In ‘Wristcutters,' Massachusetts native creates the visual story

Being the master of a fictional universe means being able to make the rules. It also means following those rules.

<p class="Body">As a film production designer, Melrose native Linda Sena sets the scene - and then makes sure the scene stays set. <span style="color: red; display: none; text-transform: uppercase;">####</span>

<p class="Body">"It's a big responsibility to make sure that every location, everything you shoot, stays within this overall aesthetic," she said. "Because anytime you leave, for a moment, at any point, you take the viewer out and they'll lose faith in the film."

<p class="Body">Sena likens production design to a visual translation of the script. It begins with choosing shoot locations or designing sets, choosing the palette that colors the environment, finding props and filling in the details. It ends with a complete picture.

<p class="Body">"It's creating the world the film exists in," she said. "The physical part of the job is dressing the sets and getting the props, building the sets and finding locations. That's all sort of the actual. The details of what you're doing is the job of production designer is to help tell the story on a visual level, so the audience stays with the film."

<p class="Body">On her most recent movie, a dark comedy called "Wristcutters: A Love Story," Sena faced the challenge and excitement of creating a vision of the afterlife. The story follows a young man named Zia who, after committing suicide after a break-up with his girlfriend, finds himself in a wholly unremarkable and dull section of the afterlife reserved for suicide victims. Zia learns his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide and, along with other suicide victims he meets, begins a road trip across this purgatory to find her.

<p class="Body">Sena said once the filmmakers decide on the rules of the world the characters live in, they have to adhere to those rules.

<p class="Body">"If we diverted from that, the audience wouldn't be with the characters on the road," she said. "It's also a matter of keeping the world within the film believable within itself. It's believable because you set it up a certain way."

<p class="Body">The initial direction comes from the script itself and the director and his or her interpretation of the story, Sena said.

<p class="Body">"The way I approached the world of 'Wristcutters,' the world of the afterlife, was trying to get into the mindset of a person who committed suicide," she said. "You have no hope, you don't care enough about anything anymore to keep you going. Now imagine a world where those aspects were what you were stuck in. You're in a place that was uncared for, discarded &#8230; you're still in the same place you were when you committed suicide."

<p class="Body">The script, based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers," by Etgar Keret, was straightforward, Sena said. Director Goran Dukic also wrote the screenplay.

<p class="Body">"You knew you were in this other world, but it really wasn't described in such detail," she said.

<p class="Body">At one point in the film, Zia and companions arrive at Kneller's Campground. Knowing that this is a supernatural place, but still a campground, Sena researched circus camps and other off-beat camps to provide a surreal yet believable vision for the film. The key was to find real-life locations or visions that could fit into the afterlife.

<p class="Body">"At one point, [the characters] get to a forest, so I said, 'all right, if this is the afterlife, what's a forest like in the afterlife?'" Sena said. "What we ended up finding was these amazing state parks where they had fires a year ago. It was really barren and the trees were all black and twisted &#8230; it's a distorted view. It's terrible, but really beautiful."

<p class="BreakHead">What's a 'big break?'

<p class="Body">When she attended Massachusetts College of Art, studying illustration, Sena could not yet see the forest for the trees. The thought of working in film hadn't even crossed her mind.

<p class="Body">After graduating, she went to work for a small studio called Oliver Jar Studios in Boston, where they did traditional stop-motion and 'cel' animation (a type of animation that uses transparent plastic sheets with pictures). Working there piqued her interest in working in film, which led to her Los Angeles, where she earned her master's degree in production design from the American Film Institute.

<p class="Body">"[Mass. College of Art] was more drawing and painting and things like that, but the animation studio was like building sets and puppets with cameras," Sena said. "Once I got there, I knew that was what I wanted to be around. It was just sort of a different environment and a really collaborative, creative place to be. There's always a new challenge."

<p class="Body">Sena worked unpaid on several low-budget short films with fellow AFI students and graduates, supporting herself by taking smaller jobs on other productions, such as music videos. 'Wristcutters,' while still an independent film - both the director and producer were fellow AFI grads - is her first "big" film, but she doesn't consider it her big break.

<p class="Body">"There still hasn't yet been this idea of a 'big break.' It's sort of a flow, a steady, almost &#8230; I say steady, but almost imperceptible, gradual thing where slowly you're getting more jobs and making more money," she said. "There was never any one moment when it turned on &#8230; although it feels like a breakthrough in some respects. It's all our first real theatrical release. 'Wristcutters' paid, kind of. It didn't really pay, so it's still a struggle, even though it was a struggle we were happy to undertake, so I'm still looking for that break.

<p class="Body">"I always say, 'when that's break coming I hear so much about?'" she adds with a laugh.

<p class="Body">It may not be the "big break," but getting "Wristcutters" into the 2006 Sundance Film Festival certainly didn't hurt. <s></s>

<p class="Body">"We were super excited when it got in," Sena said. "It was the first time I went to Sundance, to have a film in the festival &#8230; people super responded to the film at Sundance. It was just a great experience, to see it with an audience that was laughing. That was sort of the first experience of having the film be with other people who don't know it so well."

<p class="Body">Sena said this first theatrical release is a good step, but noted it's "still another step" on a longer journey. This past summer, she worked as the art director for "Captain Abu Raed," a movie filmed in Jordan - "that was a bunch of coincidences. My brother married a Jordanian and I went there and it turned out I could stay and work on the film" - and she is currently working on the big budget film "Four Christmases," with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. The best part about working on a big budget film?

<p class="Body">"It's a union film, so basically it's a good paying job," Sena said with a laugh.

"Wristcutters: A Love Story," stars Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Shea Whigham and Leslie Bibb. It is playing locally at Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge.