“I was super lucky because my dad taught me stop motion animation when I was nine years old,” filmmaker Freddy Macdonald recalls. Growing up in a creative family, Macdonald was immersed in storytelling from an early age. His father, Fred Senior, instilled fundamental narrative principles that would guide his film career. “You got to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and an ending that – hopefully – subverts expectations.”
This early education sparked a passion that led Macdonald to spend hours in his garage, meticulously animating puppets frame by frame. “My mom is also an artist. So she would help me paint these foam core puppets. And my sister sews,” he explains – a fitting connection to his breakout film Sew Torn.
His creative journey was truly a family affair. “We made a lot of stuff as a family and that’s what got me into filmmaking.” Eventually, Macdonald discovered the relative ease of live action compared to stop motion animation and shifted his focus accordingly.
Freddy Macdonald. Photo by Renee Dominguez
Macdonald’s path took an unexpected turn when he moved to Switzerland with his family. “I wanted to start making short films professionally, meeting everyone I possibly could in the Swiss film industry, which is a very tiny industry. So I met everyone very fast.”
It was in Switzerland that he connected with cinematographer Sebastian Klinger, with whom he collaborated on multiple short films. As high school drew to a close, MadDonald set his sights on film school, with the American Film Institute (AFI) as his top choice.
“AFI was always my number one in my head because I had always seen them as the number one on, you know, the film school lists,” he shares. “But it is a master’s program. So I was very hesitant to put all my eggs in that basket.”
Macdonald and his father devised a practical strategy for applications, creating a spreadsheet of film schools and their requirements. AFI’s prompt particularly resonated, “Tell a story in five minutes about a change of heart with no dialogue.”
This challenge led Macdonald, his father, and Klinger to a desolate road in the Alps, where they filmed what would become the short film version of Sew Torn – heavily inspired by the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men.
The Coen Connection
In an extraordinary stroke of luck, the short film found its way to Joel Coen himself. “We never expected that a week later he would come back with three pieces of news,” Macdonald recalls of producer Peter Spears, who had shared the film with Coen. “The first was that Joel watched it and wants to meet for coffee.”
Far from criticizing the obvious influence, Coen offered invaluable advice, “Keep working with family. That’s very special. If it works, keep doing it. Sometimes you’re going to want to murder each other, but that’s part of the process.”
Coen’s second suggestion proved equally momentous, “Turn this into a feature and do the Blood Simple method – go to your dentist, anyone you know, and raise the money independently.”
With Coen’s endorsement, Macdonald was accepted to AFI, where he gained the technical knowledge needed to produce a feature film. “After AFI, I felt like I could wrap my head around it and we pretty much immediately went out to everyone we knew and found some great producers to pull together our small budget to make it happen.”
From Short to Feature
The original Sew Torn short (watch here) centers on a seamstress who discovers a drug deal gone wrong. Finding guns, downed motorcyclists, and a briefcase, she devises an elaborate Rube Goldberg scheme using thread to manipulate the crime scene without directly touching any weapons.
Adapting this premise into a feature-length film (trailer here) proved challenging. “We did about 20, 22 drafts of a very linear version of the movie,” Macdonald explains. “And on the 22nd draft, I got the same notes that I got on the first draft.”
The breakthrough came when Macdonald and his father returned to the central theme of the AFI prompt – a change of heart. Inspired by films like Run, Lola, Run, they reimagined the story. “We realized we should start exploring the repercussions of the choices that she could make when she comes upon that drug deal gone bad as the central spine of the film.”
This approach allowed them to explore three distinct paths that the protagonist, Barbara (Eve Connolly) faces at a literal and metaphorical crossroads. “We just love choice and chance and fate as a theme,” Macdonald reflects. “I can’t tell you how many moments I’ve had where one phone call has changed the path of my life.”
For Macdonald, following Joel Coen’s advice to use the “Blood Simple Method” meant maintaining creative control. “He was very adamant about creative control and for your first feature, doing everything you can possible to protect your voice because that’s what you’re showing the world what you hope you can continue to do.”
This philosophy extended to the film’s production approach, which maintained much of the guerrilla style of the short film. “We were very excited to shoot the feature in a very similar way that we did the short,” Macdonald says. This meant shooting on a documentary-style camera without a focus puller and moving quickly to maintain the film’s subjective intensity.
Macdonald’s dual role as writer-director (alongside his father as co-writer) allowed them to adapt on the fly when challenges arose. “Because my dad and I co-write, we were able to just continue co-writing when things would go wrong and find ways to adapt.”
Advice to Emerging Filmmakers
When asked what advice he would give to young filmmakers, Macdonald emphasizes the importance of jumping in and sharing your work. “I think just throwing yourself in it is key,” he says. “Once you make it, not judging it, and sending it out into the world.”
He credits his father with encouraging him to share the Sew Torn short widely, despite his own doubts. “I was so clouded by my lack of clarity. I just was thinking about all the struggles on set. I couldn’t see it clearly.” His parting advice encapsulates the unexpected journey that led to his feature film debut: “My number one advice always is just send it out there. You never know who will see it.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.
