Mikhail Torich, MFA in Media-Design from St. Petersburg Television, Business and Design institute is an international music video director, photographer and visual artist. His over 10 year artistic work spans across Russia and Germany and into the United States.

A modern mixed-media and video artist, Torich showcased at seven solo and over 20 collaborative art-exhibitions incorporating design, illustration, painting, mixed media and more. The 2nd International Illustration Festival "Free Wi-Fi" featured his illustration for TimeOut magazine. Festival was hosted by Moscow Museum of Modern Art sand his illustration was chosen as the official logo of the entire festival out of more than 8,000 submissions in 2009. His "Deutsche Frau" series of large-scale graphic art was called "exceptional" by Heidi Gray, the world's famous art-curator and founder of the ART.LA Gallery.

In 2007, he founded his own music video production company "torich.net". He produced and directed over 40 music videos for major and independent European and American musicians. His works are broadcasted on top music television channels including MTV, Viva, Deutsche Welle and more.
Excerpts from his first short art-house film "Testo" featured in a number of TV-shows and interviews on federal and local TV in Russia in 2009.
Mikhail is best known for his explicit erotic style in music videos. His scandalous "Alexander" video resulted in huge hits and views worldwide. Shot in 2008, the video presented over 30 nudes joined in a Greek style orgy for the Russian band "Snega". The press widely covered its sensual play of forms but several music video channels prohibited its performance and suspended it on European YouTube.
His mainstream work includes music video "Departed" for Sully Erna (US-famous Godsmack band), which became the official soundtrack music video for the feature film Solomon Kane. He produced and directed "Speakerphone" - the official contest music video for Kylie Minogue, voted #2 by the youtube audience out of hundreds of submissions. In 2010 in New York he created the official come-back music video "That's All" for major european pop-star Sin with Sebastian, well known since his 1995 Europe-wide hit "Shut Up! (and Sleep with Me)", which made it up to #1 in Spain, austria, Finland, and Mexico and Top10 in most of Europe. This work was featured on a number of major music tv-channels and tv-shows in Europe including MTV and Deutsche Welle. One of the most recent collaborations is a video "The Day" for Moby - shot in New York City using the rapid motion shoot technology.
Almost each music video incorporates unusual and sometimes unnoticeable animation with frequent use of green screen and mostly studio-based work. Recently he started using the stereoscopic 3D technology, innovative for independent music video production.
3D version of the video "Breathe", shot in stereoscopic 3D for New York band "Planet Child and Zguby" has been featured in the official short-list of the prestigious "Dogville 3D" film festival in Viladecans, Spain in April 2011. Video was rated #2 in the official catalogue in the "Professionals" section.

Throughout his career Mikhail Torich created live video art sets for both major international DJ's, including European top-hitmaker "DADA" (UK), Swedish trance celebrity Soul Surfer, English artist "the Drill" and many more. He provided live visuals on contemporary dance and jam events and shows including EyeWash and Re:Vision, produced by Forward Motion Theatre in NYC, "Share" audiovisual jams in Russia, Germany and USA and mainstream large-stage concerts featuring Vincent Vega (Germany) and many more. His interactive audiovisual show opened the First International Music Video Contest dedicated to Michel Gondry in 2008 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Prior to arrival in the United States in 2009, Torich directed the photo-department at TimeOut St.Petersburg (2004-2009), coordinating and producing all photoshoots, covers and features, many of his shoots were also featured in international TimeOut publications worldwide. Also he illustrated over 20 cover stories and several first covers.
As a production designer he worked on storyboards and set decorations at a number of top Russian production studios including "Nikola-Film", "PozitivTV" and Russian State TV Channel 5 , where he worked as a lead production designer of the Saturday night show (1999-2009). He successfully designed sets for commercials, music videos, feature films and series along with the major Saturday night tv show.

Documentary and news films by Mikhail Torich has been featured in national NBC Nightly News, NBC Today show and russian national channel NTV.

Currently he is working as a video artist and running an independent music video production studio in New York City.
All-inclusive custom music video production
in New York City and Los Angeles
by Mikhail Torich, video artist, MFA

torich.net
youtube.com/mtorich
flickr.com/torich
e-mail: mtorich@gmail.com