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PRESS RELEASES

FISSURE receives "Redemptive Storyteller Award"

September 22, 2008 - Dallas, TX... Top Pup Media is proud to announce the acceptance of the "Redemptive Storyteller Award" in the Professional Category for its feature film production, Fissure.

“One of my primary goals for the film,” describes producer and director, Russ Pond, “was to tell a story with a redemptive theme. Our philosophy from the beginning has been 'movies with a message'. This award demonstrates that we were able to achieve this goal."

The film stars James Macdonald ("Phone Booth", "Hollywood Homicide") as Detective Paul Grunning, an ailing, addicted cop, haunted by his own bad choices who is trying to piece together his fractured life. When a routine disturbance at the Ulster House turns into an unexplainable death, all he has worked for will be tested. He investigates the mysterious house, only to find shifting testimonies and perplexing new clues in every room. Sifting through the erratic claims of Emma, the victim’s wife, Rachel, the seductive grad student, and Andrew, a bitterly resentful son... Grunning uncovers motives, but no real answers. Ultimately, Grunning must navigate a fractured reality and his own insecurities to find what's real.

“FISSURE” will be screened at the Redemptive Film Festival on Friday, October 31, 2008. For more details regarding tickets, location and screening time, go to the Redemptive Film Festival website.

FISSURE to screen at FirstGlance Hollywood Film Festival

March 18, 2008 - Dallas, TX... DFW-based production company, Top Pup Media, is honored to announce that their debut feature film, “FISSURE”, has been accepted into the FirstGlance Hollywood Film Festival. The film is scheduled to screen opening night on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 8:00pm at Raleigh Studios Hollywood Charlie Chaplin Theater.

“We are very excited and honored to be a part of the FirstGlance Hollywood Film Festival,” exclaims producer and director, Russ Pond. “To have FISSURE screen in Hollywood is a tremendous opportunity for us. We look forward to meeting fellow filmmakers and industry professionals while attending the festival.”

Join Pond and Macdonald for the screening of “FISSURE” at the FirstGlance Hollywood Film Festival on Friday, April 11th. Tickets are available from the FirstGlance website: http://firstglancehollywood.bside.com. For more information on “FISSURE”, go to the movie website: http://www.fissurethemovie.com

Click here to download the PDF.

FISSURE to screen at AFI Dallas Film Festival

March 7, 2008 - Dallas, TX... DFW-based production company, Top Pup Media, is thrilled to announce that their debut feature film, “FISSURE”, has been accepted into the prestigious AFI Dallas Film Festival. The film is scheduled to screen on two nights: Friday, March 28th at 5:00pm at the Angelika Theater and Thursday, April 3rd at 7:30pm at the Magnolia Theater.

“We are very excited and honored at this incredible opportunity,” exclaims producer and director, Russ Pond. “The movie was shot here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, with most of our cast and crew being local. To have “FISSURE” make its festival debut locally at AFI Dallas is a tremendous honor.” The film stars James Macdonald ("Phone Booth", "Hollywood Homicide") as Detective Paul Grunning, an ailing, addicted cop, haunted by his own bad choices who is trying to piece together his fractured life. When a routine disturbance at the Ulster House turns into an unexplainable death, all he has worked for will be tested. He investigates the mysterious house, only to find shifting testimonies and perplexing new clues in every room. Sifting through the erratic claims of Emma, the victim’s wife, Rachel, the seductive grad student, and Andrew, a bitterly resentful son... Grunning uncovers motives, but no real answers. Ultimately, Grunning must navigate a fractured reality and his own insecurities to find what's real.

Join Pond for the screening of “FISSURE” during the AFI Dallas Film Festival. Tickets are available at the Angelika & Magnolia Theatre Box Office or online at http://www.AFIDallas.com. For more information on “FISSURE”, go to the movie website: http://www.fissurethemovie.com

Click here to download the PDF.

Top Pup Media screens FISSURE at Inwood Theater

October 29, 2007 - Dallas, TX... Dallas-based production company Top Pup Media will host a private screening of their feature film FISSURE on Thursday, November 15th at 8:00 PM in the Inwood Theatre located at Inwood Drive and Lovers Lane in Dallas, Texas.

