KONSTANTIN SYOMIN

AND THE WINNER IS …

Posted: May 3, 2012 in Uncategorized
Tags: 20Coop, Contest, Docchallenge, Documentary, Festival, Oscar, Toronto, Winners

I just learned that me and my peers from Team “20Coop” have won this year’s International Documentary Challenge in Toronto. Overwhelmingly! We were competing against over 80 teams from 10 countries and took the following prizes:

— Best Film
— PBS’ POV award
— Best cinematography (I’m proud of that one in particular as the camera guy)
— Best editing
— Best use of Genre

It was amazing to hear that the jury from PBS said in their speech that it was Oscar worthy and were all unanimous in their picks. There’s a chance the doc will be screened on PBS one day
If you guys have a spare 7 minutes please check the film here http://www.docchallenge.org/2012-Finalists/sound-of-vision.html where you can actually vote to help us get away with one more award (although this would be a bit inhumane in my opinion).

DOCCHALLENGE 2012: WE ARE AMONG THE FINALISTS

Posted: April 11, 2012 in Uncategorized

Me and my friends have just made it to the finals of the prestigious filmmaking contest DOCCHALLENGE 2012. 12 teams were picked by the jury out of 75 contenders. We (team 20 Coop) had only 5 days to shoot a documentary and those turned out to be sleepless days (or rather nights) for us. The winners are going to be announced on May 1 in Toronto. As soon as it becomes possible I’ll make our piece available to the public. I shot it entirely with Lumix GH2. It was also one of the first times when I was using my HDGlidecam 1000 — a steadycam solution for dslrs. Kudos to the team and my amazingly creative friends: Loretta Van Der Horst, Joe Vele, Chen Dongnan and Julia Doran!

REEL #2

A brief compilation of my career as a correspondent for TV RUSSIA.

Video — Posted: March 30, 2012 in Uncategorized

REEL #1

Posted: March 1, 2012 in Uncategorized

One of my shoots for NBC’s News Mobile team and Joelle Garguilo

MY FIRST FULL LENGTH DOCUMENTARY

Posted: February 15, 2012 in Uncategorized
Tags: Capitalism, Christianity, Church, Communism, Culture, Documentary, Don't Cry For Your Hair, Election, Film, filmmaking, GH2, Hair, Hair Collecting, Nationalism, Oligarchy, Poverty, Russia, Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet Union, USSR, Women

Just finished working on it. Was first screened at NYUNEWSDOC2011 in February 2012.
Enjoy.

A REVIEW OF THE NEW 12 MM F1.6 LENS (COURTESY SLR MAGIC)

Posted: February 13, 2012 in Uncategorized
Tags: GH2, Lens, Micro Four Thirds, Review, SLR Magic 12 mm f1.6

I’d like to thank SLR Magic for giving me a chance to shoot with this extraordinary lens.
Many thanks to Vitaly Kiselev (www.personal-view.com) for his involvement and assistance. And for hacking the magic GH2 of course!
Here’s my experience

WELCOME TO MY WORLD OF RUN AND GUN STANDALONE FILMMAKING

Posted: April 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
Tags: filmmaking, GH2, HDSLR, MSNBC, NBC, production, video

Hi!
My name is Konstantin Syomin. I’m a videographer with some 11 years of experience in television. Due to arrival of new technologies and ways of communication, mass media is undergoing tremendous changes these days. So I decided to depart from my previous comfortable position at one of the world’s major broadcasting networks, and dive into the stream of independent filmmaking. Currently I’m focused on producing, script-writing, shooting, and editing documentaries about anything that deserves public attention (i.e. isn’t boring or relevant only for the few). The turbulent times we are living in, the deteriorating economic environment, growing political risks and the unseen before availability of video equipment, are already shaping the world of television thus clearing the path for multi-skilled professionals.

I’m up to cover the whole scope of video production:
- filming (using professional HDSLR rig assembled to accommodate the amazing micro4/3 Lumix GH2 camera with its bitrate boosted to over 66mb/s. Tascam DR-100 for audio)
- editing (Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Avid)
- video graphics (Motion, Adobe After Effects)
- music composing (Logic Pro 9, Reason 5, Soundtrack Pro)
Not to mention traditional reporting which I still occasionally do.

On this site you will find examples of my recent work. I’m open to any ideas or suggestions. If you have an interesting project that might benefit from my participation and creativity, feel free to contact me anytime.

Below are the two trailers for my upcoming documentary.