Magiqcam gone?
 

Hello,
Anyone knows why (it seems) magiqcam has vanished from ebay?

Since I'm waiting for mine, I hope they are not out of business...
Any infos appreciated.

Thanks.

Best Regards,
Quoc

No, they're not out of buisness. http://magiqcam.com/

Give 'em an email if you have questions. They have pretty quick email response times.

Hope you enjoy your stabilizer!

Payied my 2P rig two months ago. Six weeks ago I got info that my rig is almost ready to go to the powder coater. Since that, no information was sent to me. I wrote John an e-mail 10 days ago, but got no reply yet.

I hope that things are OK and that Animagique is just very busy lately and that they will ship my rig soon.

Martin

Pretty much the same story for me (IIp ordered 08th July), I called John twice. Each time it was "just coming out of the machinery and was going to be assembled. Thus [I] should get it by the end of next week".

I called again last week, has been said he was in LA (apparently an heath issue in his familly, I won't give details here even though the (friendly) woman on the phone did, it is not really the place to discuss private matters). She told me he was coming back tomorrow (Monday), and I'll have more details about my order status from him.

I checked on ebay the feedbacks, apparently the worse case was 3months.
I guess that's the price to pay for having a relatively cheap good stabilizer, so I'm trying to be patient :)

I don't really know what to think, I have heard animagique had a really good customer services, but here I definitely miss some communications from them. Waiting that long is (almost) O.K. as long as you really know what's going on. We'll probably have more info this week I guess. I just hope the delay is not due to a technical problem with the IIp serie.

I hope the rig is as good as I read in this price range so it was worth waiting that long! :)

Yea, it's almost the same story in my case, but like you said, prolly it is the price we pay for a good stabilizer in this price range.

One thing confuses me, I ordered IIa at first, when I sent the money to John he wrote me that I could get for additional $800 their new model 2P. Since I was having some money problem those $800 were very hard for me, but I lend some money and payied it. John wrote me that if I buy 2P, the order would take a bit longer. I asked if he is able to ship it within two months, the reply was "Oh yes it would surely ship by then."

Don't have anything else to do than wait. I hope I'll just get reply from John this week - that things are OK and the whole process will take a bit longer. I am starting to worry about my money :(

I don't understand that why people want to wait several months to buy a stablizer especially money pay in advance. I bought my jvc gy-dv5000 camera from New York and it took only a week to arrive in Auckland, New Zealand.

Does that mean US$2,000 stablizer is really hot in the market and can demand whatever condition the manufacture wish?

Just curious

Regards
Leigh

As far as I know, animagique is a small family company. As some other small companies (redrockmicro for the M2 for instance) they build the item on demand, so it can take a while.

Why people are willing to wait that long? Well, if you compare the stabilizers in the $2000 price range, you'll see the magiqcam is quite good for this price. But I somehow agree with your comment.

Anyway, after almost 3months waiting I now have enough money to order the Flyer, so I just canceled my order and asked for a refund. (BTW, I didn't pay the magiqcam in advance, John is quite friendly and allows different ways to pay. I paid 500$ at the order and was supposed to pay the remaining when ready for shipping).

Hi Quoc,

I look forward to watching your video using your flyer.

Regards
Leigh

Congrats on your decision. You are definately not going to be disappointed. The flyer is one bad baby. When I did the review I had a small sony DV camera. When I flew it again( it comes in black this time, much better looking) I flew it with a film camera. What huge difference. Good choice and hope you too share your experience. :)

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed, your video and your review are pretty much why I even considered buying it. The arm looks really impressive. When you run in place and the camera just float as if (almost) nothing is happening... That's a killer!
I don't know if I should thanks you or not for this review, my bank account looks like it just drank a slim fast! If only drinking a slim fast could have the same immediate impact on me... ;)

I'll probably share some videos but it will probably takes a couple of months. First we (the small group/team I'm working with) have to get used to the steadicam of course and we have to learn how to properly choreograph the shots/camera movements. Since we didn't have any stabilizer up to now, we are pretty much used to shot everything using tripod (we don't really like the handeld-shaky style). So we will now have more creative choices, but we have to learn when and how to use it properly. It's like DOF, you don't want to over-abuse it just because you can... It doesn't make sense.
But I'm sure it's going to be very fun! :)

Anyways, thanks for you review, I can't wait to receive to Flyer.

