Night Watch Interview - Anatoli Maksimov (Producer)

ANATOLI MAKSIMOV: PRODUCER, NIGHT WATCH TRILOGY

An experienced Russian TV producer, Anatoli Maksimov, together with fellow producer Konstantin Ernst, was originally responsible for getting the Night Watch trilogy off the ground. His first task was to get his first choice of director, Timur Bemambetov, involved. Once the film began production, Maksimov helped orchestrate the complicated process of making a four hundred thousand dollar budget look like forty hundred thousand. It worked - with the film a success in the Russian box-office, he was soon taking calls from Harvey Weinstein.

Q. How did you first come to be involved in the whole Night Watch project?
A. My involvement was Konstantin (Ernst)’s idea originally. The source material from the book was something of a surprise for us, because fantasy, on the whole, is not such a big deal here in Russia, even in the book business. But fantasy, actually, is not the main point of this film. What really counts, are the psychological and specifically social connotations of living in this country. The book represents Russian society at a certain stage of mental development.

Q. Was it difficult to get the money together for this project?
Well, we found ways to make sure things were as cheap as they could be and still look good. For example, instead of using just one production house for our CGI shots we used the internet and got many, many small companies involved, I think over 40. And there were over 400 shots involving CGI in the film so we needed to make these savings where we could. We had a lot of luck with our director, Timur (Bekmambetov). His background in advertising meant that he knew how to make things look stylish without much of a budget. Mostly it was on the director’s account that we could let ourselves do this so cheap. For the second, we have more money, because of our first’s success.

Q. Aside from the psychological side of the novels, you’ve also brought in horror, sci-fi and action elements. Was that designed to help bring the project to a global audience?
We still believe in the cult genre formula, particularly for the second movie, Day Watch. We believe we are not making a horror film or even a thriller. We’re definitely aiming for a mixed genre experience. In this movie gore is a strong element that we escape almost completely in the second, which is intended to be relatively comedic, even if that sounds a little bit strange. All of the CGI joys going on around us have made us accessible to a larger audience, however, which was something we intended to receive in order to open the gates for Russian movies. Before this, the most money a Russian movie had received was 2.3 million dollars domestic box-office, in comparison with ten for the average Hollywood movie. Night Watch finished a year and a half ago, having taken 16.3 million dollars at the domestic box-office – a result that none of the Hollywood movies bettered. The CGI effects work was kind of a dress-code for us to address the public with in order to be on a par with the US movies. American movies have bred a generation of moviegoers that we had to tap into. If it wasn’t done with some American gloss, the Russian film audience wouldn’t recognise the movie as a blockbuster movie. It was a case of mixing that international Hollywood language of filmmaking with a purely domestic message.

Q. So the Hollywood coating is for the Russian audience?
A. Oh yes. The international appeal has been a happy by-product of that. It wasn’t originally intended to be sold abroad. The world Timur creates is hyper-real in Moscow but also recognisable to everyone. The characters and the psychological elements are all familiar to us as people, which we made for the home audience but of course translates universally. From a fantasy film, it becomes a movie about a man’s morality and the forces of Light and Darkness fighting over his soul. Hey, it’s big stuff!

Q. The books were planned as a trilogy from the beginning. Was it always your intention to create a film franchise and broaden its appeal?
A. I would say there’s no specific way of doing that in Russia. Everything we did was entirely new and fairly unfamiliar to the public, who would not have recognised it that way. Remember this is the biggest thing that has been done in this country. It’s all new ground. We went to advertising companies, but they couldn’t help us, they didn’t know Russian movies. One of our aims was to recreate the Russian film industry. We wanted to forge a new image for Russian film and get to a new level in Russian movie making. We wanted to make it a real part of the international movie arena- not just for art-houses or for festivals but with exciting films that appeal to a mass audience. With Night Watch we had that opportunity.

Q. When Konstantin Ernst showed you the book, what was your reaction? And how did you persuade Timur Bekmambetov to come onboard? Was it difficult?
A. My immediate reaction was the same as his. I promise you! So then it immediately became a hunt for a director. That was what we agreed was the most important thing to start with. When we decided on Timur, who is a very great friend and has been for the last fifteen years, it became nine months of amazing courtesy and politeness from us. He was saying kind of “but fantasy… why?” and had a very successful business of his own, he had created some obscenely successful advertising campaigns. We chased him for nine months, it was like a pregnancy! He said “it’s a good idea but it will take too long for me, I don’t want to be on this project for this long.” But eventually we got him, despite all his success. He’s so good for this project, because he’s great with actors. He is what I call an amphibious director- he is amazing with urban scenes, realistic scenes, getting his actors to seem just as people are in life. Then again he is also brilliant with the fantasy scenes. He does both- he breathes both, he is amphibious!

Q. Can you describe the process of shooting parts one and two back to back?
A. It was originally going to be a four-hour mini-series for TV so we were prepared to undertake that much shooting from the beginning. We’d spent long enough getting all the right people together and we were very committed to the project, so for us, it wasn’t a problem. When we saw that it was going to be a movie, we realised that the 3-movie structure would work best and moulded the ideas into a trilogy form.

Q. Has the planning of the third movie been changed by the involvement of Fox and the plans to shoot it in English?
A. It will be English language and probably American surroundings. It could be a prequel or sequel; we don’t know which, as yet. We will be negotiating actors and locations as well. It will be the same director there. The main decision-makers are likely to be on the American side because it’s an American market that we are still learning to deal with. It’s a celebration of Russian cinema in any topography anyway; things such as Tarantino’s excitement when he saw the DVD are already building this healthy feeling of anticipation.

Q. Do you have any advice for British producers on how to beat Hollywood directors at their own game?
A. We indirectly used the British formula from the seventies, of beginning in advertising. We really think that to start in commercials, like directors Alan Parker, Ridley and Tony Scott, gives you some great experience for Hollywood, it is that kind of style. We shot Moscow in a Hollywood style, which was not something that our audience here in Russia were expecting from us. They went to the cinema expecting- I don’t know what, either a Hollywood movie or a more traditional art type festival film, like most Russian movies. And it was neither of these things. Well, it was neither and it was both, which was a great surprise for the Russian audience. Timur is a visual director and he also goes very deep with the characters in the Stanislavski way. It’s from this combination that the film’s style was born.

Q. So, should countries try to follow their own style of cinema or aim to ape Hollywood?
A. Well, people believe in Russian movies now we have done a film which some people say is very sleek, very fashionable- an American style movie. It’s an international language and has brought Russia to the world’s attention- now more people will want to film in Moscow, so it’s a good thing for our film industry. It helped us in the international market because we did not shop this film around. We were sitting in the office, the phone rang and it was Harvey Weinstein, looking to buy our movie. It was incredible.


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