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The Magnetist, a short documentary about cassette tape obsession, Flow Motion v2.02
  • AlfaerikAlfaerik

    This is a short documentary I've made with Flow motion 2.02. It is about a guy here in Stockholm who is called "The Magnetist" because he is obsessed with cassette tapes. I used a pair of GH2s and Voigtlander 25mm and SLR Magic 12mm, a cheap chinese 35mm cctv lens and a Konica Hexanon 135mm vintage lens in two shots. I also converted the files with 5D2RGB to get rid of the diagonal rain pattern in Premiere.

    "THE MAGNETIST is a short documentary about Micke, also known as 'The Magnetist', whose life revolves around cassette tapes.

    Most of Micke's time is spent on varius tape-related projects; he blogs about them, he makes music with them and he got a monthly tape club in his hometown Stockholm. Sometimes it's a struggle. Here we get an insight to Micke's life as a tapeologist and joins him to his tape-only club to find out the motivation behind his interest."

    Does anyone have problems watching since it's in 1080p, I'm not sure if some computers might struggle?

    A huge thank to Vitaliy the Personal View community for hacks and information!

  • 33 Replies sorted by
  • 5thwall5thwall

    @Alfaerik Yes, I know what you're talking about with warp stabilizer. I found that it works best with shots that are already somewhat stabilized. I used it mostly when I had the camera on the Glidecam. Can't remember if I used it on any handheld shots, though. The warping is definitely there, but I guess I lucked out that it's not very noticeable :).

    These days, I've been using Lock & Load a lot. It's very fast inside FCPX and produces some really nice results.

  • neokooneokoo

    Thanks for the info @Alfaerik! As others have said, great work :)

  • AlfaerikAlfaerik

    Thanks everyone for your comments!

    @5thwall Thanks a lot! I really enjoyed your short doc too. Great work! I saw in the comments that you used warp stabilizer a lot, I couldn't see that in the video (I often think you get strange movements in the picture when it's used). I like the work with the glidecam and edit and colors and it's always interesting hearing passionate people talk about their things.

    @neokoo We filmed it during four different days. One day interview, another day where Micke showed us how he interacts with tapes, the day of the club and the day after. You could say that some shots are "staged" in the way that I asked him to show us different stuff (how do you work when... Show us...), and when you want to have clips of him walking etc. During the club we had two cameras filming constantly. So most of it is "as happened". But then sometimes you change the order of events etc to create some kind of dramaturgy.

  • 5thwall5thwall

    @vicharris - thanks for the mention on that. Yes, I did a short doc on the vinyl resurgence in LA for KCRW, a local radio station in LA. It's called On the Record: L.A. Vinyl. Here's the link to the article and the better-encoded version on Vimeo.

    http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2012/02/finding-treasure-las-vinyl-resurgence

    Also, I don't mean to detract from the OP by posting my shorts on this thread. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed The Magnetist. Amazing work. Really liked the sound mix, too. When watching, I could tell within the first two shots that @Alfaerik knows his s**t. Look forward to seeing more of your work.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev If I'm not mistaken @5thWall did a short on vinyl and posted it somewhere. Not sure where though.

  • lefteditleftedit

    this is how you make a documentary. its thoughtful. well shot. well framed. good sound. artistic.

    well done.

  • bumsklumpenbumsklumpen

    i'm a vinyl addict, i'm sorry to disapoint but in my opinion , tapes were a big mistake. but i love any support-material guy addict even if it's tape :)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Tapes were for the masses, (old,collectable)vinyl is for the few

    In present time it is reverse. You can find vinyl and players in most shops and in most places. Not so for tapes.

  • luxisluxis

    Tapes were for the masses, (old,collectable)vinyl is for the few ;) and what about MiniDisks? I got plenty of boxes full of them.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    We really need one abouе vinyl fans :-) And they are easy to find now :-)

  • luxisluxis

    Great Stuff! Thanks for sharing. Back in the day I used the portastudio four tracks...tapes were good friends :) Good luck to Micke.

  • SulphSulph

    Well done and touching. Thank you.

  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    Very cool.

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    Great job :)

  • kikiskikis

    Well done on every level.

  • vicharrisvicharris

    Thanks, I enjoyed watching this. The length was good for this specific project too.

  • neokooneokoo

    @Alfaerik

    Interesting :) Did you have to stage any of the shots, tell Micke to act or re-enact for camera, or is it all "as happened"?

  • peaceonearthpeaceonearth

    excellent work and a bitter sweet story too.

  • stoneystoney

    I just watched it before seeing this posting. Enjoyable and engaging . Great work. Thanks for sharing. A way better than The Machinist (2004).

  • driftwooddriftwood

    Excellent document. Takes me back to the hell of digitising /backingup of my 400 cassette library of band recordings from the 80s/90s.

  • robertGLrobertGL

    looks good --- i keep mistaking this for ' the magentaist' on the front page - "a short documentary about color grading obsession" :D

  • bumsklumpenbumsklumpen

    @alfaerik thank you, just hope he's gonna get back on his feet!

  • AlfaerikAlfaerik

    @bumsklumpen Sad to say, Micke ended his blog in may since people had contacted him about copyright claims (ironically some old punk bands). I emailed him to see if he started a new one or got another one, but he wrote that he got a bit tired and fed up after all the nonsense argumentation, but he'll start something only to promote his own stuff he said. I'll post it if I hear anything more about it. I think that this whole scenario actually is really interesting, maybe I'll see if I could do a short follow up on it.

  • bumsklumpenbumsklumpen

    @alfaerik could you please give a link of his blog?

  • QuickHitRecordQuickHitRecord

    Just wonderful!

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