In the meantime if you want to see some of our trailers (no full shorts for the moment, I still didn't have the time to encode them for the web...) from past projects:
http://www.chojin.neomagie.net/blog/ (for the context/background around the videos)
or
http://chojin.neomagie.net/blog/videos-films/ (for the videos themselves)

I hope you'll like them :)

Thank you so much for th ekind words. I didn't realize. It's good to know the reviewed helped. I will take a look at your past projects at the link. Again, good luck.

You won't be diappointed. I got my rig in January after waiting almost 8 weeks. You will be impressed when it arrives and it will be worth the wait. John is slow at answering e-mail though, so I used to phone to check on progress - slightly more expensive alternative from your location though.
Good luck

Rob, I think you are a little confused. He is not buying the magiqcam. He is getting the steadicam flyer.

I missed that part. Sorry. I still think the Magicqam was worth the wait.

By no mean I was saying it was not worth the wait (but for me it was now almost 3 months, which is, you must admit, quite long). It's just that some unexpected extra income went in, and I realized that I now could afford the Flyer. And I think we all agree that if you can afford it, the flyer is the way to go in most cases :)

I read very good reviews about the magiqcam, and I think there is no doubt the magiqcam is very good for this price.

I'm getting a little nervous now, waiting for my magiqcam IIa, bought it through eBay, im based in UK, Emailed john twice over the last month with no replies yet, just looked on his ebay history and there are 2 more negative feedbacks concerning comms and delivery time....mmm can anyone give me some hope, has anybody reciveved a stabilzer or spoke to magiqcam recently..??

Mike

Hi Mike, when did you pay for your rig?

I payied my 2P on 25th July, last email I got from John was dated 12th August, which - yeah, in a few days, will be 3 months. In these three months I sent lots of emails, I also made some (unanswered) phone calls in last month, even left message on answering machine. All that was unsuccessful.

I just hope my $3000+ investment is not gone.

One thing still confuses me - Animagique is still active on eBay. If there are some problems with construction or anything I would expect, shouldn't they stop advertising and fix the problem before selling more MagiqCams? Or is Animagique becoming monkey business after few years in business with great reputation?

Well there surely is some problem. Even Animagique's account on eBay made their feedback private recently - for some reason.

!!! ANIMAGIQUE PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING !!!
Message counts also for those who know what is happening with Animagique :)

I think normal business practise is once money confirmed, the goods should be delivered immediately.

Regards
Leigh

As I already said in this forum I canceled my order (after 3 months waiting for the magiqcam) and took a Flyer instead. But I'm still waiting for my refund (or even an email/phone clall) from Animagique... after mmmhhh... when did I order my Flyer? one month ago?...

Quoc

don't mean to be mean, but if you are not from the states and have read most of my posting on the magiqcam issues, you guys should be a bit more careful when dealing with john. after the money was send, the usual, no mail no nothing except some pretty hash mail from their "customer service" (i actually kept all our correspondance as prove until three months ago). i waited for 11 weeks. when the item arrived, it was not in working order and it took john almost 1 and half year just to have the whole gimbal issue settle. i was receiving three different type of gimbal unit, all of them have got problem. the last unit i send back was finally "repaired".

another problem you will face after receiving the set is spare parts order. i have requested to buy some bearing parts as i've found out the size of all the bearing are different if you come from country using metric but no answer from john.

as this is not bad enough, i have to read one user review which stated that the rig does not fly a 15lbs camera. 15lbs weight advertised is actually inclusive of the sled, camera, battery, monitor and anything extra you have on the sled. because of this, now i have to sell off my rig as my camcorder a lone weight about 13lbs.

enough of my problem. maybe some of you do not agree with me and feel that i'm being unfair to john as he does not post here, but thats what happen. so much for customer rights.

hello, I paid for the rig on 10th September, I see that some of you have been waiting longer........mmm.... I recieved this email from john yesterday, I was fairly happy with the response until I read another thread on HBS board saying that someone else had recieved the exact same worded email.....

Email read
"Hello Mike,
I'm sorry for the delay in your order, but we have had a few supplier problems that we are working out. We have taken this opportunity to make a few adjustments and tweaks to the Series IIa gimbal. These upgrades will make the Series IIa easier to balance and smoother to use. With any luck, your rig will ship within the next week or so. Again, I'm sorry for the delay, but I know that you will be thrilled with your purchase and your MagiqCam will become a valuable tool in your production kit.
Thank you for your understanding,
John"

Hi Ed,

I think that you should ask for a full refund from John because originally it was manufacturer's fault and misrepresentation.

