Written by Philip Roy | 11 July 2009
Posted in Other

There are few documentaries that cause me to have an epiphany in the opening minutes. But in starting to watch MacHeads, I realised three things...1) Something others probably know already....I'm really, really boring...2) that I'm kinda OK with that because that makes me feel slightly normal...and 3) in no way would I class myself (or should be classed) as a MacHead, Mac obsessive or fanatic. Doing so would be an absolute insult to those in this documentary and elsewhere, that truly are MacHeads.

The documentary needs to be taken with a pinch of salt at times, because it's hard to gauge how real or surreal it is. At the beginning, Violet Blue (a sex columnist and blogger) talks about only sleeping with Mac users and suggests a PC user having sex would make comments such as "Oh no, I won't crash, I promise" to their partner; a couple suggest that there are two types of people in this world...Apple users and Apple wannabe's...and in fact, it is a PC user in the opening credits who seems to show the most normality...suggesting regular crashes on a PC gives him an opportunity to make a coffee or go outside whilst his PC reboots.

Beginning at the Macworld 2007 Conference and Expo, we see fans lining up in the early morning to get in. The tone of the film in the opening scenes is professional, warm and amusing. We see the outside of the Moscone Centre with attendees saying where they are from (and yes, there's a Kiwi in there) and a fan dressed in a kilt and with a flashing sign thanking Steve Jobs, which he calls his homage to Steve.

At first this film is overly positive. It appears to be a video version of "The Cult of Mac" almost (in fact, Leander Kahney, the author of that book is interviewed later), as we see Apple tattoos on the leg of the kilted Mac user. You see the attendees go into the keynote hall and Steve Jobs appear on stage.

I have to confess I felt a bit of a chill at this moment, because it is (other than the official Apple stream that is released) the first footage I've seen that gives a sense of what it is like to be in that room (something we're going to miss in the future) and it brought a smile to my face when Jobs announced that "Apple Computer, Inc" would now be "Apple Inc"....something that others might ask, "So what?", but was met with fantastic applause.

The start of the documentary lets us glimpse Andy Ihnatko, but we also get to see Shawn King (Executive Producer and host of "Your Mac Life") who immediately brings a more realistic tone to the notion of the cult of Mac.

Next we head out to the rural scenes a place known as DigiBarn and meet the very Californian Mac users...a musician who sings us her "opera for a pig" and her husband who designs clothing such as a Renaissance outfit to wear with his iPods. But their farm also has a personal computer museum they refer to as the DigiBarn. Set within the farm shed, these unique people remind us that we're in the San Francisco area and that the Mac was "Made by stoners, for stoners" as is suggested at one point.

The Mac was made by stoners, for stoners

We see an Altair 8800, Apple IIe and Apple III, as well as the original Mac. At this point we jump back briefly to 1984 and see the how quickly the Mac was embraced. We meet Daniel Kottke, who was the first official Apple employee. Guy Kawasaki (Chief Evangelist) is interviewed, Steve Wozniak is seeing talking at a presentation about his book iWoz.

We visit (very briefly) Ceaser Lima, a fashion photographer with a fantastic and stylish Mac museum and TekServe, New York's very famous Mac repair shop.

As the documentary starts to talk about the social revolution that was seen as a part of the Mac's rise in popularity, the importance of community begins to be discussed. Users Groups, most notably the Berkeley Mac Users Group is mentioned and we see historical footage about its start and the impact that it had.

One of the really nice features of the documentary is that the images don't linger. I'm quite impressed with the high quality of the clips and the soundtrack. As someone talks about the hey day of user groups, we not only see some of those groups in action (great snippets of historical film) but we see some clips of other things around that time to help set the scene for the discussions taking place.

Crisis

The documentary moves on to the hard times faced by Apple in the mid-to-late 90's....a time when the notion of loyalty and community actually strengthened and became very important. This was because whilst others believed the Mac (and Apple) was on its way out, the troops rallied to support the company.

Shawn King explains how we sometimes associate ourselves too much with what is just effectively a company. We see a clip of Gil Amelio talking at a Macworld (obviously not a good public speaker...he looks very nervous) and then the discussion moves to Guy Kawasaki's role around that time as Apple evangelist (great clip of troops storming the beach as he is discussed) and the job that he had to in his role. Part of this was to combat the negative press with the Evange-List, but Andy Ihnatko suggests it was more like spraying the walls with bullets no matter how minor the issue seemed.

We then move to the iMac introduced in July 1998 and the success of that based around Steve Jobs's return. Beyond this point, you start to sense a change of tone in the documentary, as it suggests there is less of a community now, due to Apple's success.

Sometimes, near death experiences make you have a better sense of camaraderie.

It touches on the secrecy of Apple and the reality that they are less involved in their community than we would hope. But it counters that with the fact that perhaps the community seems to expect the right to have input into how Apple functions. "Apple couldn't care less" one person says, continuing that "their community is basically what they control on their website". It is suggested that Apple has forgotten their roots and don't do enough to support their users, whilst others argue that the issue is that those who evangelised so visibly in the past can't cope with the fact that they are now just a small part of a much larger group.

