Breaking Reality

In this psychological sci-fi thriller, James Macdonald plays detective Paul Grunning, a man who is torn apart mentally by his actions while on duty. As he tries to put back together the pieces of his life and get himself back on the case, he reports on a domestic disturbance turned tragedy that only further rips through his sanity.

He arrives on the scene to find a man lying dead on the floor with a bullet hole to the head. He seeks answers from the victim's wife Emma, a seductive college student who stays with a family named Rachel, and Andrew, the victim's rebellious and resentful son.

Each time Detective Grunning enters a new room of the house, it's a different time of day and he receives a different story from each of the family members. Each story defies logic as Grunning must maintain what's left of his mental composure in order to piece together the broken details of what seems to be a scattered reality.

I was fortunate enough to be able to get an inside view of Fissure from local Dallas/Ft. Worth director Russ Pond as he conducted a roundtable interview with his cast consisting of Macdonald (Detective Grunning), Todd Haberkorn (Andrew Ulster), Todd Terry (Tyler), and Brandon Jones, who is in charge of distribution of the film. Pond discussed the difficulties that turned to luxuries with budgetary constraints, and Macdonald spoke of the difference between doing television appearances and his first full-length role in Fissure.

"Not having a large budget to work with, we were able to utilize small tricks in the film to boost the viewers' thinking capacity and leave more to the imagination. This actually helped the film because you're not always sure if Grunning is witnessing reality or if it's all in his head," said director Pond.

Macdonald, who has appeared on 40-plus TV shows, makes his debut in his first lead role in Fissure. The film was shot in eighteen days, but Macdonald was on set roughly fourteen hours or more each day while the film was being shot. In certain scenes, Macdonald had to act out literally being torn apart from the inside. I asked how one prepares to have their organs shifted around inside them to which he responded, "I eat a huge bowl of pasta and do countless amounts of sit-ups and push-ups. That will tear anyone apart on his inside." Being able to watch the film and then meet the people who all made it happen allows for a deeper appreciation to what goes into films that don't have the budgets, versus the blockbuster hits that get obscene amounts of advertising. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Fissure, which made it all that much more exciting to meet the cast and crew.

Are the encounters Detective Grunning having with the family real or just a figment of a broken man's shattered mind? Find out this month as Fissure is released to the public on DVD.