Regards
Leigh

hi leigh,

i doubt he would even bother. i remember the last problem i have with the gimbal unit, he did not even bother to entertain me until another user from the states brought out the same issue. it took him less then one week to have the gimbal repaired and mine took almost two months. he is still advertising as such and they are still many desperate people who would fall for it because of the price. he knows that it would difficult for me to take any legal stand as i'm not in the states.

anyway, i'm selling off the rig. anyone interested?

Hello everyone.

Just going to tell you my story. I ordered my Magiqcam 2a on April 29th, 2005. I waited as the rest of you and finally received an email around the first week of July (around the same time as they announced the 2p). I had to email them and finally called them to get any kind of information. However, they did answer my phone calls and I mentioned that I wanted to upgrade to the 2p (it had a few more features that I wanted... sure I was possibly throwing money to the wind). I had to make a few more calls to find out possible shipping dates. I did receive the same emails a few others have mentioned (and John then emailed me and appologized about the delay and then said he'd throw in the low mode for free due to the wait). To make this long story short, I received my 2p today (Nov. 16). I had to wait a few extra days from the original delivery date due to the wrong address. Customer service is lacking, but the unit is great. I played around with it for a few hours and I thought the results were very promising. I had never used a steadicam before, and once I got the unit balanced, I was very happy. I do think the unit is a bit heavy (I work out on a regular basis, but my back is not the best condition). On the downside, John forgot to include the low mode (I called him and left a message). The wait was long, but I feel that this unit will be a good addition to my tools. For everyone else who is waiting... I held in there because of the price and the most recent 2a review, and now I'm glad I did. Sure, I was close quite a few times to call for a refund, but I'm a gambler. I hope this helps anyone who has doubts or concerns.

Peace.

Todd Giglio

One of the reasons I canceled my order (still waiting for emails and refunds from them ...) was this one:
If you waited that long (and I'm wondering how longer you would have waited if you didn't call and email them and so on...), how long would you wait if you had any problems with the rig to get it repaired?

To me, having a great customer service is very important, because if you are in the middle of a production and you have a problem with your rig you don't want to wait 3 months for a repair.
IMHO the current customer service from animagiq is just unacceptable, no matter how cheap their rig are. This is really disapointing because from what I read, their rig have a good quality.

Just my 2 cents...

Regards,
Quoc

Hi Todd,

Will you post a video if you walking forward by using your stabilizer like I do in this video http://www.salenz.com/movie/www.sale...ding_600k.wmv?

TIA

Regards
Leigh

LEIGH!
1) Quit hijacking threads! We've all seen your footage.
2) He will post a demo if/when he wants to! - Of what he deems ot be good footage.

Sorry, but it seems every time someone new comes on the scene with a rig, you are all over them looking for their footage to compare to yours and your rig.

- Mikko

I do agree that John and the Magiqcam team need to work on their customer service. I am a bit concerned if I every need repair work, but I'll cross that road if/when I get there. The 2p seems very solid. I will try to post some footage after I practice a bit.

I'll let you all know when I finally get the low dog mode (that was promised... we'll see how long it takes).

Todd

Hi Mikko,

I love stabilizer.

It is the same thing that someone love camera. If someone buy a new camera i.e. Nikon D200, of course someone will be asked to show some photo shot by Nikon D200. The end result of a stabilizer is a footage. That is no difference.

I don't care someone praise the camera is so wonderful, just show the picture.

Obviously we are different. I just love to express myself and shameless self promotions, that’s me.

Regards
Leigh

My opinion is that it is definitely different. It is entirely possible for someone without much photographic experience to take a great picture with the automatic setting of a digital still camera. It is unlikely for anyone without much stabilizer experience to turn out great footage right away (maybe because there is no "automatic" setting on a stabilizer!)

Now, as you have expressed your fascination for stabilized footage, perhaps you can share/discuss your favorite Steadicam scenes in movies you have seen? Or do you feel that you personally get more out of studying footage from someone closer to your level than the masters of your craft?

Hi Charles,

Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

I watched the video http://www.garrettcam.com/stream/gar...ument_256k.ram.

I think that Mr. Brown is great to combine multiple items together to create something new and works. I wish that I have that talent. Some shots in the movie "The shining" is really nice. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...n=130&v=glance
i.e. the camera chasing the kid riding the tricycle(I am not exactly sure if it should be called tricycle or bicycle). It really let you feel that you were in that environment. And that shot is really powerful to feel the speed. I still have not practised that shot. I think the beatuty of steadicam shot is try to simulate 3d shown on 2d screen by moving the camera. Mr. Brown mentioned on his site that someone just simply using one eye can drive a car around without problem which is the same using camera to move around. The camera is equivalent to one eye.