The film stars James McDonald (Phone Booth, Hollywood Homicide) as Detective Paul Grunning, an ailing, addicted cop, haunted by his own bad choices who is trying to piece together his fractured life. When a routine disturbance at the Ulster House turns into an unexplainable death, all he has worked for will be tested. He investigates the mysterious house, only to find shifting testimonies and perplexing new clues in every room. Sifting through the erratic claims of Emma, the victim’s wife, Rachel, the seductive grad student, and Andrew, a bitterly resentful son... Grunning uncovers motives, but no real answers. Ultimately, Grunning must navigate a fractured reality and his own insecurities to find what's real.

Fissure was produced, directed and edited by Russ Pond. “As I was reading the script, I found myself at page ten saying ‘What is going on here?’ and again at page twenty saying the same thing. I thought if I could translate that same feeling of suspense and wonder onto the screen we would definitely have a great film.”

Join Pond for the screening of Fissure on Thursday, November 15th at the Inwood Theatre in Dallas. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker and reception in the Inwood Lounge.

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NEWS ARTICLES

AFI Daily News Features FISSURE

Russ Pond's FISSURE Keeps Audiences Guessing
by Jennah Durant

Engineering and business marketing are not typically a director's forte--unless you're Russ Pond, who pulled triple duty as the director/producer/editor of Fissure, his first full-length film and an entry in this year's Texas Competition. The corporate escapee talks about his feature-length foray, hoodwinking an audience and what it's like to film in Dallas.

What drew you to the script?

By page 10 of reading the script I thought, "This is pretty interesting." Then by page 20, I thought, "What is going on here?!" I realized if I could translate that feeling onto the screen that would make a great little movie.

The script has a lot of adult material--the pill popping, depression, violence--but it's ultimately uplifting. Was that a priority for you?

I really go for redeeming stories. The script was a lot darker when we first got it, but we worked really hard with Nick [Turner, the film's screenwriter]. He was great to work with, very open to the changes. His main concern was making sure I didn't break the science.

Since the story is told through the main character's point of view, the audience is just as confused as he is through much of the film. How have audiences reacted to that?

At screenings, we heard the audience whispering things like, "What's going on?" That was a plus to filming the story that way, but it also takes awhile to get things rolling because we had to set up so much for the plot.

The story starts off with a typical "haunted cop" scenario—James McDonald (lead actor) even looks like Michael Chiklis. Were you going for a Shield-type feeling?

We purposely built up a lot of those stereotypes--the substance abuse, the troubled past. We kind of lead the audience to believe that all the weirdness going on is because of what he's going through, but then bam, we twist things really unexpectedly. But we also put in tons of clues throughout the movie that give you an idea of what's really going on.

So much of the movie depends on playing with sequence. Did that present filming challenges?

Continuity was a big challenge, but we had a great crew, which made it go smoothly. We would shoot out each room, so all the living room scenes were shot at once, all the bedroom scenes. That kept the time of day consistent. I also had to trust the audience to let go and be open to the story.

A lot of those challenges stem from the sci-fi elements of the film. Was that subject matter intimidating?

I spent 20 years as an engineer, so the science and the physics aspects of the script really intrigued me. I've told my wife that if we cancel our cable subscription, I would still need the Discovery Channel and the Sci-Fi Channel to survive. Because I'm such a sci-fi fan, I saw that part of the movie as a way to challenge other fans of the genre.

How does that science and corporate background affect your filmmaking?

From my career I learned a lot about scheduling, budgeting, and other business aspects that other filmmakers don't really know about. So producing a film was relatively easy for me, but the artistic directing side was more challenging.

Besides producer and director, you also had editing duties for the movie. Was that difficult to balance?

As a producer I had to make decisions about cutting this scene, saying no to this or that, so I kind of had to be the bad cop. But as the director you need to make everyone happy, so it would have been easier to have a separate person be the bad cop producer.

I originally intended just to put together a rough cut and have someone else edit. But then I started doing the first scene, and I saw the film just come alive. I got so excited watching and engaging in that process that I just couldn’t stop. I would sometimes spend 14 or 15 hours a day editing.

What was it like to film in Dallas?

The crew was great, the locations were great. The crew worked so well together--there was no yelling on the set. We wanted to keep it local because there's so much great talent here. It also really helped keep the budget down--we didn't have to fly people in or go all over the place to get shots.

Any plans for another feature?

Well, I have three things I want to accomplish when I make a movie: One--make movies that make a difference. Two--make a profit for my investors. And three--I want to do it again.

Fissure accomplished all those, and we have lots of investor interest in more projects. It's really just a matter of getting a business plan together, but with three film festivals coming up it's been hard to find time. But if things go well, I should start working on another feature this summer.

