Commercial Video Production

Just want to show you one of my "not art works" that l made (as an author and stage director) together with friends-colleagues few weeks ago. This is how we are surviving here in Russia while doing our art videos / films at the same time. It's low budget video, but it was very useful practical training for me. I got a lot of fun and some money from that project. Here we used work of artistical director, professional actors, make-up artist, sound engineer, etc. And Black Magic video camera, cyclorama, space lights, etc. as a technical basis.

Commercial (iPad App) from Roman Moshenskiy on Vimeo.

“THE GLASS WALL”

Three years ago my colleague had left Moscow and begin to live with her boyfriend in Sweden (Karlshamn). I made a short documentary film “Glass Wall” (5 min.) about it, and for this reason, Sweden has become the first foreign country that I visited. So I can also say that the first real meeting with Europe for me began in Swedish town of Karlshamn...

I think that cinema could be a kind of door through the invisible wall between different cultures. I use "The Glass Wall" as a verbal metaphor of this barrier, consisting of stereotypes, mentality, cultural differences, politics, etc.

"GLASS WALL" (short film) from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Performance In The Abandoned Evangelical Church

Today I found two strange video, that I made for my friends from Madrid in 2013. I guess you can call it video art. In fact it's performance that was captured.

A girl tried to explain me the essence of her performance somehow. She said that every place (space) has a special power. She tries to transmit this energy, her feeling of space through body movements and voice. Her body and voice performs the role of a mediator. It all seemed like some of the methods that psychologists use in the dance movement therapy and actors during actors' training. It looks very strange action for most part of viewers and complete surprise them as I noticed.

Her boyfriend, sound engineer, recorded sound during this perfomance and then he made sound tracks for the video that I filmed for them. Shot on a DSLR camera static shots in very low light.

They chose really interesting places . Both videos were made on Madeira. First clip was recorded at underground grotto of volcanic origin. She spent twenty minutes in the icy water. The second video was made in the abandoned Evangelical Church.

El retorno al llanto, a la madre from temporadadepesca on Vimeo.


Flores para el altar from temporadadepesca on Vimeo.

Trip across Greece 2015

3 min. video of my working trip across Greece in May 2015. What is the true reason of crisis in Greece now? Corruption and bad management in the country? Or it is a "defect" of EU management in general? Просто немного Греции.


GREECE 2015 from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Beauty And the Melancholy Of Vietnam

This video was made by me two years ago. My friends-videographers were filmed various interesting footages during a trip to Vietnam with two cameras: Mark II and Go Pro. Here I used just standard Adobe Premiere tools for video editing and colour correction.

Now I would be happy to be on the other side of this video ...

Путешествие по Вьетнаму from РЕЛТА видео on Vimeo.

Everything Is Just a Dream

The Buddhists say that life is a collective dream, an illusion, a mirage, Maya. Reality does not exist. I am just your dream, and you are just mine. Everything that happens to us is part of the dream, and only few people will wake up and understand that it was all a dream...

Video essay about Madeira island:

"ANOTHER ISLAND" (video essay) from Roman Moshensky on Vimeo.

Trans-Siberian Railway

Video made by Stanislas Giroux. Three minutes of video for three weeks of travel, three countries, three cultures. He tooks a train ticket for the Trans-Siberian railway, in order to reach Beijing from Moscow, crossing Mongolia.

Seat 22 — Trans-Siberian Odyssey from Stanislas Giroux on Vimeo.

Muslims and Oil in Russia

This post is dedicated to Islam in Russia. Firstly, because I realized that not so many foreigners know that there are large Muslim regions in Russia. As well as a there are regions where most people are Buddhists or shamanists.

This town called Leninogorsk, which means literally - Lenin Hills. People call this place "oil town". It was built 60 years ago, because geologists have discovered large reserves of oil here. Oil pumps are everywhere in this region. Actually, it's a good object for meditation. These machines are continuously doing slow movements - up and down.

American Catholic Priest in the Russian Far East

There is the Roman Catholic Church in Magadan. I went there with my colleagues - two German filmmakers. It was cold and snowing. The church was not open. We knocked on the door.

Fifty years old man in a gray robe with a hood met us. The front of his robe was embroidered red cross. It was not even a cross, but rather a hybrid of two symbols - the cross and heart. He spoke to us in English with a clean American accent. Father Michael Shields originally from Alaska. He lives in Magadan for twenty years already.

Gold Rush in the Russian Far East

Gold mine named after Matrosov is located in the snowy wilderness (about 400 km from Magadan).

The Sea of Okhotsk オホーツク海

… but I got the biggest impression from the sea (as always). Magadan was built on the sea shore (the Sea of Okhotsk). It has an influence on the local climate: wet air, not so cold, and weather can change very quickly. It much colder outside of Magadan: up to - 50 C.

The Sea of Okhotsk (Russian: tr. Okhotskoye More) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It’s the first Russian settlement in the Far East. The Sea of Okhotsk covers 611,000 sq.mi. (1,583,000 km2). It is connected to the Sea of Japan on either side of Sakhalin: on the west through the Sakhalin Gulf and the Gulf of Tartary; on the south, through the La Pérouse Strait. With the exception of Hokkaidō, one of the Japanese home islands, the sea is surrounded on all sides by territory administered by the Russian Federation.

