Creativity is one of the main qualities producers want to see in a screenwriter or director. On why a producer himself must also be a creative individual, in what cases the novelty and originality of an idea count for nothing, and what role intuition plays in important creative decisions — Igor Tolstunov in an interview with CINEMOTION.
CINEMOTION: What is your role in the creative development of projects? And how do you structure your work?
Igor Tolstunov: The thing is, every component of film production is creative. And the producer is obliged to take part in the development of a project not just very actively, but, I would even say, decisively. The producer's role must, of course, be the deciding one — provided we are talking about commercial, genre projects. Because, naturally, in auteur cinema, the rules are different.
CINEMOTION: From your experience, how much do you think a project's success depends on the novelty and originality of its idea? Or does the audience respond positively to other indicators?
Igor Tolstunov: In my view, the bare fact of novelty is not enough. It must be novelty of an order and character that fits the audience's expectations and demands. In that case, films opening up some new segment of a genre, or, say, new forms (provided there is viewer demand for them), have a much higher coefficient of success. But novelty by itself is worth nothing. Many people fall for the deceptive feeling that you have to do something "creative-y." But if there is nothing behind that "creativity," the project will end up not in demand.
CINEMOTION: And how do you assess the potential of a new idea?
Igor Tolstunov: Only intuitively. Every producer has his own taste and his own sense of what the public needs. It is especially important that you yourself like the idea. Because you can't make a successful project if it disgusts you.
CINEMOTION: So at the idea stage it is impossible to predict whether a project will become a hit?
Igor Tolstunov: There is a saying that in cinema no one knows anything. You can never guess whether your film will be a success. Not to mention whether it will become a hit. Still, some kind of expert judgement is necessary. But again, that judgement is intuitive in nature; there can be no mathematical calculation here. If you like a project, the likelihood that the viewer will like it too increases.
CINEMOTION: How do you balance a creative idea with foresight about the audience? Some of the projects you produced — for example, "School" or "Everybody Dies but Me" — are quite contentious in terms of how the audience receives them.
Igor Tolstunov: When you launch a project, you formulate certain goals for yourself: what you want to get from it. When we worked on "Everybody Dies but Me" or "School," the main task was to capture something new, fresh, something that wasn't there before. That applies first of all to "Everybody Dies but Me," because "School" is in a sense a derivative of that film. And there other factors were already at work. Once I had the script for that picture in my hands, I realised there was an opportunity to make a new kind of cinema, the kind we hadn't yet seen here. So the commercial component, in this case, took a back seat for me. What mattered to me was not whether the project would be a commercial success, but whether it would be an artistic one. In the end, financially, the film flopped. But I was satisfied with the result regardless. Besides, after that film we made the TV series "School," which covered the picture's losses. So you never know where you'll find or where you'll lose.
CINEMOTION: There is an opinion that to create interesting projects, you have to be a little crazy. Do you think there is any truth in that?
Igor Tolstunov: It depends on what you mean by "crazy." In a certain sense — not the medical one, of course — yes, in cinema you do have to be a little crazy, otherwise nothing will come of it.