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Victor Migalchan: It is a pretty long story, I’ll try to cut it short. I grew up all over Europe thanks to my international family. Thanks to my dad I got into international business when I was like 5 years old. I am very thankful for that experience. My school years went pretty efficiently, I got two master's degrees: the first one is in international business with a focus on branding and marketing; the second one — in diplomatic and consular service. While studying I was developing my business, working and also competing in martial arts. My training was pretty intense. I was lucky to inherit a very powerful traditional school from my 1st teacher (shifu) and Beijing training style from my 2nd teacher. Before moving to New York in 2012, I was working at a Swiss bank, we were developing our own TV platform, I was actively competing in martial arts and building my brand. After winning another pretty important international title in March 2015 I was invited to move to Los Angeles from New York. That is how my new journey in LA began.

Victor Migalchan: I don’t usually use the term famous, to me the most important is to earn respect and acknowledgment from the titans of Hollywood filmmaking. After working with an international tv station for almost 4 years, I decided to move toward my main goal, which was to create scripted TV shows. In 2019 I developed the concept, the story of My American Family, together with the whole business presentation package. After some time we signed an agreement with an investment company, filmed the pilot in July and it was ready at the end of August 2019. We started showing it to different companies and networks and the 1st season got a green light at the end of October 2019. We did not waste time therefore we were able to start filming early in 2020 and finish the production stage right before the COVID lockdown came to Los Angeles. My American Family is my first scripted TV show and I was honored to work with the one and only Danny Trejo and UFC star Michelle Waterson. We got a lot of great feedback. There aren’t many family-oriented TV shows with traditional values produced in Hollywood. On another hand, we had one of the most diverse casts in Hollywood. The show got distributed by Amazon Prime in the US and the UK. Later on, we got an agreement with Rede Smart TV and got a unique opportunity to present our tv show in Brazil — a country that doesn’t import tv shows. Currently, we are in negotiations with Argentina, Bulgaria, Italy, and Russia.

After the 1st season of My American Family was released we filmed season 1 of the cooking show Dragon Chef, which also is a multicultural tv project; we filmed a pilot of a TV show Modern Kung Fu. It focuses on social issues such as foster family abuse, toxic relationships, anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, detachment from your own culture, etc. The more young people go clubbing, have random and wasteful relationships, and use drugs the bigger this painful void inside their souls grows.

Later on, we decided to shift our focus more toward education and development for kids. We created and filmed season one of an educational reality show “Life Academy”. It focuses on the type of education that no one gets in schools: mental health and wellness; stage speech, presentation, communication, work with the character; marketing, business, finance; physical health, nutrition, exercising, martial arts, In one of the stages we had a very respected and unique military veteran sharing his experience with kids, so they would feel appreciative of this beautiful country they live in. Another show which we developed and filmed its first season is a talent show “OnAir”. It is a practical talent show, which aims to help young talents practically develop their skills, meet professional mentors, get to know how the industry works and have a final product as well as this show.

Victor Migalchan: Well as I mentioned we have finished filming season 1 of Life Academy and season 1 of OnAir. We also filmed two new pilots “Fashion Insider” and “Futurization”. We also filmed 2 pretty important documentaries: one — showcasing the life story of the MMA legend and World Martial Arts Champion Cung Le, and another one - on the Silicon Valley legend, American engineer, inventor and co-founder of Oculus VR Jack McCauley.

Together with the host of London Fashion Week Monique and her team we are developing season 1 of a new fashion and modeling show “The New Face of the Fashion World. It is our main focus right now. The show is aimed to scout for talents and dreamers all around the US and then our European experts and designers will teach them and prepare them for a grand fashion show. It is about high-fashion, show business and again it will be very practical and not toxic. We have a lot of people joining from France, Italy, and Dubai.
As a director and showrunner, I’m happy to have this interest, partnership and friendship from our British and European colleagues. We have a very talented and experienced creative producer Raahim Khan, who is a London-based fashion designer and he directed many fashion shows in Dubai. We have interest from many famous brands to join the show. It is definitely something unique that the industry has not had yet. This format, this content, and the people that we are bringing together, it is all very intellectual, healthy, positive, intercultural and international. Another great thing is that we are scouting for models in the US with no restrictions. We are writing a new page of fashion history.

Another pretty important film that we are currently developing is “Heritage - Stories of children of the Holocaust Survivors”. We will be connecting stories and experiences of the upbringing of the children of Holocaust Survivors with modern kids, in order to keep this knowledge. People cannot and should not forget history. When they do - it tends to repeat.

That is true, I was invited to hold masterclasses and workshops in LA county, North California, Seattle, Las Vegas and other cities in the US. We also held a masterclass for British filmmakers as a part of Creative Industry Awards 2022. It was truly an amazing experience, we received and keep receiving questions and we love that our participants keep in touch and share their ideas. It was one of the reasons why I started working on my book “The Showrunner”, in which I share a blueprint of how I develop tv shows. We think about creating a video course because some people like to listen and see visuals. Some people like reading. It is like a contribution to the community. I believe it is important to share knowledge and help each other. The more small and medium-sized businesses we create and develop - the better for our economy.

Victor Migalchan: That's a great question. Mostly it comes from within. I get a lot of inspiration from people and their life stories.I focus on creating quality TV that helps people educate themselves, get knowledge, grow, and unite. I was invited to the 2019 EMMY Awards and in 2021 I was invited to serve as a judge at the Emmys. I saw what was being produced. I decided to take a different route because I wanted to present the old-school European values on which I was brought up.

Victor Migalchan: It was intense. We had a lot of shows to review and give our feedback on. I think it took me more than three or four days to watch all of the shows which were in my category. It was definitely interesting. I learned a lot about what the studios were creating and how. It showed me what the market is lacking and how I can make it better. It was another learning process for me. It was a privilege to be chosen to be a judge at the Emmys. In 2022 I was invited to serve as a judge at the Creative Industry Awards in the UK, which was another great experience.

Victor Migalchan: I don't think that there is such a thing as “common mistakes in storytelling”. I’d say that a lot of mistakes are being made because of a lack of proper marketing research and planning. The first step in creating a story is doing marketing research. A lot of people make mistakes just by thinking: “Oh, my story's so amazing, I'm a great writer”. We have thousands of writers only here in LA. Can they deliver an efficient project from the business point of view? That is the question. In my case, what I do is I always start development backward: we start with marketing first. When we develop our scripts we use math and we go from editing. To me - it's all about efficiency. You cannot come to Hollywood and be like everyone else. Especially you cannot have and should not have the studio mindset. Sure, for the studios it does not matter how much money they spend, it is about how much they make. However in order to get there to that level you have to be efficient first. You have to be able to perform what others cannot. The way we create scripts is always math and marketing-based. Even a monkey can make a film with $100 million. Can you make it with $50,000 or less? That is the art and that is the question. This is when business knowledge comes in handy. Efficiency is a very important key to success. The way we create our scripts is always based on math and marketing research. We never waste resources, especially time. Locations, actors’ time, nothing shall be wasted. This type of approach helped us to finish filming one of our shows about 12 days sooner than expected, which helped save a lot of money.

Victor Migalchan: I am interested in a few different genres however I do not have a preferred one. It is not about the genre, it is always about a good story. If it is an interesting story, I would love to work on it. I feel like at this point in life I love working on sitcoms on television and drama and thrillers in film. After I finish all my current projects I will focus more on feature films.