Springfield's cassette-tape scene lures Norwegian filmmakers

Springfield’s status as the home of one of the world’s few remaining cassette tape manufacturers keeps attracting attention.

In recent weeks, a trio of filmmakers from Norway has been in town.

They’re making a documentary about the manufacturer, National Audio Company, and about the local audiocassette music scene that’s grown up around it.

"It's about the comeback of the audiocassettes," said Alfred Nortvedt in an interview with the News-Leader this week. He's directing the movie and has also worked as a video journalist for VG, the largest newspaper in Norway.

"Most people in Norway and Europe think audiocassettes are dead," Nortvedt said. "But this movie will show they're still alive."

In keeping with that theme, they call their documentary "The Analog Resurrection." By making a movie about cassette lovers, they want to communicate a more universal message about striving toward accomplishment.

"If you have a passion and you believe in it, don't give up," Nortvedt said.

Nortvedt's collaborators include fellow director Alexander Ophaug and cinematographer Kristin Grønning. All three are students in the TV program at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.

They came to Springfield in early March from Lillehammer, the lakeside resort town that hosted the Winter Olympics in 1994.

For a 28-minute documentary, they're doing three weeks of video shoots on the other side of the world from home. Then they plan on editing for six weeks. They expect to finish their movie in May, submit it to their university as a graduation project and distribute it later at film festivals "around the world," Ophaug said. The project will be entirely in English, and Ophaug said he hopes it exerts a big influence on musicians in Europe.

Back home, the Norwegians explained, the celebration of audiocassettes as a retro-chic way to share the love of music is not really part of the culture.

"Are cassettes still a thing?" they said they've heard asked by fellow Scandinavians.

But in the United States, cassettes have had something of a resurgence in popularity in some niche music scenes during the 2010s.

Meanwhile, National Audio Company sells 10 million cassettes per year to entities ranging from tiny tape music labels to massive religious and government organizations. Company president and co-owner Steve Stepp has previously told the News-Leader that demand for tapes is strong across the globe.

This counterintuitive form of American exceptionalism appealed to the European filmmakers.

Ophaug said, "People buy vinyl in Europe, but nobody produces music on tape like Austin," referring to Austin Korte, a Springfield-based electronic musician who releases albums on cassette tape when he's not playing shows at venues like the Outland.

Korte is one of multiple Springfield-based folks who are part of the documentary. Most of them make music on tape.

For example, the filmmakers have also been following Steven Senger, a Missouri State University math professor who creates electronic music that he releases on cassette.

Senger and Korte were both part of a tape release show, "Eject," held Wednesday night in the basement of a central Springfield home dubbed "the Bookhouse." It serves as an informal venue for music, some of which comes out on cassette.

A couple dozen fans attended "Eject." So did the filmmakers. With silent determination, Grønning trained her camera on audience members as they hobnobbed and on the artists while they performed their ambient electronic music.

Before the show, Senger explained his love of music cassettes this way: "I drive an old car (with a tape deck) and never stopped listening to them. Now it's semifashionable. Bully for me!"

Jokes aside, Senger said he likes the "talismanic" aspect of cassettes.

"It's a physical item," he said. "It costs for me to give one to you, it costs for you to hold on to it."

Tapes add value to music, he added, in a way that internet music platforms can't match.

"If I send you an email and I'm like, 'bro, check out my SoundCloud, bro,' that's cool. But that devalues it," Senger said.

Chris Bivens, owner-operator of the Bookhouse, said that National Audio Company's presence in Springfield means that "tape culture is a bit stronger here than elsewhere."

The company is what lured the filmmakers from southern Norway to southern Missouri. Ophaug, one of the directors, said he saw a video about National Audio Company on Facebook and contacted company president Steve Stepp.

Stepp gave them a five-hour tour of National Audio Company's factory facilities, Ophaug said.

"It was cool," said Grønning, the cinematographer. She had never seen tapes being manufactured.

Stepp also sat for a 90-minute interview with the filmmakers.

"He was really good at answering our questions," said Nortvedt, Ophaug's co-director. "He's a really professional guy."

What was the most surprising thing about their trip?

"The openness, the friendliness, of the people," Nortvedt said. "People here are really friendly when you first meet them. Norwegians are much more closed. They'll make friends later, but they start out being skeptical of you."

The filmmakers noted that everywhere they've gone, people allow them to do video shoots — at Missouri State University's climbing gym, the Outland bar, a thrift shop.

"We didn't expect people are so open," Nortvedt said.

They've also had generous offers of help on their project. "I want to give a shout-out to Locke & Stache," Nortvedt said, referring to a Springfield-based video production company that helped them acquire drone footage for their documentary.

Being Norwegian, Nortvedt pronounced it "Loki and Statchee."

Watch: Springfield company first in US to manufacture cassette tape since 1980s

About National Audio Company: The world was running out of cassette tape. Now it’s being made in Springfield.

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