With my own eyes

The project was first announced by TNT CEO Roman Petrenko in October 2011 at the presentation of the television season 2011/2012 ^[7] .

At the invitation of TNT producer Yevgeny Nikishov, his former colleague Ilya Kulikov , who previously wrote the scripts for the successful series Karpov and Grouse , became the screenwriter. The director of the series Zaur Bolotaev is his own director of photography , the role of the operators themselves is performed by actors ^[8] .

Initially, they wanted to shoot the series with the GoPro action camera ^{[9] [10]} , but it did not produce cinematic-quality images, and therefore a new “subjective” camera based on the Lumix series camera and an entire system of attaching it to the actors were developed specifically for shooting. For this, the actors wore a helmet on their heads, in which the camera itself was mounted on the front, and a weight counterweight on the back of the head (they didn’t say at the listening that they would be operators, and for the first time they saw the structure only on the set). The actors saw most of the environment through the camera’s display, because of which they often had problems with the distance between them and the surrounding objects (at the same time, the actors' task was to prevent their shadows from falling into the frame) ^[9] . In each series there are episodes in which the characters for some reason look in the mirror: for these episodes, the actors were shot separately from the side (when they were not wearing structures) and when editing their images were mounted in the frame. In order to avoid competition, all journalists who came to the set were forbidden to photograph the design ^[9] . Scenes of panoramic flights over the city (including the “eyes” of Tkachuk and Volkov when their souls are outside the bodies) were shot with a camera mounted on a multicopter ^[10] .

The series was filmed in Voskresensk , including in the public educational institution “Lyceum No. 22”. The crowd among residents of Voskresensk was recruited through ads on social networks (because of which many thought it was a hoax). Actors were recruited through acting agencies ^[9] . Vyacheslav Chepurchenko, who played Lesha Kazantseva , auditioned about ten times ^[9] . As in most such series, for greater authenticity of the characters' behavior, Zaur Bolotaev took little-known actors for the main roles ^[10] .

In a secret laboratory located near a small town, the Rainbow project was launched, in which scientists are trying to achieve immortality . They are building a special machine that can extract the soul in the form of an energy clot from one body and transfer it to another. To do this, the subject, using a special injection, causes cardiac muscle arrest and, at the time of death, the machine removes his soul. The first experiments are carried out on monkeys, but they turn out to be disappointing: the soul can be both in the new body and outside of any body, but in the first case it can last there only about five hours, after which the mind of the carrier body begins to push it, and in the second case, the soul begins to accelerate the aging process, after which it disappears. When a decision is made to conduct an experiment on a living person, then the people investing in the project, instead of the normal “experimental rabbit,” send the serial killer Alexander Tkachuk. Before removing the soul, Tkachuk informs the Rainbow scientists that if he dies, he will return and kill them all. Including the project manager - Dr. Valery Volkov. But Volkov, who had accidentally learned before that the people who financed the Rainbow might be going to use their results for no good reason, decides to sabotage the experiment, because of which Tkachuk’s soul is about to be relocated to another body, breaks out of the car. Having settled in one of the guards, Tkachuk takes Volkov hostage to take him outside the laboratory. But Volkov manages to lure the soul of Tkachuk into a special capsule, which is for her a kind of trap. The capsule can only be opened using a special key.

Volkov gives the capsule and key to his son Maxim and asks him to give them to different people for storage. But Maxim instead shows the capsule to his girlfriend Kate Chunina, they open it out of curiosity and Tkachuk breaks free. Knowing that he cannot forever be in the carrier bodies and outside of them, Tkachuk ultimately decides to return to the capsule and tries to find her and the key. Along the way, he returns to the laboratory and detonates a nuclear reactor there, because of which a small earthquake shakes the city, and a tornado-shaped cloud appears in the sky. Finally, Tkachuk, being outside the body, collides with Maxim Volkov, whose capsule is activated in his hands, but for some reason Tkachuk does not suck it in. Instead, a giant energy clot appears in the sky, similar to Tkachuk’s soul, only magnified hundreds of times. Tkachuk’s soul merges with him and a bunch begins to float over the city. At the same time, news reports sound that a series of mass robberies is taking place in the city.

