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Title: CHAIRS

Reference number: 6894

Date: [1972]

Sponsor: The Scottish Committee Council of Industrial Design

Production company: International Film Associates (Scotland) Ltd.

Sound: sound

Colour: bwcol

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 11.26 mins

Description: A documentary made in the early 1970s on the history of the British chair. Mostly concentrating on contemporary wooden furniture making techniques and design.

From the Scottish Central Film Library Catalogue of Films for Education 1976 p 196: "Historical survey of the chair in attractive pictorial form. Production methods from selection of timber to finished article in a modern Scottish factory. Basic requirements of a well-designed chair. Examples include a Charlie Rennie Mackintosh chair."

Note: Date on original film can given as 20th September 1972.

Credits: with the assistance of: A.H. Mackintosh & Co. Ltd.; David Elder Ltd.; Averil M.S. McIlwraith

Shotlist: [no title, starts abruptly. COL] shot of chair rotating (0.08) [BW] shot of a leather chair (0.18) montage of line drawings illustrating the history of the chair in Britain, featuring, for example, oak chairs, Elizabethan people and furniture, examples of turned wood, designs by Applewhite, Sheraton and Chippendale. The work of architects William Kent and Robert and John Adam. Victorian designs, machined examples . Examples of the simple lines of William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh design. Modern designs (3.32) shot of a contemporary dining chair, man demonstrates ease of handling (3.52) c/u of a saw cutting African Walnut (4.14) the wood is cut along the grain in a machine saw (4.34) man manually planing a curved piece of wood (4.54) extreme c/u as wood is machined to specified shape (5.26) component pieces of wood are laid out, ashots include glueing wood and assembling by hand (5.55) upholstery is fixed to assembled frame (6.16) gvs as wood is machined, chair frame is carefully assembled by hand, taking account of the various angles involved (6.49) chair is hand finished, excess glue removed, edges smoothed (8.05) polishing the wooden frame (8.21) [BW] line drawings of men and women sitting on chairs - commentary notes that people are all different shapes and sizes and how chairs must accommodate this (9.25) [COL] montage different designs of chair - commentary says a chair must suit the individual and the way they want to sit (11.10) ecs (11.26)