Broken Heart Love Affair Debuts Eerie Cinema Spot for Royal Ontario Museum

Jump scares, parallel universes, and crazy sound design highlight the cinematic film that signals a turning point for the Royal Ontario Museum.

The Dawn of Life gallery goes as far back as we can see, to the earliest signs of life on earth. When you start to understand the scale of four billion years, and how tiny our lives are in comparison, you naturally have a lot of questions. And as science begins to answer those questions along the journey back in time, new, bigger questions are inevitably uncovered. This never-ending cycle of questions and answers is what inspired the creative idea.

Broken Heart Love Affair had such a talented group of people, full of interesting ideas, working together on this project. Beautiful cinematography, thoughtful sound design, meticulous editing and special effects, and a stellar crew at Radke films came together to make something its super proud of. Every detail mattered, down to the colour treatment by Darling VFX and swirling whispered questions assembled by OSO audio, which distinguish between the two worlds—one in reality, and one meant to represent the boy’s inquisitive mind. There are so many amazing craftspeople in Toronto, and this was an opportunity to let them run wild.

The incredible cast was found by Jigsaw casting. The young lead actor who played both parts is Arjen Liu-Ernsting, and his mom in the spot is in fact his real mom. Broken Heart Love Affair knew the moment the team saw them they were perfect for the film. They both brought a lot of focus and effort to their roles, and even postponed a vacation to make it happen. 

Jordan Hamer, creative director, Broken Heart Love Affair: “This was our first time directing, and our clients at ROM put a lot of trust in us. Their support, decisiveness and collaboration is the reason the work came to life the way it did. It was also a luxury to have access to ROM to scout early and often, which is far from normal. That helped us plan our day to fit into a tight schedule. And to see our first self-directed go out into the world as a 60 second cinema piece was really something special.”

Spencer Ryan, creative director, Broken Heart Love Affair: “We'd love to direct more of our own scripts if clients are open to it. It’s something that you see in almost all other mediums, film, TV, music, but for some reason, you never see it in commercial work, which we’ve always thought is strange. It’s fun, challenging and a chance to create a unified vision, so… why not?

Our goal, with any of our work, is usually to get people to stop and think, and maybe change some people’s perspectives. Hopefully this work does that.”