Well, what I personally considered to be flaws, or more precisely omissions, in an otherwise very good film:
The main one that stood out for me - in the later part of the film charting the instrument's return to popularity - was that coverage of the most recent years of Streetly was scant at best (ditto UK mellotronic activity in general over the last few years, for that matter) compared to the Dave Kean / Markus Resch side of things. That's not meant to undermine any of their contribution to the whole "Mellotron / Chamberlin story" over the last 15-20 years, but it would have been good to see a more balanced view of what's happening on both sides of the fence, so to speak. I'm not sure when Dianna Dilworth started research or filming, but for instance, new Mellotrons-wise, there was first talk of the M4000 in about 2005/6 but I didn't hear any reference made to the M4000 in the film, only to the Mk VI. Unless it was mentioned and I missed it, perhaps someone else who has seen it can correct me there if that's the case!
To be fair though, if I remember rightly in a post from Martin months ago, Streetly were unavailable for filming at the time due to being in the thick of M4000 development, so that couldn't really be helped, but to someone watching the film without knowing that, you could see how that part of the story could appear somewhat lopsided.
Just as a side point, I for one would have liked to have heard about some other examples of Mellotron appearances a bit more recent than Radiohead's 'OK Computer' or Oasis' 'Wonderwall', but that's just me being nit-picky! In the same way I could also be pernickety about a couple of factual errors regarding the list of "recordings containing Mellotron" which struck me as somewhat dubious as I spotted one or two which don't (e.g. Amon Duul II and their 'choir-organ' being mistaken for a 'tron), but that's just a very minor gripe.
That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and can't wait to get the DVD and see it again - as I said before, there was good coverage of the Chamberlin, and it was fascinating to see some first-hand accounts from those directly involved in the 'tron's formative years such as Geoff Unwin, and other musicians who played at IBC studios for the first Mellotron recording sessions, among lots of other highlights including Mattias and his Mellotron bees :) .
Tony
--- In newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com, Mike Dickson <mike.dickson@...> wrote:
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> What flaws?
>