Interview With Jeffry Schwarz

Chief Justice Mike Jackson

September 6th, 2001

Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures was the producer of MGM's Silence of the Lambs Special Edition DVD. The following interview was conducted via e-mail by Editor Mike Jackson.

Mike Jackson: What are the responsibilities of a DVD Producer?

Jeffrey Schwarz: My main responsibility as a DVD Producer is to create an immersive visual experience that complements the film itself. Depending on what the particular movie is, we try to create supplements that complement the title and enhance one's appreciation of the film. When we are assigned a title, I will come up with a list of features that I think would create excitement among the fans of the particular film. That usually includes, if it's a library title, a retrospective documentary and commentaries. We do preliminary research to try and find out what elements might be out there that can be incorporated into the DVD, such as deleted scenes, outtakes, photos, and other esoterica. Once the studio approves the concept, we're on our way. At that point we contact talent, start the archeological dig for elements, shoot interviews, and basically live and breathe the project until it's finished.

For a film like The Silence of the Lambs, which has made an enormous cultural impact, it was important to us to both celebrate the film and put it in the proper context. First and foremost our strength is creating entertaining and informative documentaries, which can be an enormous undertaking. Most of our efforts go towards making these pieces, which involve months of research, shooting, acquiring elements, clearance, and post-production.

MJ: What other DVD projects have you worked on in the past, and can you let any details slip about projects you're working on right now?

JS: We've been lucky enough to work with most of the major studios on some really great titles. For Sony I've produced Charlie's Angels, Hollow Man, The Celluloid Closet, Heavy Metal, Fail-Safe, Krull, and lots more. Besides Silence, for MGM I've done This is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and the upcoming The Princess Bride and Robocop Special Editions. For New Line I produced Little Nicky, Final Destination, and Dungeons and Dragons. We also just finished massive Special Editions of Basic Instinct and Total Recall for Artisan. We're in the middle of a bunch of projects right now, but they haven't been announced yet so I should probably stay mum on the subject. I can say that we're working with Verhoeven and Scorsese titles and some more horror titles for MGM.

I recently started a company called Automat Pictures to be able to take on more projects and work with other producers. Our goal is to create a brand name that people will start to recognize. I'm working with some great producers including Laura Nix, who co-produced Silence and Final Destination. She's doing her own projects under the Automat banner including Hedwig for New Line and Ghosts of Mars for Sony.

MJ: Criterion released a very nice DVD of Silence of the Lambs that is now out of print. Did you try to secure the use of any of their supplemental materials, or was the intention always to make a separate release with different features?

JS: Criterion generally does not license their material once they lose the rights to a particular title, so we didn't even have the option to include their Silence commentary. They did an excellent job on Silence but we wanted to take a completely different approach that was less text-based and do an original documentary. We also had MGM muscle behind us, so they gave us access to the vaults to find never before seen material. We spent months digging through hundreds of boxes of film footage to find the deleted scenes, set up an old school flatbed editing room to review the material, and did new transfers of everything. It was a huge undertaking, but definitely worth it. The excerpts we found included sequences with Jack Crawford that didn't make it into the final film, as well as more glimpses of Hannibal, Clarice, and Buffalo Bill. The most amazing discovery was the test footage of all the different masks they considered for Hannibal.

MJ: Our reviewer noted that there are no contributions from Jonathan Demme or Jodie Foster on the new DVD. Can you explain why?

JS: We were very disappointed that they both couldn't participate, because obviously their points of view are critical to any history of the film. When we were working on the disc, Jonathan Demme was in Paris shooting his new movie [The Truth About Charlie, starring Mark Wahlberg] so he was completely unavailable to do an interview or commentary. We were working with Jodie Foster's office to secure her participation, but it just didn't work out. Hopefully we were able to keep them alive in the documentary, and to represent their essential contributions through our other interview subjects. The Silence of the Lambs had so many amazing people contribute to its making and we were able to get most of the heavy hitters, so hopefully the documentary doesn't suffer too much from their absence.

MJ: Was there any material that you wanted to include that did not make it onto the disc?

JS: We were disappointed that very little of the behind the scenes footage and vintage interviews survived. I was also hoping we would find Senator Martin's television plea to Buffalo Bill, but it didn't turn up. We had also hoped to incorporate Manhunter into the documentary, but we couldn't afford to license clips or stills.

MJ: What work went into producing the new video transfer?

JS: I'm not generally involved in the video transfer, but we were able to make sure that the filmmakers got a chance to approve it. I know [cinematographer] Tak Fujimoto was involved with the new telecine, and [sound designer] Skip Lievsay approved the 5.1 mix. I think MGM did a great job with the transfer, and the movie looks better than ever.

Don't forget to read Judge Mike Pinsky's review of Silence of the Lambs: Special Edition.