Diego Maclean animated this film which is narrated by the poet Billy Collins.

I’ve never seen a film about making ink. This is a film by Tate Young for The Printing Ink Company. It features Peter Welfare, President and Head Inkmaker, showing us the entire process of mixing and testing colors. How often do you get to watch a film about a guy who seems to really love his work?

“This man is an author. He writes stories. He has just finished writing a story. He thinks many people will like to read it.” So begins this 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica film about how books are printed and bound. Almost none of what you see in the film, with the possible exception of the book trimming blade, exists anymore. It’s fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Fascinating because we get to see the mysterious process of making a book. Horrifying because we see how machines dictate the movements of human beings in an assembly line environment.  It’s so dreadful that I may never want to read an old book again.  Perhaps e-books are some kind of salvation after all.