What is the storyline of "Mute Witness?"
"It's a thriller about a special effects makeup girl in danger, who unintentionally gets into a net of intrigue. She is witness to a murder which her colleagues claim never happened. What we see, and what we think we see, continually changes the more we learn about the facts from other perspectives. It's ninety minutes of suspense."
"The setting is an old, dilapidated film studio in Moscow, where a small group of Americans intend to make a low-budget movie. Billy, the heroine, is faced with the task not only of proving her own professional competence, but also of saving her own life.
Two-thirds of the shoot was in the Mosfilm studio area. We also used the studios as a location. Inside the studio was both the film-within-the-film location, as well as the constructed sets. The rest was in different locations in Moscow, including a cellar in which thousands of people were executed during the Stalin era. That is in the scene where our heroine discovers a victim."
How did you come to set the film in Russia?
"Although the original script was set in Chicago, the idea of shooting the project in Russia proved to be very inspiring. It was immediately clear how well the whole Russian angle of the story would work. After extensive research and a rewrite, I adapted the setting to Moscow. This improved the overall atmosphere, accentuating the feeling of danger, isolation, and helplessness in which our American heroes have to fight for their survival. In addition, it made the film far more topical; Moscow today, with its gang power structures, is often compared to Chicago in the '30s."
What were the benefits of shooting there?
"Well, Russia was additionally attractive because it was affordable, with a still-functioning industry offering the same services at one-tenth of the price. This is no longer as true as it was; even whilst shooting was in progress, things rapidly deteriorated, and prices started rocketing.
Production value was a major incentive. None of us wanted to make a cheap low-quality film. We wanted to exploit the opportunity to create a working situation where we would have wider creative freedom and less time pressures; be able to pay more attention to detail; and turn out a project on a par with top international productions.
To give the film my own particular signature, it was important for me to be able to shoot many set-ups, using two camera units for a variety of interesting angles and close-ups. Hardly any of these were discarded. The finished film, shot over a 71-day shooting period, has around 1,800 setups and over 2,000 cuts. Another example is the elaborate music score, recorded in Moscow with a 64-man live orchestra that would have been unaffordable in the West."
"Shooting in Russia was far from easy. Many of the obstacles we faced were more daunting than those depicted in the film.
Even before the start of shooting, we were plagued with a number of setbacks which had me wondering whether I would ever be able to start the movie, let alone finish it. For example:
Gina Bellman, who had been cast to play Karen, fell victim to a kidney infection, and had to be replaced at the last moment.
The principal Russian actor, Oleg Jankowskij, backed down from his role a few days before shooting began, for fear of not adequately performing his role in the English language. Oleg Jankowskij is without a doubt the most famous actor in Russia, and was important to us for the Russian market. Luckily, he reversed his decision a week later and underwent intensive language training after a reshuffling of the shooting plan.
The film equipment, air-freighted in from Munich, was held up at the airport by customs, which demanded a ludicrous $60,000 to release it. With a little baksheesh and diplomacy, it was later released.
To top it all off, on the morning of our first planned shooting day (October 4th, 1993), we were rudely awakened to the sound of gunfire and grenades. Boris Yeltsin had given the army the order to storm the Russian parliament building on the first day of what came to be called the 'October Revolution.' This had its consequences: the start of shooting was pushed back by a week; and a stringent curfew prevented us from shooting the exteriors first.
Winter was fast approaching and, because the film takes place in one night, all the exterior scenes being shot over a three-week period needed the same weather. It snowed halfway through, which meant time-consuming snow and ice removal at each location, in temperatures of -23 degrees.
The American actors were also reluctant to travel to Moscow in the midst of political unrest, which forced further rescheduling. A diptherea epidemic scare didn't help their confidence either.
Also, the Russian crews, although fantastically experienced, were quite slow and methodical, and not used to strict Western deadlines. To compensate for the slowness of the Russian crew, we had to shoot longer hours -- a minimum of 12 hours a day on-set, 6 days a week -- and stopped only one day, for Christmas.
In Russia, the theatre has priority above all else. All of our Russian actors who were also occupied with theatre productions sometimes simply did not turn up, or else caused a lot of last-minute rescheduling of the shooting plan.
Contracts on the whole are ineffective, as there is no real functioning justice system to force people to uphold them. One of the actors turned out to be a drug addict, causing major on-the-spot adaptations to the script."
And what about the "Mystery Guest Star?"
"At a chance meeting with him one evening in Hamburg, in 1985, I asked him if he would be prepared to play a small, but key, role in the 'up-and-coming' new project, 'Mute Witness.' His response was that his commitments engaged him for the next one-and-a-half years, so I suggested to shoot the following morning, before his return flight to England, to which he agreed. Rather than trumpet it, we both agreed that British understatement would be more fitting for the role, and that his billing would be only as the "Mystery Guest Star."
A team, equipment, film material, location, and even a 1938 Rolls Royce were organized overnight, and, by thirteen hundred hours, he was on his plane to England, as scheduled."
