A filming project that features the craft of the die-cutting process and envelope-making happening right on our doorstep was too good an opportunity to miss.
The production team at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who wanted to document our industrial manufacturing processes alongside domestic procedures, contacted us last year.
And it is just part of a transformation that has seen the previously name Museum of Childhood ‘up its game’ in a bid to make it more fun and meaningful. And the press agree they’ve got right, it seems.
The museum is located in our spiritual home of the East End of London. The film aims to make specialised production feel less mysterious to young people by relating it to familiar things they would do at home.
Die-cutting is like making cookies
Thus, envelope making is compared to origami; and die-cutting to making cookies using a pastry cutter – both are about making something out of paper by folding. The two types of making are presented side by side in a split-screen setup. Other process features blend glass blowing and soap bubble blowing, welding and hot glue application, and metal type preparation (resembling letterpress) with Letraset animals.
Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian said: “For a museum aimed at children, the Museum of Childhood in London’s Bethnal Green never used to feel “very much like fun”. It had “the air of a mausoleum of toys”. All that has now changed. “After a three-year, £13m makeover, the cobwebs have been well and truly blown away, the gloomy building injected with dazzling new energy and a mischievous sense of fun – now fittingly rebranded as Young V&A.”
“This is, “I think, the best designed and curated [museum] my family and I have ever visited”, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph – a “Wonka factory of learning and discovery”. It is split into three sections: Play, Imagine and Design. Play is aimed at younger children, with games and toys galore. Imagine features an art gallery and clothes for dressing up. Design, with sections on furniture, coding, craft and transport, feels like “a haven” for creative teens.”
Accompanied by the film director, Tetsuo Mukai (zuketa.com), a select group from Baddeley Brothers were treated to a guided tour. It was unanimously agreed that this was an experience that would not be forgotten, even for the more seasoned members of the party!
