Tuesday 22 June 2010

Great Tait!

Cataloguing more Margaret Tait papers today and noticing that everything was done in her own way. Letters about copying negatives and chasing up fees are firm, clear and unyielding, interviews and film shoots are painstakingly planned and everything from the posters, to the programmes to the promotional leaflets and calenders are designed and made by MT herself.

True, this probably had a lot to do with economics, but it is obvious that Tait was an auteur through and through. She seems like the type of person who, even when making a simple cup of tea, would have a highly individual and personal vision of the outcome of the project.


Even the language used on the posters and invitations for the Rose Street Film Festival of 1955 was very her: she describes Rose Street on the poster as "the long, low street of pubs in at the back of Princes Street.", and directs visitors up to her projection room thus; "up two flights of stone stairs and follow the smell of coffee."

Here is a handmade leaflet to promote her films mixing text, handwriting, film stills and sketches...


..and I also found a lovely little twiddle of water-colour on the back of an envelope.




Reference D97/24

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