Watch: Captivating Short Film Shows Us ‘How to Make a Magazine’
by Alex Billington
August 11, 2022
Source: Vimeo
“You have to think about it for days or even weeks beforehand, what you want to print on the paper. The act itself is rather simple.” Hometown has debuted a short doc film titled How to Make a Magazine, a companion piece to the latest issue of their magazine called “Hometown Journal.” Hometown is a director and DP duo based in Berlin, made up of Jan Eric Hühn & Alex Schuchmann. They’ve decided to launch a new magazine and this short takes an abstract, artist look at that process. It mixes footage of the German printing press working on getting the magazine ready, as well as footage of photos + pages of the mag, with voiceover from various contributors: photographers, writers, and more. I wish there was more of a focus on the printing process, but this works so well as an entrancing 6-min film it’s not worth criticizing. Most of the printing process for a magazine (or book) is automated and uses complex machines, but it’s still nice to see them produce something physical, something you can pick up and hold and read through and bring around.
Thanks to Vimeo Staff Picks for the tip on this film available online. Synopsis via Vimeo: “With this film, we have set ourselves the goal of bringing the process of printing back into our consciousness. The fast-moving nature of the Internet has many advantages, but it also has certain disadvantages. The state of the eternal, the imperishable, and the analog have attracted us since we started making films and we wanted to combine these goals with bookbinding and filmmaking.” How to Make a Magazine is a short doc film created & shot by the duo known as “Hometown” – Berlin-based filmmakers Jan Eric Hühn & Alex Schuchmann who just launched a magazine called “Hometown Journal” – which is “meant to educate and unify, lifting taboos on unspoken topics that concern all of us.” You can see more of their work on their Vimeo or follow them on IG @hometown_____. Music by Max Marius Dick and Band & Stckman with Kyle Quest and Bone Slim. Produced by Hometown. For more details, visit Vimeo. To discover more short films, click here. Thoughts?