Fissure screens at 5 pm March 28 @ Angelika 7, and again at 7:30 p.m. April 3 @ Magnolia 5.

FISSURE in Dallas Morning News as AFI gets rolling

Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Mickey Rooney light up AFI opening night
By STEPHEN BECKER / The Dallas Morning News

March 28, 2008 - The sounds of familiar cinematic scores wafted through the air. Cameras zoomed and clicked along the jampacked red carpet. Onlookers shouted out the stars' names as they passed.

All the telltale signs that this was a Big Movie Night were present. And it was.

Thursday night's festivities at the Majestic Theatre downtown marked the opening of the second annual AFI Dallas International Film Festival. The star of the show was Helen Hunt, the first-time director whose Then She Found Me screened as the festival's opening-night film.

"It's a total thrill. I would not have been surprised if I finished the movie and it was never released and I would have gotten to have it in my hands and say, 'At least I made this,' " she said, sporting a silver floor-length dress cut down to there in the back. "So the fact that it's going to be released in such a big way, the fact that I'm opening a festival of this cultural weight is incredible. Dreams come true."

Other luminaries walking the red carpet included the night's other major honoree, fellow Star Award recipient Mickey Rooney, as well as Fort Worth native (and Ms. Hunt's Twister co-star) Bill Paxton and Josh Brolin, accompanied by his teen daughter, Eden.

The latter pair is here showing the short film X, which Mr. Brolin directed and his daughter stars in. Both father and daughter said working together wasn't much different than living together.

"It was what you would think it is. We're very close and we don't have a lot of that angst going on between us, so it seemed like a fun thing to do," Mr. Brolin said.

"It was actually really fun," said Ms. Brolin. "He was very calm about it and he was really open to new things and new ideas, so it was actually really easy working with him and it was fun."

Once inside, the attendees were treated to a medley of movie music from the Dallas Symphony Chorus, followed by speeches from festival dignitaries and the night's Star Award recipients. Then, finally, the reason the festival exists: the film.

And, of course, the after party a few blocks away at Neiman Marcus. Film festivals can't exist without parties, too. Today at AFI:

• The Visitor –Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) directs Richard Jenkins as an economics professor whose life changes when he befriends an immigrant couple in New York. Fine writing and acting. 7:15 p.m., Angelika

• Gonzo – A lively documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side). 7:30 p.m., Magnolia

• Fissure – Local filmmaker Russ Pond directed, produced and edited this detective story. 5 p.m., Angelika

Dallas Morning News

By ALAN PEPPARD / The Dallas Morning News

March 17, 2008 - Segway inventor Dean Kamen needs to send a fleet of his gyroscopically stabilized transporters to Dallas advertising executive Liener Temerlin and make him the company's new spokesman. Liener is the founder of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. Last week, AFI Dallas had a party at the Current Energy store on Knox Street.

In 10 days, Liener will be 80 years old. But after a short lesson from Current Energy co-founder Joseph Harberg, Liener was up and riding one of the store's Segways and proclaiming that he wanted to buy a couple.

Among those on hand for the gathering were Dallas Film Commission director Janis Burklund; director Russ Pond, who will show his film Fissure at AFI Dallas; AFI Dallas board members Stephanie and Hunter Hunt; and literary agent David Hale Smith.

Click here to read the full article. Or, download the PDF.

FW Weekly Interview

POND's LIFE
A Euless filmmaker splits time and space in his feature debut cop thriller.

By KRISTIAN LIN of FW Weekly

When Russ Pond was a boy, he played around with an 8mm camera and made home movies with his brother. That’s how the story goes for so many other filmmakers, but his story took an unusual detour — into the world of Corporate America — which is why he’s only now starting to make movies as an adult. His first feature effort, Fissure, is currently playing the festival circuit — it'll be at AFI Dallas at the end of March — and this Euless resident appears to have found his calling.

The soft-spoken, bespectacled Pond, who turns 43 this week, had few thoughts of becoming a filmmaker while growing up. He graduated from UT-Austin with an engineering degree. “My father was a professional photographer,” he said. “He encouraged me and my brother to go into something stable.” He spent the techno boom of the 1990s working at Uniden and Nokia in the field of technical marketing, figuring out how to get the designers of high-tech electronic gadgets and the consumers of those gadgets to speak the same language. He also started producing trade show videos, promos, and commercials for those companies. This phase of his life proved to be excellent training for his new career. “My background means I'm all about preparation,” he said. “It helped me bring in Fissure on schedule and under budget.”

