Londonist Review

A fabulous review of Banging Out - Fleet Street Remembered from Londonist.
Londonist Review

Banging Out Film Launch

On Wednesday 16th July 2014 all the hard work came together and the finished film was launched at the Bridewell Hall, St Bride Institute, Fleet Street.

Over 120 people attended including the children who made the film, the interviewees and their families and interested guests.

Before the film was introduced by children from St Matthew's and St George the Martyr primary schools, Glyn Farrow, Director of St Bride Foundation said a few words about the sneak peak he had of the film:
"It is absolutely brilliant and I learned so much from it. Various notions that were unformed ideas in my mind suddenly have shape and make far more sense. I’m not just saying this, I really do think it is fantastic."

Once the film was shown - to rapturous applause - the children conducted a Q&A and their answers were well received.

Peter McKenna, Chair of digital:works, who MC'd the event thanked all those who supported and funded the project - and that was a long list!

The interviewees, their families and friends then descended into the Bridewell Bar for a couple of hours of reminiscing.

Thank you to everyone for making it such a special day.

Film training and interviewing printers

Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st May

In the morning we gathered in the classroom to learn interviewing skills. We were taught how to ask questions. We were told what to do and what not to do while interviewing someone. You must be polite and look interested. You have to nod your head rather than saying “Yes” to enable the editing. If you speak while someone else is speaking, you can’t hear the interviewee! A good interviewer listens and speaks appropriately.

We then had to write some questions that we would use in an interview. Some filmmakers had come to the school so we could practice.

Some of the interview questions we created included:

• Why are you so interested in films? 
• What kind of things would you like to film in the future? 
• How do you feel about speaking in front of an audience? 
• In the future, would you like to make a famous film?
• What would you tell other people about filming? 

We also asked the filmmakers what they learned from their film training. We learned the acronym “wiffle” which stands for White balance Iris Focus Framing Level of Sound.” Wiffle is a checklist of things you need to get right in filming. These things are always needed with a camera because if you get any of those things wrong then the whole film is a disaster!

After break we came back into the classroom and the printers split us into three groups. We interviewed three people, two of which were father and son. We met Ann Field, who worked in a newspaper library in the 1970s and then worked for the Trade Union. The newspaper library is also known as the “intelligence department” Malcolm Lane became an apprentice compositor at the age of 15 and climbed the ladder for 6 years. His son David used to be in advertising. Every Saturday he would go to Wapping to protest against Rupert Murdoch.

David told us that published thirty books about football. He used to work for the Financial Times and he was explaining how different newspapers use adverts specifically designed to attract their audience. A full page advert in the Financial Times costs around £75,000! Small adverts are known as “earpieces” because they are found at the top and sides of the paper where its “ears” would be!

Ann said she didn’t have words to describe how horrific the dispute was for the people who were sacked. It wasn’t just the workers, it affected their families too. It had been an emotional time for her.

Malcolm told us about becoming a printer. It takes 6 years to become a fully qualified printer which is called “Banging out” which is also the name of the blog. When you “bang out”, you get covered in ink and powder by the other printers! He told us that it takes two days to get clean again!

After the session everyone had lots of interesting questions. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed learning new facts. Talking to the different people really brought the events to life!

St Matthews Primary School Year 6 Writers Group

Thursday

Yesterday, Thursday 12th of June, the writers spent some time writing information texts on the ‘History of Printing’ and the ‘Wapping strike’. Today we have many objects and machines, which we did not have in the past to make our life much easier, before people would have to handwrite everything. Like when scribes used to make scrolls, only the rich and the well educated could afford one. People used quills and ink, which took up too much time. Until, William Caxton brought printing press to England. The printers used to get blocks which had letters; roll some ink onto the letters then press the paper onto the lettered block then they had printed paper. Here is an extract from a ‘History of printing’ text: ‘William Caxton was friends with Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, and William had been asked to write a number of books for her. Such as: ‘The Dictes and the sayings of philosophers’ and ‘The Game of Playe of Chesse’. Here is an extract from a ‘Wapping strike’ text: After 5 months of demonstration, one woman, Emily Grigson, was nearly hit by a T.N.T truck. Later, Michael Delaney, a 19-year-old boy, was hit by a van and died. This made Emily join the protesters against Rupert Murdock and the police.

Wednesday

Today we got the opportunity to interview the film makers about the difficulties and the highlights of film making. It seemed at first the film makers had a hard time adjusting to the basics of the camera and equipment, but soon became familiar with the technology; also it took approximately an hour to set everything up because the adults from Fleet Street showed us a demonstration on what to do clearly and carefully.

We were given the chance to interview some very interesting people; who happened to be associated with the printing industry. Also, we were lucky to learn a bit about each interviewee, especially their feelings toward Rupert Murdoch and what life as a printer was. Us as writers and film makers got to converse with each of them separately, also getting to learn more about their current life and their past relating to the subject of their previous work. Y6  film makers got to learn about the camera terminology. We learnt about “Wiffle”. Wiffle is an abbreviation. White balance - is when you use white paper to set the correct colour. Iris - is what you use to set the darkness and light. Focus - when focus on the faces so they are not fuzzy. Framing - is when your eyes have to be in line with a line on a screen. LEvel- means sound level and how much sound you want to hear. All the children are looking forward to interviewing the printers who were involved in the print trade and the Wapping dispute. “We are also looking forward to printing tomorrow,” said Ruba.

