An Evening with Doug Wilson and the PRINTING FILMS Archive

A look at the methods of type creation through the ages and the growing pains of an industry and its workers as the technology changes generationally. With the specter of AI looming over today’s designers, it is interesting to look back at how working class and union typographers dealt with the transition of metal type to photographic processes. A selection of three films from the Printing Films Archive will showcase the historical methods of creating movable type (TYPE SPEAKS), how these methods were radically transformed in the 60s and 70s as new technology displaced the old (FROM HOT METAL TO COLD TYPE), and how workers and union members were affected by and dealt with this transition (FAREWELL ETAOIN SHRDLU).

Spectacle will be joined by Printing Films’s purveyor, Doug Wilson, who will be in attendance to commentate, give context to the films and answer audience questions. Doug Wilson is a writer, product designer and filmmaker based in Denver, Colorado. Wilson directed the 2012 feature-length documentary LINOTYPE: THE FILM which centers around the eponymous typecasting machine, its history, and its demise.

Run of show:

1. TYPE SPEAKS
Dir. Unknown, American Type Founders Company, 1949
United States. 25 min
In English

Narrated by NBC radio personality Ben Grauer, this ATF-produced film is an in-depth and accessible showcase of how type is made from start to finish. From the design & pattern making, to the punch & matrices, to—ultimately—moveable type and the printed word. This film features Warren Chapell’s calligraphic sans serif typeface design, Lydian.

2. FROM HOT METAL TO COLD TYPE
Dir. Unknown, International Typographic Union, c. 1965
United States. 24 min
In English

Created by the International Typographic Union in the mid sixties to cajole union members into learning the new photographic methods of typesetting, this film begins with an explanation of the hot-metal process, then goes on to showcase the many photographic techniques used in setting type; from typesetting via paste-ups, to making plates, to developing negatives. The film follows each new process to the ultimate/inevitable printed conclusion.

3. FAREWELL ETAOIN SHRDLU
Dir. David Loeb Weiss, 1978
United States. 29 min
In English

Narrated by Carl Schlesinger, and named after the keyboard arrangement of the Linotype machine (Etaoin Shrdlu being the Qwerty of the pre-desktop computer age), this film documents the final day of hot metal typesetting within the composing room of the New York Times (Sunday, July 1st, 1978). The Linotype and Ludlow machines being used will be “by morning, relics of the past”. The film gives a detailed account of how a Linotype machine operates, its components, and how it is used by a trained compositor. Followed by the rest of the newspaper making process, including layout, proofing, mold making, and printing; all seen only minutes before deadline. One older staff member decides to make the night his last, retiring alongside the Linotype machine so as to avoid having to learn any of the new computerized photographic methods, which are detailed in the latter part of the film.

In a monologue at the end of the film, Schlesinger takes solace in the fact that, while these new computer processes have replaced what he once knew, there are still human hands, eyes, and minds behind them. If he only knew what was to come.