Old Theatre Lighting

[paulears]

I came across these rather clean examples of 1970s lighting in a village hall a few miles from me. Still, nice to see them being used rather than polished up as ornaments on eBay at silly prices.

http://www.limelight.org.uk/blundestonlx.jpg

Feel free to add pictures of other old kit still in action.

[gyro_gearloose]

That's an interesting way of using Doughty brackets to hold the bar up. I always thought that they were meant to be at 90 degrees to the bar they were supporting? And we won't mention the apparent lack of safety chains/bonds .... oh wait :)

 

Sorry this post isn't on topic, but this being the blue room someone was always going to comment on the rigging :D Though I must say that I now feel slightly better about our collection of 'modern' Strand Cantatas and Preludes. It doesn't seem so old anymore.

[alistermorton]

Yup. Partner's granddaughters school still uses some patt 23 in among their LEDs.

[Young Johnstone]

They have about 20 patt 23 in my local theatre, and they're still one of my favourite lights to use when I design there.

Unfortunately they had a load of fixtures that failed the PAT so just threw them out! I know for a fact the majority just needed a rewire and a tidy up to get them working again, nothing major. They even included source fours that were only 4 years old.

 

Its such a shame! I got really annoyed when I found out.

[alistermorton]

That is annoying.

 

We still have a load of P23, P123 and P743 in our stock and they're still good at what they do.

[IRW]

Ahem....Without wishing to infringe on 'show your show', I did this last week...

 

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/IMG_4511sm.JPG

 

The effect:

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/IMG_4596sm.JPG

 

The venue size:

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/IMG_4606sm.JPG

 

(and in daylight:)

http://www.ephotozine.com/articles/how-to-take-photos-inside-churches-17026/images/Liverpool_Cathedral.jpg

 

Kind of goes to show I think, it's not what you've got, but what you do with it... (If anyone's interested, there are a few more photos of this show, the Liverpool Passion Plays, on my website here). What you can't see in these photos is the fact that even though they're 'only' 500w fresnels, we were getting some brilliant shadows on the ceiling, nearly 30m above the bridge.

 

Ian

 

Edited to add:

I'm actually starting to get really annoyed at how much Patt 123's are going for on ebay- I'd love to add some to my own lighting stock, for use as proper theatre lights, but can't justify spending so much on them :(

[Don Allen]

I came across a venue a few weeks ago that had six Patt43 in their rig that I told them to use as side lights and a Rank Strand Miniset 20/2 desk with two miniset dimmer racks, similar to Strand Mini still in use. I installed a demux to allow them to use the miniset racks with a more modern desk, so they could record cues.

[alistermorton]

I'm actually starting to get really annoyed at how much Patt 123's are going for on ebay- I'd love to add some to my own lighting stock, for use as proper theatre lights, but can't justify spending so much on them :(

 

You're not the only one http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/huh.gif

 

 

 

[WiLL]

Still use patt123 and 743s at my amdram group. 743s particularly are good old work horses, keep em clean and they are a really useful lantern in smaller venues because of their great beam angle.

[Gerry]

I regularly use Minims.

We are an amateur group here in Spain.

We perform in a room with a very low ceiling, so I needed some lights that are physically small, have a good beam spread and are cheap.http://s7.postimg.org/67n9cvz7f/P1010403.jpg

 

Cheers

Gerry

[gareth]

You aren't kidding about the low ceiling, are you?! Fair play, Gerry - that room's no higher than the average domestic living room, and the rig is less intrusive than some of those that I see in spaces many times the size (and a nice even coverage, too!). Nice work.

[Seano]

At risk of being a bit "me too"...

What ^^ he ^^ said. Good work Gerry. :)

[timsabre]

Do you ever get tall actors gashing their foreheads on the barn doors?

 

Personally I really like minims, and because they don't look "antique" people aren't selling them for (very) silly prices.

[vinntec]

I came across these rather clean examples of 1970s lighting in a village hall a few miles from me. Still, nice to see them being used rather than polished up as ornaments on eBay at silly prices.

Leaving aside the Patt45... Patt123's are still very useful when I come across them, especially if they have been fitted with halogen lamps or had their base converted. Not so long ago, I did Oklahoma! in a village hall using every lantern I could lay my hands on which was a real hotch potch. However four dusty old Patt 123s were retrieved from the scrapheap, repainted, rewired, tungsten lamps fitted, and barndoors borrowed from a local theatre - and they caused me a problem as they were much brighter than the newer lanterns (all of which had also been thoroughly cleaned) consisting of CCT Minuettes and Strand Preludes mostly. We only got rid of ours at the Chesil to standardise on a single lamp otherwise we might still be using them. However we do have a couple of Patt223 and Patt263 in storage but no longer in use, which we might convert for bar lighting when our extension finally gets built...

[Don Allen]

I know it seems a pity to waste light, but I use Lee Neutral Density filters to balance the light output in a rig of old lanterns. Usually if I have a mixture of 500W and 650W on the same circuit.

 

I have a stack of Minims to convert with led's into foyer lighting for community theatre. They are definitely the solution for low ceilings in Gerry's example. The minim range was designed for 300W and 500W lamps so don't cook them with 650W lamps. I ran out of profiles in my current design, which is a Shakespeare festival that ended up using 23 gobos, so I refurbished three minim 23's for gobo use.