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Title: PAINTED EIGHTSOME

Reference number: 4444

Date: 1970

Director: painted by Margaret Tait

Production company: Ancona Films

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: col

Fiction: fiction

Running time: 6.16 mins

Description: Margaret Tait described this title as 'An eightsome reel played by Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society, recorded in about 1955 - 1956, later transferred to 35mm optical stock with clear picture and gradually painted over the years. Eights of different things - figures, antlers, or sometimes just blobs in tartan colours - dance their way through the figure of the reel [see also ref. 4444A for slightly different [longer] version.]

Please note sound only starts after opening title and credits section at 0.02 mins. The title is repeated three times at the start of the film.

See also MA thesis submitted to University of East Anglia by Winn, Joss Preserving the Hand Painted Films of Margaret Tait, 2002.

See also Additional Information file at 11/1/455. Paper Archives 4/5/119, 4/11/651, 4/5/92.

The Tait papers are deposited in Orkney Archives. Currently being catalogued. For any enquiries please contact Principal Archivist.

Joss Winn, in his dissertation on the hand painted films, concludes that this film has not received much attention, citing only one screening, of 'Painted Eightsome', at the 1971 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Preserving the Hand-Painted Films of Margaret Tait Joss Winn, MA Dissertation, University of East Anglia, September 2002.

The British Artist's Film and Video Study Collection at http://www.bftv.ac.uk/avantgarde based at Central St. Martin's College of Art and Design holds an artist's file on Margaret Tait.

The British Film Institute National Library http://www.bfi.org.uk holds many of the published articles on her and her work.

In 1979 Margaret Tait was the subject of a BBC Scotland 'Spectrum' arts programme.

Credits: Eightsome painted by Margaret Tait, MCT, Ancona Films
End of Eightsome played by Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society painted by Margaret Tait, Ancona Films

Shotlist: (0.00) [silent] title (0.02) title and opening credits [N.B. title is repeated three times] (0.14) [sound] Brightly coloured animated 'eights' of different things - figures, antlers, or sometimes just blobs in tartan colours - dance their way through the figure of the reel dance to the traditional tune 'Eightsome Reel', as played by the Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society in this hand painted piece by Margaret Tait (6.01) ecs (6.16)

[Margaret Tait described this title as 'An eightsome reel played by Orkney Strathspey and Reel Society, recorded in about 1955 - 1956, later transferred to 35mm optical stock with clear picture and gradually painted over the years. Eights of different things - figures, antlers, or sometimes just blobs in tartan colours - dance their way through the figure of the reel.]