Top Ukrainian music artists Okean Elzy, Assia Akhat, TNMK, Skryabin and Iryna Bilyk have something in common besides their Ukrainian heritage: Music video producer Viktor Pryduvalov.
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Pryduvalov is confident in an industry that highlights every visual flaw, he’s outspoken about his work where success is measured in minutes, not years, and some might say he’s a control freak. Whatever the description, there’s no denying Viktor Pryduvalov’s deserved place at the forefront of Ukraine’s music video industry.
A video producer without any professional education in television, the Kyiv-born Pryduvalov, whose most recent work was with Okean Elzy on their “Kholodno” video, says he drew his early inspiration from the movies he watched as a child, especially those that were more cerebral or hard to grasp. As a result, he sets mental challenges for himself by working in such different areas as theater, cinema and television.
Other words often used to describe the 30-something Pryduvalov are exigent, or exacting, as he never tells the singers working with him what their video will be about.
“Everything needs to be done the way I want it to happen – there can be no other way,” Pryduvalov states, “because I’m the only person who knows how the video is going to look from the very beginning to the very end.”
Ukraine’s video master typically produces six music videos per month, and rarely works with musicians looking to produce their first video. As such, he maintains a strict rapport with his artists and has little patience for those who don’t behave as he wishes. For him, everything in life is an all-or-nothing proposition.
“If they come to Pryduvalov, either they are accepting my way of working or nothing is going to work out.”
If Pryduvalov is fussy about which artists he’ll work with, he’s obsessive about his technical associates. He employs Short Stories to do the actual video shoots and Mental Drive Studio for post-production work. As for cameramen, Pryduvalov prefers Russia’s Maxym Osadchy or one of the two Ukrainians he considers professional enough – Yaroslav Pilunsky and Yury Borsyuk.
Obviously, Pryduvalov is nothing if not convinced of the security of his place in this field. Talk of competition between him and other top-level video producers, such as friends Semen Gorov and Max Papernyk, are, he believes, irrelevant.
“There is no competition in music video production in Ukraine at the moment. Demand for top-level video producers exceeds supply by 10 times,” the goateed Pryduvalov said. “This means that no professional music video producer is without work.”
In his position, Pryduvalov can afford to pick and choose the friends he wants. When he received an invitation to become a producer at the all-music TV channel M1, he rejected it.
“Had I taken the position, I would have had to give up video production,” Pryduvalov recalled. “I didn’t want to do that. I’ve established this activity for myself, by myself and I have no intention of quitting what I really love.”
That didn’t stop Pryduvalov from accepting an invitation to produce Novy Kanal’s most highly rated program, the Pidyom! (Wake Up!) morning show. The channel has given him the freedom he wants, too: he doesn’t have to be in the office all day and his commitment is only short-term.
The reason he wants to work there is to change the attitude not only of the channel’s viewers towards the show, but also of those who actually produce it.
“It’s really difficult to do because television has nothing to do with creative work. TV is not a creative product; it is complete trash. The problems that arise most often have nothing to do with creativity.”
Not content with videos and television, Pryduvalov hopes to break into filmmaking in Russia and enlist the aid of his friends in Ukraine’s music industry to record soundtracks for his films.
“I also plan to establish the Kyiv Film School soon and bring in representatives of all professions that are needed in film,” Pryduvalov said. “I won’t actually plan it; it’ll just happen sometime in the future.”