Steadicam shot and lighting both have the effect to simulate real environment.

I did not have chance to watch other great movies because of limited fund and time now. I only downloaded some demo video shot by steadicam operator from the internet. Do you know where I can found most demo videos by steadicam operator by internet? I have to go through the link http://www.steadicam-ops.com/, but not every operator has demo video which is pretty sad.

By the way, I found the best way to study shot without distracting by the movie content is just simply turn off the sound. ;-)

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards
Leigh

wow.

- Mikko

That is a brilliant shot, certainly caught the eye of many including me as a 14-yr old when the movie came out--that the was beginning of my interest in Steadicam. FYI, the rig was mounted on a modified wheelchair in low mode which allowed the lens to work lower than practical when body-mounted and also so that GB wouldn't suffer cardiac arrest from running that distance! There is a brief shot in the documentary on the DVD of this setup. I personally think that the real magic of that sequence is the sound design, as the hard wheels transition from wood floor to carpet and back again.

As far as looking at reels, perhaps on the Steadicam forum you can go through people's profiles and dig out the URL's for links. I do find that many reels are so quickly cut that the shots are hard to study out of context.

Do you have a service like Netflix in NZ yet? It's become so inexpensive to rent numerous DVD titles these days.

Hi Charles,

How many cycles on average for a steadicam shot shot in movie? Does that shot only once? Or ten times more until the director satisfied?

I was surprised that shot was not body-mounted as you mentioned. It seems there are really lots of creative shot can be done inexpensively and ease. I will try to get some wheelchair to experience. That sounds fun and relax. ;-)

Is there any movie to show you how to creatively use steadicam like you just described except go to the workshop and Mr. Brown's document movie clip on his website?

Yes, I can rent a DVD locally. Maybe I should try to rent it instead of buy DVD. ;-)

Regards
Leigh

I've done two takes, and I've done 37 takes, depends on the shot, the director, the show etc. "The Shining" in particular had some record number of takes--GB reported that Kubrick rarely accepted anything before 40, and one non-Steadicam shot actually went up to something like 130 takes!

Vehicle or dolly-mounted shots present their own challenges. Very often you are not especially comfortable and/or having to stretch to reach the post or reign in the rig if shooting on uneven terrain. The little balance adjustments you can make when body mounting with your hips become more of a right-arm-strength exercise when hard mounted.

Hopefully when my training video comes out it will satisfy your interest in "creative" uses of Steadicam (although I wouldn't even categorize this as creative, it's just another facet of operating).

Wow, that must cost a fortune. Now I understand that why movie is so expensive to make.

Regards
Leigh

Hey Charles, Sorry if you've been asked this a million times but how's the training video coming along, can't wait to see it. :)

John.

Animagique - no customer service, no responses
 

I'm also having a problem with Animagique - I won the IIa on Ebay in September. Since I didn't have the $1550.00 at the time, the auction said that the IIa can be paid in monthly installments. John Gardner who's the owner of animagique said I can pay in three monthy installments which I just made my last payment on Nov. 25th. Now I've been trying to contact them by email and phone and never get a response. Their Ebay feedback ratings are now marked private so no one can see their negative feedback. The feedback wasn't that bad in September and I researched and read some good things about them and their stabilizer, that's the main reason I decided to go with the IIa. I've sent several emails and tried calling to them from the phone number on their website, but there's a recording saying "no one is available, try your call again later" well I've been trying and don't get through. Now I'm getting nervous because I paid big bucks and they never respond to emails. Trying to get a hold of them is ridiculous. I would say beware of this company because now I have to try to get my money back....

Hi Jim,
I did the same thing last October when I bought mine off eBay. I finally took delivery at the end of January. John is hard to reach, and it seems he is getting even harder to contact. I had the webbing on one of the vest clips tear and have been trying since this September to get a reply on getting a new one, and without any response. It really is too bad, because I love the rig and have had great success with it, but based on all of the negative feedback coming out, I couldn't reccommend it and feel comfortable about doing so. Did you make the payments on a credit card? If so, you can dipute it through the credit card company. Good luck.
Rob

Hi John:

Hoping to schedule the shoot in December or January. The edit shouldn't take too long.