camera practical class and were practicing a dolly move following two people. My friend said, “Right, you’re a doctor and you’re telling me my heart is broken” which was a lightbulb moment for me. I immediately turned to another student and said that would make such a great film, whilst they did not seem to agree, from there the seed of a broken hearts hospital was planted. I let it grow in the back of my head for months, originally thinking of it more as a TV series, I eventually decided to adapt the idea as a short to make it my graduation film and use it as a proof of concept for the TV series.

You mentioned there about making the short at film school. How challenging was it to realise such an ambitious and visual idea as a student film production?

It was definitely an ambitious project for a student budget, but so are most of my ideas. The most important thing for me was to pick the right team members for this, a team that I knew would be inspired by the creative potential and that would be able to bring their own mark and creative thinking to the project.

I wanted our hospital to break the traditional codes, and feel colourful, warm and welcoming.

Location was another very important element in bringing my vision to life. I wanted our hospital to break the traditional codes, and feel colourful, warm and welcoming. We had to find something that resembles a hospital but with a completely different colour palette, and we were doing all this on a small budget, easy, right? Production design was always going to be a massive part and we had regular meetings with PD Anastasiya Mykhaylova and DoP Bo W. Giesen to establish the colour palette for each room, making sure design and cinematography worked hand in hand in creating this unseen place and achieving the warm and colourful feel we were after.

That’s a lot of elements to juggle. What is it that you think helped you get over the line and make the short, ultimately, come together?

The key was a lot of forward planning, thinking on our feet, calling in a lot of favours, and hoping for the best. We were blessed with an incredible cast and crew that worked very hard in making this film. We also had to get very creative in how to save money while still giving the look and feel we wanted, it was a very hands-on team effort. We repainted the hospital location ourselves in freezing weather, with no heating, in just a couple of hours. Thanks to everyone who were so dedicated to the project as this would not have been possible without all of them.

How did you look to save money on the production whilst maintaining your ambition?

The most expensive part of this film was finding a hospital that we could dress up to match our vision. It was simply impossible to get that with our budget. But, luckily, at the time another graduation film from LFS also required a hospital, Saving Art by [DN alum] R.M. Moses. So, when we found the disused hospital wing in Hemel Hempstead, which spans over three floors, we decided to align our filming dates to film at the same time and share the location! Saving Art was filming downstairs and we were upstairs. We were also able to share the cost of getting everyone up there. This cut the price of the location in half and made it possible for us to use a hospital for the film, something that seemed impossible. We were even able to paint the location and dress it up however we wanted, which would make it possible for us to have the colour palette we wanted.

So, some of us came for a prep day and painted many rooms ourselves; the PD, Art Director, DP, Producer Nathan M Legger and me. This hospital location was still quite expensive even divided between two crews, so we still had to split the filming between the real hospital and a house location for some of the rooms, as Chloe and Charlie get deeper into the rebound section. Overall, it took a lot of researching, some compromising on filming dates and some location matchmaking for us to achieve our ambition with a very small budget.

I’d like to know about your collaboration with your editor. Making high-concept ideas work sometimes revolves around structure and creating a world where you can’t see the seams. What can you tell us about working with Ryan Ling in post?

With post-production came a new challenge. On our first day of filming our equipment was not working and we lost almost a whole day of filming… not ideal when working with such a tight budget! My DoP and I had to cut half the shots for the opening of the film and were relying on one-take wonders. So, we essentially re-wrote the opening of the story in post-production and cut out things that did not work as we had to rush them. It really was a great collaboration with my editor as he was always full of suggestions on how to get around many of the hurdles we encountered. We also worked hard in establishing the right pace and hitting certain comedy beats, something we continued with the sound design too. Overall, everyone’s dedication to the project from pre to post is really what made it all come together.

Colour plays such an important role in the design of the hospital, could you talk about the conversations you had coming up with the colour palette?

From the beginning I had a very clear vision of what I wanted it to look like. I immediately told everyone that I did not want this to feel like a normal hospital, I did not want it to be cold and unwelcoming which is how hospitals are traditionally portrayed in films. I wanted to break those traditional codes and make it warm, welcoming and contrasted, for it to be a one of a kind hospital that had never been seen before. My biggest visual reference for the colour palette was The Grand Budapest Hotel. From that brief and with the visual references, the colour palette came quite naturally to us, we wanted to lean into pastels, with peachy tones being dominant and pink is often thought of as the colour of love, so it seemed perfect for this. From there came the challenge of actually finding a place that would match this palette!

You made this short as a student but it has incredible production value, what do you attest to that?

We used equipment which we rented from all over. We had equipment from Cameraworks, Shift 4 and Greenkit. All of them were so kind to offer us generous student discounts. The camera we shot on was an Alexa Mini which was a favour from LSK productions whom my DoP works with a lot.

We wanted to lean into pastels, with peachy tones being dominant and pink is often thought of as the colour of love, so it seemed perfect for this.

How long have you been working on Broken Hearts? And given that films are often lengthy endeavours, how do you know the idea you’re working on is the right one?

I think from initial idea to completion about one and a half years. I tend to let ideas brew in the back of my head for months before I sit down to write them, this is almost my way of testing whether they’re solid ideas. If six months down the line it’s still in the back of my head then it’s probably worth writing. I also do a lot of development in my head during that time, regularly escaping into the stories in my head when I get a chance, and I’ll only start developing on paper once I have something solid. Then from the writing to the completion of the film, it probably took about eight months. As this was my graduation film, there was a certain time pressure to get this made quickly for me to graduate.

How involved were London Film School in the making of the short? Did they offer advice or were you left to your own devices?

The London Film School wasn’t very involved in my grad film. I know it depends on the films, but for mine it did feel like we were left to our own devices, which I think is also the point of these grad films. Until then the school had been so involved in all the term films, putting up a lot of rules and limitations and influencing the final product heavily, that the grad film was a welcomed change where we had free reign and could go out and make the film we wanted to make however we wanted it.

If six months down the line it’s still in the back of my head then it’s probably worth writing.

I think that’s part of the teaching there, to put a lot of restrictions on us at first to then let us roam free and see what we do once we’re given free rein. The tutors were always available if we wanted advice though, which was helpful. I did not really seek much help in pre-production but more in post. I wanted to get their thoughts on the cuts and that was helpful, although I did not listen to everything, they were trying to push me to make Chloe and Charlie end up together! They did say after seeing the final film at the grad screening that I was right not to listen, haha.

What’s on the horizon for you now?

I’m currently in post with a short called Life Isn’t My Friend But We Get On starring Afsaneh Dehrouyeh and Busayo Ige, an eight minute comedy about depression. I’m also in pre-production with my next short, produced by BAFTA-nominated Candid Broads Productions and starring Ronke Adekoluejo and Kathy Kiera Clarke, called The Contraception Fair which is a quirky comedy about how the burden of contraception is put on women – we’re currently in the process of raising the funds with an aim to shoot Feb/March next year.

Broken Hearts is also a proof of concept for a TV series, so I’m developing that on the side and slowly starting to develop my first feature too. I’m essentially looking to make more work over this year to help me get my directing career to the next step and get to a place where my TV series and feature can get off the ground!

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