Screenplay writer needs letterpress terms for script .
A screenplay is being written which will introduce to viewers a main character (actor) having a printing past. This actor must speak words that relate to the letterpress industry.
eg: pi (pie) the type, job case, composing stick, pica, linotype, matrix, Ludlow, lead type, wood type, koins, etc.
So I need a list of items used in the trade.
Also a list of method of operation… eg: pull a proof, justify. etc.
So whatever you think of just drop me an e-Mail or post.
I can’t go into the details of the script… but the main goal is to keep the history of this past industry alive within the screenplay.
I have retired out of the industry some years ago and have realized I too have forgotten alot.
I’m using this website at “Briarpress” to freshen up my thinking for advising the co-writers of this screenplay where a main actor plays a typesetter and pressman (pressperson).
Thanks in advance.
Hello. Your best bet would be to pick up a copy of “General Printing” by Cleeton, Pitkin, and Cornwell. It was originally published in 1941 but has recently been reprinted. Good luck!
This from England, Koins is spelled with a q over here - quoins’, also by the time that
Ben Franklin came over here (running away from creditors before the Rev.) the two trades were separate, a compositor would not have been a machine minder as well. In passing, Ben worked in Saffon Hill, just around the corner from a shop where I once worked. He sucessfully ran a strike for more money for setting the smallest sizes.
Shakespeare is of course full of printing terms, and in part its through him that so many words have entered OUR language.
J. Stafford-Baker The Happy Dragons Press (whose ancestors left the colonies after 1776)