In 2006 I began teaching history of graphic communication to undergraduate students in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. The Department is fortunate to be able to demonstrate a number of printing and typesetting technologies to its students. However, there are many others that we cannot show and the machinery that we do have relies on specialist knowledge if we are to use it for practical demonstrations; this is not something that we can depend on having in the future. This led me to investigate the possibility of using film as a teaching aid – clearly the next best option when a live demonstration is not possible. I soon discovered that such films are not easy to find. Funded by a research grant from the AHRC, I set about locating, documenting, and acquiring copies of films that show printing and typesetting.
The result of this research project is a handlist that lists almost 250 films, the majority of which were found in the following collections:
Feature films were not included in the study. Alastair Johnston at the Poltroon Press has compiled a list of feature films and television programmes which show printing (www.poltroonpress.com).
Each entry in the handlist gives the title, date and running time of the film, states if it is black and white or silent, gives the format, and places where the film can be found. All entries have a brief overview of the content of the film and for longer films a sequential summary is also provided. The films in the handlist are organised into categories following the system used for books at the St Bride Library. The index lists all the relevant films under each heading and more specific searching can be done using a keyword search of the pdf.
I am extremely grateful to all those who gave films to the project, particularly Michael Passmore, who donated several films and to Carl Schlesinger, who provided copies of the many films in his own collection. Special thanks to Terry Belanger and his team at Rare Book School for allowing me to view the ‘Doc’ Robert Leslie Collection and to Nigel Roche and the staff of the St Bride Library for their assistance in organising the films into categories.
If anyone can add to, or correct, the information listed, or knows of other films that should be included please let me know: r.e.banham@reading.ac.uk.
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