The Road of Bones

So that was basic idea at the beginning of shooting process. Flight from Moscow to this place (Magadan) took about 8 hours. There is no railway connection. Also possible to drive here by car, but it very long way and road could be really dangerous sometimes.

 

Russian Far East

I was making documentary as a co-director together with two German filmmakers from Cologne’s International Film School (ifs) in Russian Far East during November 2014.

Here a treatment that was written by Christian Zipfel (director of this film) before we go to Magadan and start shooting process:

"Russian Fashion" nowadays

It is my response to the latest news. Synthetical patriotism it’s like “fashion” in Russia now. This video based on the USSR old footages (20-30-s). Made by me in Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK) in 2008. At this moment it has on YouTube: 241850 views; 417 comments; 641 likes and 51 unlikes. For people from some another countries it available just on vimeo(3 min 37 sec): https://vimeo.com/7753848

"SHADOW" MADE IN GERMANY

In October 2013 I (Roman Moshensky) watched one episode from the film by Jean Cocteau in cinematheque of Paris. It was adaptation of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast". Despite the rather primitive (compare with modern standards) effects used in this film and another strange and funny moments, I like episod in the house of Beast ("La belle et la bête" (1946)).

Girl For French

 It was the thirtieth of October. Yellow leaves fell down from the grey trees. She was going to a party. Beautiful handmade female mask hides her face. She has the book by Nabokov in her hands - "Camera Obscura". I used it as an reason to talk to her. The novel was first published by "Modern Notes" and "Parabola" (Berlin - Paris) in December 1933.

She was twenty years old, and she loved Russian literature. It's so nice when people from another country tells you that the first association that comes to them when they hears the word "Russia" is Russian literature. She read most of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Turgenev.

She wore a light beige coat and a red knit cap. Long blonde hair penetrated beneath her cap.

She had very good English and a light French accent. I amused the English «cool», which she, like many French, pronounced softening end.

Her bus stopped at the traffic lights. Autumn frenchmen crowd held at a pedestrian crossing in front of the bus. I asked her mobile phone number. She did not have a pen. Me too. She wrote a number by red nail polish on the surface of the book and gave it to me. It was paperback and French text .

Bus arrived. She jumped inside. Hissing doors closed. Gray smoke stream escaped from the exhaust tube. I thought about global warming.

Micro-Films

I'm going to use CouchSurfing as the main way to travel through Europe. I plan to spend 3-7 days in each new house and during this time I will make one micro-film about the house and the people who live there. Duration of the movie 3-5 minutes. This is my way of saying "thank you" for the accommodation and food. Then I will make selection of the most interesting micro-films and will use them to create a great film.

Artist Statement «Time and Place»

Life goes unnoticed, and we can’t return our time. Therefore, I am motivated by a desire to fix reality. I feel the camera is the best tool to preserve the past and reflect the present. Besides filmmaking (documentary and fiction) it is a chance to immerse oneself into an unfamiliar environment and to live a different life.

The filming process gives me the opportunity to travel around the world and see life with all its variety. An interesting location is a starting point for me to develop new ideas for a movie. I am interested in the possibility of a documentary film with the highly visible subjective views of the author, when the director tells the story in the first person or he is directly involved in the events. My technique is a mixture of documentary, feature film and video art.

The film is a way to communicate with many people because this language of images is a universal language of communication. A good result for me is when many other people like to watch my films and they understand the message. I like it when everyone amongst the audience understands something special and personal. I feel that I have concluded a stage of my life when I finish a new film; and it's time to start a new one.

Anima

"Gender" (course work)

Genre: documentary / film-portrait

Duration: 8 min. 51 seconds.

2012

35 mm/PAL/16: 9/color/stereo

The main character of this film is an andrologist. She talks about how to be a man and how to be a women. She wears a leather jacket, heavy boots. She working in city polyclinic and besides she makes theatrical productions in the local club. She lives with her daughter without her husband and believes that love - is neurosis reaction and that she not affected by this.

I make a short film. The idea of ​​the film - a man in everyday life is constantly in contact with the nature that surrounds us. Often we are not aware of this process to the end, but it happens all the time. For example, at this moment.

We commonly eat plants and animals. Here we also use nature as a source of inspiration.

The second objective of this film - to capture and convey the impression of this place, where I am now (I mean i-park). So every morning I take my camera, I walk in the woods and shoot anything that seems interesting to me. I shoot the same people who are here with me, because they too are part of this space. They also interact daily with wildlife.

For example, Michael uses a dead tree as a material for sculpture. For other nature - a source of inspiration.

In order to realize this idea, I use dual screen. When a viewer sees on the screen at the same time the two pictures he mentally tries to match them with one another. As a result of this encounter, he finds new meaning in this picture. I came across in one shot two pictures to show the interaction between man and nature.

Now the film is slightly surreal. I think this is due to the fact that the forest gives me that impression. When I'm alone I walk in the woods, I think he is a living organism. He lives his life. In this forest a lot of installations, art objects left by previous residents. They are harmoniously co-exist with wildlife. This produces a very strange, somewhat mystical experience. I think this movie called "The Enchanted Forest" or something like that.