Stanley McCandless

[Illuminatio]

Does anyone have a lovely photograph of lighting legend Stanley McCandless which I could put into a PowerPoint for students?

[vinntec]

Does anyone have a lovely photograph of lighting legend Stanley McCandless which I could put into a PowerPoint for students?

The best I can find is one at Yale University, in this article describing his archives..

[Illuminatio]

Many thanks for that!

[paulears]

It seems that British Lighting pioneers are badly served by Wikipedia. McCandless has an entry, but Fred Bentham and Francis Reid are missing. Reading the Mccandless entry, it does look like America were the only people involved in the development of stage lighting.

 

I for one, have read everything Betham, Reid and Pilcrow published - but I have never carried out any research on, or read anything at all by Stanley Mccandleuss, and from the wiki entry, much seems to be the same as I remember from Bentham's older publications.

 

A bit of injustice here I think.

 

I think I first started reading about the British perspective in the early 70s, and McCandless has been missing from my lighting history - so I'm intrigued by Illuminatio's 'legend' comment.

 

Where did he differ from Bentham's treatment and techniques?

[Junior8]

Well Paul I have just been and got down my copy of McCandless 'A Method of Lighting the Stage' 1973 printing which I have to admit I have never managed to read from cover to cover or indeed much at all. In general it is an elementary guide to the basics of lighting areas from two sides as near as 45deg to the horizontal as possible - though this is demonstrated by one tiny isometric drawing - together with a run down on the type of equipment then in use in the USA and the usual stuff on specials, effects, projection etc. Mine is the fourth ed 1958 of a book first published in 1932 when it probably was innovative. By 1973, when I got it through French's, I really did wonder why I'd bothered to spend the money. Ridge & Aldred first published here in 1935 covers all the same ground much better and McCandless does not hold a card to any of Bentham's original or various revised editions. If you include Rollo Gillespie-Williams' book -1948 I think from memory - (which will at least inform you on all the equipment not available from Strand!) most published material (especially Tabs) here was fuller and most relevant to GB practice. (It is difficult to make younger people really understand just how useful and in its own way influential Tabs was. We were so lucky to have it.) Richard Pilbrow's book was the first post Bentham to really take the literature forward and remember anyway Fred was not really a practitioner influential though he was.

[timsabre]

It seems that British Lighting pioneers are badly served by Wikipedia. McCandless has an entry, but Fred Bentham and Francis Reid are missing. Reading the Mccandless entry, it does look like America were the only people involved in the development of stage lighting.

 

That's the whole problem with Wikipedia, on specialised or less-visited pages it's often just one person's opinion, but everyone regards it as fact.

 

I'm sure between us we could provide some pages for Francis Reid and Fred Bentham.

[paulears]

Didn't we call Bentham the 'Father of Stage Lighting'? I always felt he was an engineer, and many years ago I got drawn into a conversation he was having with Francis Reid - he waved me over and said hello, and Mr Bentham totally and utterly ignored me, and carried on his conversation with Francis on (I think) the drawbacks of stove enamelling, or something like that. I think he was an engineer type, not a typical theatre person - but the 45 degree each side, and up 45 technique as an ideal was in Benthams book, which is here somewhere?

 

 

There's a bit of injustice here - it would be nice to at least set the record straight!

[themadhippy]

The yanks like to steal the credit for everyone elses work were lighting is concerned ,right from day 1 when mr,swan made a coil of wire glow in a vacuum a certain mr edison tried to steal his thunder and claim the invention as his

[Junior8]

Didn't we call Bentham the 'Father of Stage Lighting'? I always felt he was an engineer, and many years ago I got drawn into a conversation he was having with Francis Reid - he waved me over and said hello, and Mr Bentham totally and utterly ignored me, and carried on his conversation with Francis on (I think) the drawbacks of stove enamelling, or something like that. I think he was an engineer type, not a typical theatre person - but the 45 degree each side, and up 45 technique as an ideal was in Benthams book, which is here somewhere?

 

I don't think he would ever have called himself that. In Sixty Years of Light Work he explains why he ended up with a career as an engineer and equipment designer rather than a practitioner. He was influential certainly but would have been the first to point out that it was people like Joe Davis who actually did the business of lighting shows. I suppose if he were here now he might claim to have been particularly influential in the move to eradicate the use of yards of footlights and compartment battens largely by propaganda through his lectures and Tabs and he certainly had firm ideas on the nature of control systems - indeed he clearly had firm ideas on everything to do with making theatres work - but his key contribution was enabling the supply of top quality well designed instruments built to last and backing that with educational materials showing, even the beginner, how to use them.