How I Accidentally Created 'The MUTE Series'…and its Three Strict Rules

Written by Andy Lambert

Some years ago I was directing a TV commercial in Barcelona. There were a few last minute problems which caused the schedule to get jumbled around and it soon dawned on me that we were going to finish unexpectedly early on the last day.

As it was a musical, dance-based ad, it was all very tightly choreographed and storyboarded, so there was really nothing else we could shoot as ‘bonus’ cutaways. The last shot would be completed by around 4 PM, with the crew on the clock for at least another hour.

“Hey, guys, looks like we’re going to have some time left over,” I said to the producer and DoP. “Why don’t we… er… make a short film? Haha!” I’m sure they were looking forward to getting to the bar early, but luckily they humoured me for a few minutes. And that was enough for my half-joke to morph, there and then, into decisive action.

I started looking around at what we had that I could use. The ad had featured a marching band so the most striking prop at my disposal was a sousaphone tuba. “There must be something I can think of using this funny instrument,” I thought.

We didn’t have any sound recording that day, just play-back (because it was a musical ad), so I knew I couldn’t include any dialogue. We’d also already wrapped the dolly grip because he had started earlier than the rest of the crew, so I knew I couldn’t move the camera. And I didn’t really have time to do any more than one shot as I had wasted most of it coming up with a script.

Despite these limitations, I was pleased with the result and I called the film "Tuba. Or Not Tuba."

'Tuba. Or Not Tuba'Filmmaker Andy Lambert

Then, on my next commercial shoot, it happened again: we had time left over! It’s very rare that this arises, so to occur twice in a row was freaky. One again, I persuaded the producer to let me use the extra hour to make a short film and, once again, we didn’t have any sound recording. I wasn’t particularly thinking it would have the same style as the first film, and in fact I spent a long time trying to move the camera, thinking we could do a slow track, or we could execute the film in two or three shots. But, with the daylight running out, I started panicking and ended up opting for a single shot with a locked-off camera.

Now I had two films. Both were around 2-minutes long and both consisted of only a single shot with no camera movement (not even a pan) and contained no dialogue. Not only had I not intended to make these films in the first place, I had no plan to make them in the same style. Yet here they were: two shorts that were restricted by identical constraints. It suddenly occurred to me that these constraints weren’t compromises. On the contrary, they were something to be embraced. They were, in fact, ‘rules’.

Before long, these two initial films became a short form series, called “The MUTE Series”, in which each film pledged allegiance to three strict rules:

• Rule # 1 — No Dialogue
• Rule # 2 — No Camera Movement
• Rule # 3 — Only One Shot Allowed

Purely by chance, I had stumbled upon my cinematic voice and shooting more MUTE films became an obsession. Now I have made twenty-two films in the series, with the latest two, Stop and The Prisoner, currently screening as supporting shorts across 36 screens in seven independent cinemas in California, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Illinois this September and October.

What I like about the “rules” is that they necessitate a back-to-basics approach to filmmaking. There’s a refreshing simplicity to "MUTE" that appeals, almost harking back to the pioneering days of the silent cinema. On a personal level, they also act as a welcome antidote to directing commercials, where the camera is always moving and there’s a cut every second or two.

'the Mute series'Filmmaker Andy Lambert

The MUTE films are characterized by their deadpan, absurdist humor, casting a mordant eye over contemporary life, and exploring themes of conformity, delusion, irrational desire and indifference. Because of the ‘rules’, the comedy works in quite a different way to most films, playing with people’s expectations about what a film normally is. I think after 10 seconds of no dialogue, no movement and no cutting, viewers aren’t thinking there’s anything too strange. But then, after 20.. 30.. 60 seconds plus… , they suddenly realize no one is going to talk and the shot isn’t going to move and they start to watch in a different way.

So, although they're short, the films have a slow burn quality which invites you to view them using a distinctive register, one with its own rhythm, musicality, and charm.

Of course, utilizing rules in art is nothing new. I’d enjoyed watching films like Jim Jarmsusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, with its one-shot-per-scene rule, and had been intrigued by the Danish film movement Dogma 95, with its “Vow of Chastity” that declared all films should adhere to ten commandments.

Orson Welles once said that "the enemy of art is the absence of limitations” and in literature, Raymond Queneau, founder of the OuLiPo movement that embraced restrictions, said, "inspiration which consists in blind obedience to every impulse is in reality a sort of slavery”. Through setting themselves extraordinary rules (such as Georges Perec’s novel, A Void, written without using the letter ‘e’), the OuLiPo writers produced some of the most imaginative and creative works in literature.

With The MUTE Series, I found myself unwittingly joining the ranks of these artistic explorers through my own experiment with creative constraints.

Filmmaker Andy LambertFilmmaker Andy Lambert

What began as a serendipitous moment evolved into a lesson in creativity. The tight rules I've embraced for The MUTE Series haven't confined me; paradoxically, they've liberated my artistic expression. This self-imposed 'cinematic bondage' continually challenges me to imagine innovative solutions, pushing beyond conventional boundaries. The result? Films that audiences find not just distinctive, but surprisingly entertaining.

To my fellow filmmakers facing creative blocks, I offer this counterintuitive advice. Next time you're facing a blank canvas of infinite possibilities, try painting yourself into a corner. You might be surprised by how you create your escape.

"Stop" and "The Prisoner" from The MUTE Series are playing in select cinemas across the USA during September & October.

Watch earlier films in The MUTE Series here.