Roscolene

[gafftapegreenia]

In my attempts to further my knowledge, and the discussion on old plots, I bring up Roscolene. From what I have been able to gather, it was the dominant gel of its day. What I find most intersting was that Roscolene had colors that are not included in the Roscolux line. What were some of the more popular colors that have "died". Rosco shows on its website that it still offers Roscolene, and it is an 800 series, but somehow I feel that its a different product under the same name. I'm going to continue my search to find one on my own, but might there anyone out there that has an old Roscolene swatchbook they would be willing to part with to allow this student of light to visualize the colors of the past?

[gafftapegreenia]

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

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My understanding, which I believe I read here somewhere, is that with the new manufacturing processes, some colors just could not accurately be reproduced, so rather then stating they had the infamous "Lighting Bolt Blue" (I made up a name so as not to imply I knew any names of colors.), designers wouldn't come back angry when the new "Lightning Bolt Blue" actually had more green than the old one, totally messing up their design.

I know there are "dead" colors it because it's been mentioned on this board several times, recently in a longer discussion we had about gel and its history. Regardless, I agree with your point about names, we all know theres little in the name of a gel itself. I also knew that the current process cannot replicate all former colors. With these facts in mind, I posed the question relating to my interesting in obtaining an old Roscolene swatchbook to experience some of those defunct colors firsthand. I'm not trying to say Rosco has done bad nor am I challenging progress, I'm just interested. I'm obsessive about lighting and its history.

[SteveB]

For reasons unknown even to me, I am not parting with my old Roscolene and Cinemoid books and I've had offers.

Seems like I'm keeping them for the express purpose of anwering questions on CB.

In any case, as I glance thru the Lene swatchbook I do see some colors that are close to, but not quite the same as Lux, Lee and GAM. But in truth I don't care as there's enough variations from the 3 modern filter range to not make me miss any of the old gels. And I certainly don't miss the smell of acetate frying in a hot light.

Some day the whole concept of "Gel's" will be looked upon with nostalgia. Or not.

SB

[gafftapegreenia]

Originally Posted by SteveB

For reasons unknown even to me, I am not parting with my old Roscolene and Cinemoid books and I've had offers.
SB

I don't blame you, for I indeed wouldn't if I had them.

[JD]

Oh Roscolene! What memories! I always loved their 827 pink (I think that was the one.) not that the color was that great, but you should have seen what the gel did when you hit it with black light! (Ghastly!!) Unfortunately, some of their really neat colors didn't hold up too well. I still have about 40 pounds of the stuff. It had a softer color shift to it. What I mean is that the Roscolux had kind of a hard blue balance, but the lene had almost a warmer look, passing a bit more green and yellow. Unfortunately, the thick low temp plastic base tended to curl up and form color blow-out areas even after one show. Using an old honey bee tool to perf it helped, but I found myself drifting to Lee, then to Lux on some colors. I loved their 847 Lavender, and the 858 blue-green! (doing these numbers from memory, so don'y hold me to them.)

[gafftapegreenia]

Thanks JD!, that's the kind of stories I'm interested in. How do you think the Lene would do on Source 4's, for instance?

[JD]

Most of what I used back in the days was 1000 Par64's with VNSP. Hot light. I think most of the color would actually hold up on modern fixtures that use heat deferral systems. Here's the thing though- Some colors did pretty well, but others were horrible! I suspect the answer to your question would be very color dependant.

[gafftapegreenia]

Interesting. I actually just remembered I found some old Lene files in the electrics shop today in the very back of a rarely opened drawer. Mostly gels in the blue, green and cyan ranges.

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by gafftapegreenia

Interesting. I actually just remembered I found some old Lene files in the electrics shop today in the very back of a rarely opened drawer. Mostly gels in the blue, green and cyan ranges.