The starting point of the series is the day the graduation night begins at the local school.

• Lyosha Kazantsev ( Vyacheslav Chepurchenko ) is a handsome schoolboy and an unspoken leader among his friends. He is active and adventurous, but at the same time sharp. Despite his vices, Lesha loves his parents.
• Lisa ( Irina Denisova ) is an ambulance nurse and single mother. Due to constant stress, she sat on Promedol . She took away the body of Katya Chunina and found in her hand a fragment of a photograph where she was captured with Maxim Volkov.
• Yuri Samarin ( Dmitry Gotsdiner ) - UPC investigator and police captain. His image is little disclosed and, in addition to his participation in the main storyline, he demonstrates a fairly common vice of a corrupt policeman.
• Vera Kazantseva ( Maria Kurdenevich ) is the elder sister of Lesha Kazantseva. Like her brother, she is active and adventurous and at the same time no less vicious. Once, for the sake of trial, she puts her photos on the erotic site of the corresponding services and, as a result, seduced by money, becomes a call girl .
• Kolyan ( Pavel Yasenok ) is a classmate of Lyosha Kazantsev and Maxim Volkov. A friend of Lesha, in contrast to whom, in moments of stress, he behaves more calmly.
• Katya Chunina ( Lilia Razakova ) is a classmate of Maxim Volkov. She had no close friends, except for Maxim, whom she began to meet two months before graduation.
• Maxim Valerievich Volkov, Tolstoy ( Alexander Bobrov ) - the son of Valery Nikolayevich Volkov and boyfriend Katya Chunina. Like Chunin, he also had no friends because of his shyness.
• Pyotr Ermakov ( Makar Zaporizhsky ) - a young sergeant of the teaching staff. He has recently been working in the police field and, therefore, despite his seasoned colleagues, who are demonstrating corruption and indifference, he still believes in justice and really tries to help people.

Rainbow Project

• Valery Nikolaevich Volkov ( Anatoly Goryachev ) - resuscitation doctor, managing the Rainbow project. Starting to work on the Rainbow project, he became so carried away by him that he became tough and secretive, which is why he moved away from his wife and son.
• Anna Vitalievna Yezhova ( Lidia Omutnykh ) - head of the security service of the Rainbow project. In the past, she was a criminal and an employee of the GRU , which is why she is very calm, but at the same time she is not without sensuality.
• Voronov ( Dmitry Podnozov ) - security officer of the Rainbow project. Prior to that, he was supposedly a captain from the 5th division of the GRU ^[11] .
• Andrei Viktorovich Osokin ( Alexander Plaksin ) - Resuscitation scientist participating in the Rainbow project. At some point, a feeling of strong suspicion about the project begins to arise in him, since he is classified even from the state.
• Oleg Shustrov “Shustrik” ( Konstantin Bykov ) is a homeless person who has lost his whole life for debts and because of money has agreed to participate in the Rainbow project (the whole essence of the project was not disclosed to him).
• Alexander Maksimovich Tkachuk / Black Smoke ( Konstantin Shelestun ) is a criminal who, having been the head of an organized criminal group, has committed more than 50 crimes. People who invest in the Rainbow project choose it as the first experimental rabbit, which Volkov dislikes. Before removing the soul, Tkachuk pronounces the last words in his life: “ Doctor, if I die, I will return and kill you all. ".

The video sequence of each series is a point of view and focus on what is happening one of the characters, occasionally allowed the inclusion of "focus" of another character. Each series begins with the moment at which the previous one ended. In this case, first an excerpt is given in focusing the character of the previous series, and all further - already in focusing the character of the current series. Although all episodes have one cross-cutting plot, each episode reveals her character’s personal story.

The soundtrack from the opening intro and closing credits is the song “ Evidently Chickentown ” from the album “ Snap, Crackle & Bop ” by the English performance artist, punk and indie rocker John Cooper Clark , who once toured with Sex Pistols .