Vitaly Sumin Archive

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most esteemed (albeit easily misinterpreted) thinkers of all time, once referred to Fyodor Dostoyevsky as “the only psychologist from whom I’ve anything to learn.” This was, to be sure, long before Freud, whose first...
Those familiar with Dostoyevsky’s Russian classics are just as familiar with his strangely iconic characters: Roddy Raskolnikov, the penniless murderer with a Napoleon complex; the Karamazov Brothers, enveloped in all their complexities despite somehow being related to each other;...
Oscar Wilde once said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life”.  This is a saying we at VM Productions know to be uncomfortably true. When director Vitaly Sumin wanted to explore this theory in the plot of...
Indie film (n.): An independent film, independent movie, indie film or indie movie is a feature film that is produced outside of the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment agencies. Wikipedia As...
VM Productions’ film Notes From the New World may be an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground, a story that affects a wide variety of emotions as Russian classics tend to do, usually the tormenting and psychological kind...
Most people familiar with Dostoyevsky are likely to think of psychological darkness. Or perhaps his remarkable characters, from Roddy Raskolnikov to the Karamazov brothers. They may also be familiar with the numerous film adaptations, from Richard Brooks and Akira...
Hollywood has had an obsession with, well, Hollywood. While shooting in the Hollywood/L.A area  is an obviously smart business move, you may run into problems where your movies may be seen as something by-Hollywood-for-Hollywood that celebrates the industry. (An...
“The door from the next room suddenly opened with a timid, quiet creak, as if thus announcing the entrance of a very insignificant person…” In 1846 a 25-year old Dostoyevsky published his second novel. Titled The Double, the novella...
Why are you here, in LA? “The City of Angels,” also called “The Capital of World Entertainment,” boasts a unique concentration of technical facilities (studios, labs, equipment rental houses, etc.) and an enormous pool of talent and skilled technicians...
Note to Our Readers: The following entry is a combination of two blogs that were lost during our website’s server crash. Luckily, I have managed to restore them. If you were fortunate enough to read The Missing Screenwriter: Anomalies and...