Films
Produced and directed by Jeremy Bennett; calligrapher, Donald Jackson; narrator, Susannah York. Alphabet: the story of writing (1980) 4 × 30 minutes, VHS, A set of 4 half-hour film quality videos. RBS v2.16–2.19 Overview This four part series produced for Parker Pen contains hardly any printing or typesetting. The first two parts cover letterforms up to the fourteenth century and are highly recommended. They are extremely well done – particularly the parts where presenter Donald Jackson makes reed pens (part one) and quill pens (part two) and demonstrates their influence on letterforms. Part two also features a superb demonstration of the art of illuminating.
Part three has a short section on printing which covers the invention of the printing press and copper engraving. While discussing Gutenberg the letterpress printing being shown from a much later period – an iron press is used and the type looks far too modern. Part 4 was presumably the point of the whole production as far as Parker Pen were concerned – it focuses entirely on pens, handwriting, and calligraphy. It is by far the weakest part of the series, disparaging the ‘bad new letterforms’ that computers have been responsible for and claiming that ‘we can tell what people were like from their writing’. Narrated by Susannah York and presented by Donald Jackson.
Summary
Part I: the making of letters
After an introduction and shots of lettering on various different kinds of signage the film goes back in time and discusses the development of letterforms including: · Cave paintings, clay tablets, and wax tablets · Hieroglyphics · Papyrus · The reed pen · The origins of the alphabet · Roman inscriptions
Part II: the pen is mightier than the sword
Focuses on manuscript production from the end of the Roman Empire including: · The dark ages – the Book of Kells · Development of lowercase · The quill pen · Using gold leaf · Making ink · Illumination
Part III: penman, printer, and engraver
· fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscript books · Gothic script · Italic (chancery) script · the printing press – printing on an iron hand press, without using the tympan · copy books · copper-plate engraving – close-up of an engraver at work with flat bed cylinder presses working in the background and a copper plate being inked and printed
Part 4: writing: everybody’s art
· examples of pen labels · examples of the copper-plate hand · new inks for steel nibs · portable pens · ball point pens · modern calligraphy
Read more about this topic: Donald Jackson (calligrapher)
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