He won’t disclose exact figures for Fissure, though he classifies it under the industry term of “SAG low-budget,” which is under $1 million. The money came from a single investor, a personal friend of Pond’s who met the director by attending the same church. Through his production website, Top Pup Media (he got the name off a shirt that his young son happened to be wearing), he asked for script submissions and selected Nicholas Turner’s entry for Fissure from a field of 450. “After I read the first 20 pages, I was wondering, ‘What the heck is going on?’ and I was totally hooked,” he said of the good-looking cop thriller, which stars James McDonald as a troubled detective who discovers rifts in time and space while responding to a domestic disturbance call. “I thought if I can translate that same air of mystery to the film, the audience will be hooked, too.” The 18-day shoot took place in east Dallas and the Mid-Cities. “We shot three days in my own house,” he remembered with a laugh. “We'll never do that again!”

Pond is gearing up to promote the film at AFI Dallas, where he and McDonald will have breakfast with two fans who register at the movie’s web site. In the meantime, he’s eager to start work on the next project for Top Pup, whose stated mission is to bring movies with redemptive messages to large audiences. A self-described non-denominational Christian, he discusses his faith in depth on his personal web site at www.russpond.com. However, Fissure contains no direct references to religion, and Pond is determined to make a difference through entertaining rather than preaching. “Leaving Las Vegas is a dark, negative film that still has a redemptive ending,” he said. “I'd rather see an R-rated truth than a G-rated lie.”

Downtown Business News

FISSURE is featured on the front cover of the Downtown Business News.

Director Russ Pond, whose thriller FISSURE will make its world premiere at the festival says it’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, “My dream of making movies was birthed here in Dallas years ago, and to see that dream fulfilled at AFI Dallas is both exciting and humbling. Having lived in Texas all my life, I have a heart for Texas films.”

Shot in Texas

TV shows may brighten outlook for movie project
By JOE O'CONNELL / Shot in Texas

Independent dream: Others hope to lower the budget cap for films to include smaller projects such as the current North Texas shoot Fissure from Russ Pond, who made commercials and trade-show videos before taking the plunge into feature films. Mr. Pond describes Fissure as a thriller about a detective whose life is falling apart after he accidentally kills his son. He must then solve a murder in a world of fractured reality.

"It's actually been easier than I expected," Mr. Pond said. "When you're making short films, you have to do everything. But on this, with a good solid crew, you have people to do all of that for you. I can go in and focus on the feel of the film."

Click here to read the full article.

Fissure Voted "Best Locally Made Film" in 2008

by Fort Worth Weekly

Filmed in Dallas and the Mid-Cities, Russ Pond’s thriller screened at the AFI Dallas festival in March. The movie is about a cop who discovers rifts in the time-space continuum while responding to a domestic disturbance call. The action is set mostly in one house, and the first-time director handled the temporal shifts (and his actors) with an impressive degree of assurance.

Pond’s movie manages visual and narrative dynamism.

Click here to read the article.

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MOVIE REVIEWS

Beyond Hollywood

by Dan MacIntosh

The plot for Fissure works on several different levels: First, it takes our commonly held concept of time, and turns that on its head. Detective Paul Grunning (played by James MacDonald) is the film’s main character who inadvertently walks into a scientific experiment where time has mysteriously been divided and reshuffled, much like a deck of cards. The main trouble with the timing of Grunning’s science party crash is that it happens simultaneous to his investigation of a domestic disturbance case. And wouldn’t you know it, the case just happens to take place at the epicenter of this unusual experiment. Furthermore, this so called “domestic disturbance” call actually turns out to be a murder case; one where the murder victim is also our time-twisting scientist. Of course, as with all murder investigations, a proper event chronology is essential. But the whole sci-fi monkey wrench thrown into Grunning’s job makes it nearly impossible for him to get a handle on what happened, and when.

The storyline for Fissure also grabs and holds the viewer’s attention because of Grunning’s unique set of circumstances. You see, when we join the story, it is right after he had just accidentally shot and killed his only son during a dispute with a disgruntled criminal he’d helped convict. This all happened in a flash while the criminal was attempting to take the young boy hostage. But before we learn about the cause of Grunning’s pain, the film opens with a scene where Grunning is attending a grief help group; a meeting he only attends because internal affairs forced him to do so. Also, there is an early shot showing Grunning taking medication, presumably to help deal with his grief. Thus, when he later starts to witness the facts of his weird case change chameleon-like, as though these “facts” had minds of their own, he begins to take all this craziness personally. If things don’t make sense, he reasons, surely it must be because he is cracking up. In fact, at one point he even calls his wife at home in hopes of anchoring his sanity. Thankfully, she was still there, just as he left her, whereas the people at the crime scene appear to be in constant flux.

