Saturday, July 1st, 1978.
It’s the end of an era at The New York Times. In fact, it is the end of an era for newspapers as a whole. On this day, the hot-metal typesetting process that has been an industry norm for over a century is coming to an end.
NYT employees Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss are there to capture the final production process from beginning to end and document it in Farewell – ETAOIN SHRDLU.
The short film expertly portrays a real sense of finality – indeed, in the space of 24 hours, machines with origins dating back 500 years or more will be reduced to rubbish – and also a sense of the craftsmanship being lost. One typesetter, for instance, is retiring after 49 years so that he doesn’t have to learn the new technology. “They call it progress, but as far as I’m concerned, it is not,” he says, almost mournfully.
Meanwhile, across the floor, a typist writes a note on the blackboard: “The end of an era. It was good while it lasted. Crying won’t help”.
It’s a snapshot of technological advancement, of innovation and the evolution of the workforce. In that, and the way the employees react in the face of such change, Farewell is a timeless documentary, as poignant now as it was 38 years ago, and one certainly worth a watch.