User Groups - good times and sad

The documentary moves on to the demise of the user groups and how online communities have taken their place. We hear how BMUG ultimately ended and had to file for bankruptcy.

We then see the film jump somewhat, to the launch of the iPhone....the presentation by Steve Jobs and his keynote....ooohs, and ahhs as it is demoed. We see the launch of the iPhone in New York (great shots of the store)...the people queuing up to get their phone and the enthusiasm for it. It's meant to hearken back to the launch of the Mac and iMac, and it succeeds. It makes us feel great, but at the same time, realise that times are changing.

The concern is that Apple has started to do things that are different. That Apple is pulling back from the Mac community, and the documentary suggests there's a little less of a soul within Apple than before. A good example of this is that many of the people queuing all hours for the iPhone on the first day of sale, aren't what Mac users would expect..they're not Mac users! We need to remember that the iPod and iPhone are not just the domain of the Mac community.

The film nears its end with an interesting change of tone....and it's due to a PC user. He returns to remind us...

It was eating an apple that caused us as a race of people, to be cast out of paradise....so maybe that same knowledge that was so evil early on in mankind's story remains evil and each time we take a bite of this technological 'Apple', we move further from the garden that was our home and deeper into the hell that is our current want

Strangely, that deep philosophical comment (and the response of a bystander) ends the documentary. It is an unusual note to end on and one that comes too soon.

Conclusion

MacHeads is a thoroughly enjoyable and exceptionally well presented documentary....but I have to confess that it left me wanting more....and in a documentary, I don't consider that the best thing. I'm not trying put the documentary down, but let me explain.

In my review of "Welcome to the Macintosh" I suggested the documentary had a title that didn't truly reflect the movie, because it wasn't just about the Mac (in fact, it skipped over some exceptionally important periods in its development) and covered more about Apple than just the Macintosh. The same might be said about "MacHEADS", but to a lesser degree. I think the documentary would have been more aptly named "MacHEADS - Past, Present and Future", but let me explain why...and why it would still leave me wanting, on both counts:

• MacHEADS - The opening titles suggest we're going to meet a lot of MacHEADS...eccentric, eclectic, obsessive Mac users. Sure, we meet some great people, but we don't meet a lot of them in depth. We witness a Macworld party, but we only hear from one person after it (saying he'd stayed up late). The person with a stunning Mac collection in his office is someone we only glimpse and talk to briefly (luckily you'll see his collection on the Special Features DVD).
  
  Other MacHEADS we meet are most certainly eccentric...but we see them repeatedly in some cases, such as the DigiBarn folk, or we don't really see them at all, such as one obviously obsessed chap in the opening and closing sequence. You meet far more of these people in the "Welcome to Macintosh" documentary...but perhaps this is why they didn't show so many? I started by saying I felt this documentary was a video version of the "Cult of Mac" book, but now I feel I have to take this back...it didn't go far enough into the unusual cult-like Mac community for me, and this would have made what I consider the true essence of the documentary better....
  
  
• Past, Present and Future - The documentary's second half is related to the evolution of Mac User Groups and the impact that time and change is having on them and on us. It's a thought-provoking, sad and (I confess) uncomfortable part to watch. It isn't uncomfortable in the sense that we look back at halcyon days fondly...it's uncomfortable because we have to appreciate that times change, and with it, what we are a part of those changes also.
  
  This is where the documentary is thought provoking. As the owner of a Mac online community, I'm not sure that what we have now will be what people will want in the future. Is the notion of community changing? Is it being replaced? Is it evolving? Is our relationship with Apple not what it used to be? And who is at fault? Have we been misguided in our admiration of what is blatantly 'a corporation'? I found these questions in the documentary challenging....but I soooo wish they had put in more time to that discussion. At 55 minutes in length for the documentary, I felt wanting.

 

One more thing...

The Special Features DVD is well worth a look, and there are clips in the "Deleted Scenes" section that I wish were in the main film...perhaps the makers of the film needed to fit the documentary into one hour? Examples of this include a keyboard player who works with the Rolling Stones and Shawn King and Andy Ihnatko talking about "Mac Macs"...people who just take the obsession too far. "Arrogance is really the hallmark of the Macintosh" Ihnatko says, adding that he means that there is such a thing as constructive arrogance that applies here. There's also an excellent section about Steve Jobs, as well as some superb photos of the production, the DigiBarn computer collection and some very "Cult of Mac" like images of MacHEADS.

Final thoughts...

The documentary is better produced than "Welcome to the Macintosh", but perhaps not as uplifting, as it touches on some issues that might not impress MacHEADS. However I also feel it is more coherent in its story than "Welcome to Macintosh", but doesn't feature as many MacHEADS as I would have hoped. If the DVD had come with the 54 minute documentary alone, I would have been disappointed. With the additional features on the other DVD, and with thought-provoking content (leading me to try and contemplate just what Apple will be in the future) the movie leaves me very impressed...and thinking.

 

Many thanks to the makers of MacHEADS for providing the DVD to review.

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Update - I've been told by the makers of the documentary that the length of the film is due to it being made for television.