As fascinating as its overall storyline is, however, there are a few sticking points that slightly hamper this movie’s believability. A primary trouble spot is the absolute un-likeability of the Ulster family, the crime scene house inhabitants Grunning is called upon to investigate. Emma, the wife of the victim, is a total dingbat, and the son, Andrew, is a cold fish. None in this Ulster clan act even like they’re in the same family, and do not express one iota of love to one another. This prevents us from having any empathy toward them.

Another problematic area is how Grunning engineers quick reconciliation between Professor Roger Ulster, the scientist/victim, and his baseball-loving son. It’s more than clichéd to suggest that the elder Ulster cannot show love toward his son, simply because the boy loves baseball rather than science. After all, parents just want their kids to be happy and successful, not carbon copies of themselves. Although Grunning and Roger Ulster only talk onscreen about this father-son meeting, presumably all it took was one little chat to solve a lifetime of philosophical differences. Ah, if only life were that simple! This parental relationship-mending section of the film comes off as contrived and unnecessary, as though the filmmakers felt they needed to add more humanity to help bolster an otherwise simple suspense story. The suspense factor was already high enough to carry the film; we didn’t need the added human interest scenes to keep us hooked. Besides, Grunning’s emotional dilemma is more than enough of a human factor to lock in our attention.

But even with its relatively few shortcomings, Fissure is still worth a look. It’s especially great fun to see how director Russ Pond has taken two distinct genres – sci-fi and crime – and melded them together in a unique way. In so doing, Pond has made unexpected fissures in our movie plot expectations, and mostly with great success.

Matt Mungles

Webster’s defines “fissure” as: The process of splitting or separating; division.

Fissure is a perfect title for this film for two reasons. One, it defines the plot of the movie and two, the final product is in itself a splitting or separation from what you would normally expect from an Indie film. Director Russ Pond creates an engrossing thriller that though not perfect is an intriguing ride that keeps you guessing until the end.

Written by Nicholas Turner, the story is a mind bending journey where time and dimension are living characters. Paul Grunning (James MacDonald), a police detective recovering from a personal tragedy, is called out to investigate what should be a simple disturbance call. What he finds is a dead body lying within a chaotic reality. As he begins to investigate he finds that nothing is as it seems. At least for any length of time.

This element of bent reality helped me enjoy the story as I went through the same confusions along with the character. I knew something was odd, but like Paul, I wasn't sure what was actually going on. It could have been in his own head, or maybe there was some twisty dimensional thing occurring. I liked the way you were eased into the chaos and at first you think the characters are simply being eccentric, then you discover why.

I thought the film looked fantastic. It was rich with depth and style. Most Indie films I view are a little grainy due to artistic desire or just plain lack of knowledge, but this one had that professional look that I think raises it above most. The story takes place primarily in one house so it had to be sort of a character in itself. The red’s inside the house popped and added a nice contrast to rest of the film. It is a mental film and so the blast of color seemed even more prominent.

Fissure is a superb film for the Indie realm. It is always pleasing to see film makers not use “Indie” as a crutch to cut corners, but instead a springboard to leap outside the norm and do something clever. Fissure made that leap.

Christy the Critic

Fissure: A separation or disagreement in thought or viewpoint can certainly be said that this was true of the discussion after the jam packed premier of Russ Pond’s movie, Thursday, Nov 15, 2007! Everyone bustled and buzzed about this fantastic project!

My take? Well, where do I start? Slowly at first to be perfectly honest. It began with a great view, its main character. Instantly I thought he should be on 24. His look was perfect, his acting, good. His obvious discomfort about something we didn't quite know about yet was well portrayed.

Therapy session-good start as well.

It took too long to get to the juicy part. But the juicy part was really good! It was enjoyable not having a lot of different locations in the film. You could then try to figure out what you’re trying to figure out! Casting was also excellent. Each person perfectly fit their part.

The movie had a lot of great issues and to hear the way everyone thought it “ought to have gone” afterwards was really a testament to the greatness of the film. The struggle over death and hence despair, the battle to heal oneself, the mystery of science, the healing between father and son, etc….

My favorite part of course, was the end. I am a woman, after all, and nothing is better than a man wanting to tell his son how much he loves him, even though… The even though? Well you have to go through to find out! Christy the Critic.