Dude, you're working my very last brain cell! IIRC, from 1984, by memory, without any external aid, even google (gasp!):

840 was a mauve or as I recall "Smoky Pink"
827, 828 were the follies pinks
848 was the palest blue, possibly equiv. to X60
849 had more green in it
850 was (I'm cheating by looking at a 2004 Lux book) not as deep as X64.
849 was the deepest Lav
802 was the ubiquitous "Illegitamate Amber."
856 was maybe the deepest primary blue
Two colors, I want to say 828 Pink and 8xx (closest to R87) would act as what we think of today as fibre optic transfer media. The edges of the perimeter would "glow" or flouresce under ordinary incandecent light and in a frame in a fixture, well, wow. Never observed those two under UV light, but I can imagine.
Lene colors followed a progression similar to Roscolux in that lower numbers were paler and higher numbers meant more saturation, until one went over the edge of the cliff and started over with a different part of the visible spectrum. ROYGBIV and all that.
815 was an amber
820? was primary red. I know that's not right. Someone please post a link to a site listing the 800 color names and SteveB and I and many others can quickly create a Lene to Lux conversion chart. There were only 60some colors between 801 and I can't recall a number higher than 856, maybe 858. You want to talk old: Roscogel used 2xx numbers. I never saw a Brigham gel swatchbook it was dead by 1976.

I've posted before about DevonGlass 146 Blue, I erroneously called it Congo previously, being used around 1984 and in the 1996 Noise/Funk and they're still available https://grayglass.net/display/2271/0/ , but have been somewhat superceded by dichroic filters for the longest running of shows: Approx. $100US for a 10"x10" cut and color is measured in center-peak nanometers or some phraseolgy and must allow for a swing of 20 nanometers on either side of "centerline," and "dye lots" will never match. L181, Congo Blue didn't appear until 1987?
I don't think the word cyan appears in the Roscolene swatchbook. I don't recall learning the meaning if that word until color mixing moving lights came along. But I do recall trying to convince professors that the primaries of light are RGB (additive mixing) so the colors of pigment (ink) HAD to be CMY. No, No they'd say, in kindergarten you learn if you mix blue paint with yellow paint you get green paint. But I said my father's a printer and they use CMYK, maybe I had heard "cyan" but never associated with light, only printer's ink.

One final tome. Sometime in 1983, I sent this letter to Rosco Labs: "Gentlemen/Ladies, R77 is Green Blue, and R93 is Blue Green. Yet R77 falls in with the 'blues' and R93 is in the 'greens'. Shouldn't the names/numbers be the other way around?" I don't know the name of the man who wrote me back, I think it was the owner/founder. "Dear Derek, Your letter has found its way to may desk for response and has caused much consternation among the hallowed halls of our facility in Port Chester, New York. One engineer said 'the first name indicates the base, the second name, the modifier.' The next engineer said 'the first name indicates the modifier, the second indicates the base.' ... Here's one of our newly released large format "designer" swatchbooks. Thank you for writing." The designer swatchbook was a blue vinyl approx. 4"x6", sized such that IIRC one could hold a color in front of a 3.5" ERS to see the filter's impact on a colored object. The book included R05, Rose Tint, which was brand new, and described to me by my preferred theatrical supplier as "half of R33." Tastes great, less filling?

SteveB, feel free to correct me on any/all of the above. And I SO regret tossing/losing my Dura 60/70, Gelatran, Roscogel, I'm forgetting at least one unknown manufacturer, Cinemoid (tho all those color became Lee) I don't really miss any Lene colors, due to burning holes thru with T/H lamps. Roscolene and Cinemoid couldn't take the heat, so they had to get out of the kitchen. Reason was not due to dyes dying (unreproduceable); that was the reason Lux started adding the "-A" suffix. SteveB your comments about intuitely visualizing Lux and Lee without looking at a swatchbook are exactly my sentiments. Yes, Lee Filters color order makes no sense whatsoever, but I can describe the effects of 90% of the L101 thru L211 with my eyes tied behind my back. I've told KELITE (sp?) from Apollo as much, and he understands.

gafftapegreenia, go to http://www.derekleffew.com/gelhistory for more information.

[gafftapegreenia]

I remember that discussion from a while back, in fact I think I took part in it. However, thanks for the more in-depth details, gel has such an unknown history.