Tuesday- writers

On Tuesday 10th June the writers of the ‘Banging out!’ Project, wrote a wide range of poems to describe the joys of printing and the dispute of Wapping. We wrote poems such as acrostics, haikus and Fibonacci. Here are some samples from the poems we wrote.
Use Chinese paper,
And use a wooden screw,
Germans steel cast.
Use all the components,
You’ll have something new.
By Zeshaan, Tanka

Printing began with hands
Rapid changes brought for people
If there was no printing
 No education would happen
To help you write
If it wasn’t for books we wouldn’t have an education
Now you read and write
Go and discover the beauty of printing
By Rahim

Printing is a great
Invention, inspiring
The world to succeed.
Betty.

Later that day, we all did some art work themed around William Caxton and printing. Some were difficult as there was a lot of detail to be added. “Some of them were very hard, I drew the printer, and it was really fun,” stated Farzana.

Monday St.Brides

On Monday, St.George the Martyr school took a visit to Fleet Street to take a look at the history of printing. Before long, we were introduced to the people who we would be collaborating with on this project/ documentary. Next, we were shown a couple of films to explain who brought the printing press to England, when it all started and how it all began, especially where the printing press originally came from.

The next film we were showed, told us how people were provoked so a peaceful protest  transformed into a riot of rage and outbreak, when Rupert Murdoch decided to be sly, devious and sneaky with his employees in 1986. As well as that we also got to take a look at three of the most well known printing machines such as: the linotype, the Gutenberg and the Stanhope. We got to see how they worked and manoeuvred. Finally, we got to try making the headline of a newspaper (The Evening News) using a compositor stick, which was both fun and tricky, then we headed back to school to act out certain things /freeze frame/do some drama. Until now, the children had never realised how important the history of printing was and how much they took it for granted. In the afternoon back at school, we entered the hall to re-enact the events of the Wapping dispute that occurred in 1986. Each group did a different scene based on the Wapping plant strike. We all acted as the pickets, the police, Rupert Murdoch and other witnesses. So that we could understand how they felt at the time and see their expressions and thoughts. We think the children liked the fact that they got to delve into these types of rolls. As a majority of them, at the time, were emotionally drained due to the fact that they were currently jobless. They couldn’t put food on the dinner table, provide sustenance for their families and were unable to afford certain things. Consequently, they were also unable to pay off debt or rent for that matter.

Fleet Street and the move to Wapping

In the afternoon of Monday 19th May we found out about the recent history of newspapers and that the News of the World closed down in 2011.

Year 6 learnt a lot of fantastic information in the archives about Rupert Murdoch and the printing strike in 1985. Rupert Murdoch fired his workers and moved to Wapping, then all of the newspaper companies left Fleet Street too. Now the only company on Fleet Street which prints newspapers is DC Thompson who published the Beano.

We found out about newspapers in Margaret Thatcher’s time. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 but not everyone agreed with her ways. Some people called her “The Iron Lady” and she was secretly working with Rupert Murdoch. As this history could be hard to understand, we acted out the story. We mimed scenes showing Rupert Murdoch’s battle for media supremacy. We played characters such as Martin Davis, the owner of 20^th Century Fox, Johnny Jackson, senior executive of a venture capital fund, and fearless reporter Kate Adie. Some of the children felt nervous but everyone gave it their best and did a fantastic job. It was very amusing and we enjoyed our experience.

Year 6 came back to school with so much new information and understanding of the history of printing!

Year 6 bloggers

St Matthew’s CE Primary School

St Matthew's Trip to St Brides

On Monday 19th May, Year Six went to Fleet Street to visit St Bride’s Institute to learn about printing. When we got there, we met two men, Bob and Mick. Bob showed us a book printed by William Caxton in 1478. Then we went downstairs to see the workshop.

Mick told us about famous printers such as William Caxton who printed the first book. He also showed us some of the first technology to make newspapers. We saw American, British and German printing presses. They explained to us how printing started. Before the printing press was invented the old monks used to write out Bibles by hand.

In those times you could pay a penny for the illustrations to be professionally coloured but sometimes young children would colour them in.

This is a wooden tablet with a Tibetan prayer written on it. Even today, the monks still use this printing method in Tibet as it is part of their culture.

We learned that in 1712, newspapers were taxed. When they printed newspapers they used metal letters that had to go in backwards so they were the right way round in the papers.

 

Bob showed us the book made by William Caxton. Although it was in a different language, the writing was beautiful. At the start of each paragraph the first letter was printed in red.

  

Newspapers about death and lurid events were printed in a separate newspaper called ‘broad sides’ which had lots of gory news in them. It made us shiver! These days, we call these papers ‘tabloids’. We went on to learn a lot about tabloid newspapers and characters such as Rupert Murdoch.

Year 6 bloggers

St Matthew’s CE Primary School

Banging Out!

Welcome to the blog of the Banging Out! - Fleet Street Remembered film project. This blog will be updated by the young people as the project progresses.

They will be visiting heritage organisations, researching historical material, learning camera, sound capture and interviewing techniques, producing historical and creative writing and conducting filmed interviews with former print workers.

You can keep abreast of it all here.