Dmitry Gubin’s profile of pianist Stephen Ridley won Best Documentary at the FilmConvert Competition 2019:
“With his incredible charisma and musical energy, he charges everyone he meets on his way. His fate is a vivid example of the fact that a person is able to create his desired future in spite of life circumstances.”
“His story will respond to anyone who has come across a choice: to leave everything as it is or to take a step into the unknown, following the dream. His music is an awakening to life and a manifestation of real feelings. Stephen Ridley is one of the heroes of our time, and we will be glad to meet you with him.”
Interview with Dmitry Gubin
Dmitry was born in the family of a musician. As a child, parents tried to instill a love of music, but his interest was in sports and drawing. When he was 10 years old, the first VHS camera in the family appeared, which aroused great interest. Especially on weekends, when adults gathered at the table, Dmitry trusted the camera to shoot. In this same time Dmitri began engage sports dances (break dance), sources a new information in the time was very little. Fathers of school friends who were sailors brought videotapes with documentaries and music videos from America and Europe. Dmitry spent hours watching these materials, which formed a different view and approach to the creation of films than shown on local television. In the future, after graduation, friends attracted Dmitry to the filming of music festivals.
In 2009, returning from the army, a close friend of the photographer recommended to continue the hobby. Getting a higher education in the field of IT-technologies and moonlighting as a system administrator, Dmitry purchased his first DSLR camera with interchangeable optics in may 2010. The first mounted works began to gain popularity in social networks and the hobby grew into work.
In 2012, after graduating from higher education, Dmitry moved to St. Petersburg and created a video production studio with his friends. During this period, training began with various masters in the field of film, photography and video production.
In 2014, Dmitry received the first award in the online festival of The WEVA Association for the first place in the category “Best Promo Video”.
A year later, with his colleagues, he launches online training in video production.
In 2019, he made it to the finalists for The Russian film festival “Window to Europe” in the Documentary category.
At the moment Dmitry works with major international and Russian companies “Mercedes-Benz”, “BMW”, “Wolkswagen”, “Mail.ru Group”, “Yandex”, “Microsoft”. And collaborates with Russian and foreign musical artists. He has two sons and travels a lot.
How did the film come about?
“I met the pianist at a private event in casino. I was struck by its recoil and energy. I took a few shots and showed Steven the footage after the performance. I also impressed him very much with my skills and we agreed to shoot a small story in Moscow.
I learned about FilmConvert back in 2013, as I always loved color. Immediately bought this plugin, I really liked the effect of the film and I use it on all my projects.
I would call my style – indie films. I love to shoot a report, with the effect of presence. I love music and the selection of musical compositions takes a lot of time. Music and video series should play the same game, it’s like dancing frames to the rhythm. For me it is important that after watching a Documentary film, there was a residue as after watching a Big movie. A lot of work on what would keep the audience from the beginning to the end of the film. It is difficult, but the result is worth it!
My favorite “Film Settings” are KD 5207 Vis3, KD P400 Ptra.
