Vintage large pair of industrial film/TV spotlights by blacknight

Vintage large pair of industrial film/TV spotlights by Blacknight. Amazing looking industrial film spotlights that would look fantastic in a cinema room etc Please note these are not recently tested. I would think with a little work, pat test, etc they would work fine. Great big red bulbs - these are original not reproduction!!

34 cm depth 31 cm wide 31 cm height very heavy. May sell separately - please contact us for pricing etc

Spotlight - device used to produce intense illumination in a well-defined area in stage, film, television, ballet, and opera production. It resembles a small searchlight but usually has shutters, an iris diaphragm, and adjustable lenses to shape the projected light. Coloured light is produced by a mechanism for sliding or rotating coloured gelatin filters, called gels even though later made of acetate, into the beam. The first theatrical spotlight was the limelight (q.v.), which gave way to such light sources as the arc, electric discharge, and incandescent lamp. The practical lensed spotlight was developed in 1879 by Louis Hartmann of the United States.

Related Topics: lamp stage lighting

Follow spotlights project spots that can readily be changed to cover a large area or one as small as a human face. They turn easily on mounts to follow performers.

Entertainment & Pop Culture

Movie, TV & Stage Development & Production

limelight

theater lighting

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Article History

limelight, first theatrical spotlight, also a popular term for the incandescent calcium oxide light invented by Thomas Drummond in 1816. Drummond’s light, which consisted of a block of calcium oxide heated to incandescence in jets of burning oxygen and hydrogen, provided a soft, very brilliant light that could be directed and focused. It was first employed in a theatre in 1837 and was in wide use by the 1860s. Its intensity made it useful for spotlighting and for the realistic simulation of effects such as sunlight and moonlight. Limelights placed at the front of the balcony could also be used for general stage illumination, providing a more natural light than footlights. The expression “in the limelight” originally referred to the most desirable acting area on the stage, the front and centre, which was brilliantly illuminated by limelights.

Related Topics: incandescent lamp quicklime stage lighting

The greatest disadvantage of limelight was that each light required the almost constant attention of an individual operator, who had to keep adjusting the block of calcium oxide as it burned and to tend to the two cylinders of gas that fueled it. Electric lighting in general and the electric arc spotlight replaced the limelight late in the 19th century.