Printed Gel??
- Thread starterApolloDesign
- Start date
Joel N
Member
Rick,
You cannot patent a color, you can trade mark a name and you can patent a unique process. We don't believe this unique enough to go for a patent and that is why we are asking the market.
@Amiers @Joel N Me too? Decades ago, in another life time, it was popular for a television series to shoot in our largely glass four level lobby. Normally they shot live to 2" quad but, a couple of times a year, live to air as well as recording. Whenever they were coming in, four of us would be called four hours early to tape large rolls of color corrector all over the windows. After enough hanging and re-rolling, the rolls would need replacement due to handling and edge damage.
To the question:
Other than theater, film and television / video / still photography, who else purchases gel?
Are high end home designers using neutral densities to minimize sun damage to high end furnishings and / or color a room during day light hours?
Only once in my life can I recall installing color correction in an industrial application. A large scale printed circuit board production facility moved into an industrial mall where all of the units featured large, flat, skylights. The films used were specified by someone from the building interior design community and were products of 3M or possibly General Electric. Very dense neutral density products were applied in the rooms where they were doing large scale photo etching of PCB's (Envision 20' x 40' pools of chemicals and rinse baths) with less dense similar products in areas where rows of ladies hand-stuffed and soldered boards. All boards were hand-stuffed. Larger runs were wave-soldered with smaller runs hand-soldered. [They were producing quantities of custom PCB's largely for the automotive industry, Ford dashboards were one example I recall.]
It's the only time I can recall installing what amounted to gel in a building without a stage door.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
With some of the ridiculous patents have that been issued in the last 10-15 years I would absolutely go for a patent. Ford recently got a patent for it's windshields. There's a patent troll company out there who got their hands on a patent for storing computer files in folders and is trying to sue people for that. Color Kinetics got several rather crazy patents about 10 years ago including something ridiculous like blending colors with LED light. I remember people at LDI that year joking about how Color Kinetics was trying to patent the ability to create light.
I say get the patent if you can. If not for your own advantage, at least to protect yourself from someone else getting the patent.
RickR
Well-Known Member
I only ask the patent question because I am not a lawyer. Much of this discussion is stuff any firm larger than a dozen employees would likely have thought of themselves. But airing them in a friendly forum is a good idea anyway.
I was thinking about complex color issues and where gel can solve some. Comparatively all incandescents have the same SPD (spectral power distribution), a smooth curve from end to end with slightly different slopes between different sources. Part of why fluorescent never really replaced incandescent is the ragged SPD curves from phosphors. And that they vary widely between phosphors, brands, tube types, etc. White LEDs are currently phosphor based but the 'blue pump' source is a huge component of any SPD. Now they are talking purple pump and a hundred other schemes. Can the new process generate a filter that will accurately match a competitors look but from an LED/ FL/ OLED/ laser LED source?
A custom filter with far more than CMY options could be a great tool. 7-12 points of filtration would be my preference. Then custom color takes on a whole new range of possibilities.
I was thinking about complex color issues and where gel can solve some. Comparatively all incandescents have the same SPD (spectral power distribution), a smooth curve from end to end with slightly different slopes between different sources. Part of why fluorescent never really replaced incandescent is the ragged SPD curves from phosphors. And that they vary widely between phosphors, brands, tube types, etc. White LEDs are currently phosphor based but the 'blue pump' source is a huge component of any SPD. Now they are talking purple pump and a hundred other schemes. Can the new process generate a filter that will accurately match a competitors look but from an LED/ FL/ OLED/ laser LED source?
A custom filter with far more than CMY options could be a great tool. 7-12 points of filtration would be my preference. Then custom color takes on a whole new range of possibilities.
As in, "Hello I would like a custom Gel for a Chauvet Ovation E-260WW IP that Matches Lee 706 please."
Apollo then calls up a profile with the exact physical characteristics of the white only LED source in that fixture and prints a gel that matches it as closely as possible to an incandescent fixture with LEE 706.
This leads us back to a mind blowing discussion I had with a friend at USITT last year of what is a color these days? How do we define Blue when there are so many types of emitters creating so many variations of blue or you have the issues of LED "white" with a gel in front of it. If this Apollo technology could measure a standard of say an ETC Source 4 with an HPL 575 lamp, and then do the physics to match LED fixtures to it. We would have a very cool solution, that could never be handled by stock gel colors.
@ApolloDesign @gafftaper @Ric @RickR @Amiers And old fogies who remember the "Source Four with HPL 575's" would be pleased but what about all of the younger crowd who've neither experienced nor remember incandescent sources and the joys of amber shift?
I'm still hoping to hear answers to two other queries:
1; Who else is purchasing gel other than buildings with stage doors?
2; Will this new process produce products with one-way stretch and will this be achieved by the printing or the choice of substrate?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
May I throw a Spaniard in the works?(that's a John Lennon joke) Which HPL 575, long life or regular, which voltage, operated at what voltage????? Then you can throw in some older ERS with the green lenses. Then how about the designers trying to recreate a production from long ago and matching those colors with the fixtures in use back then, what color temperature was an Olivette? Could this process recreate those long ago Brigham and Roscogel colors which have been long gone. Schubert Pink anyone? Then say I want the look of Cinemoid #8 in a carbon arc supertrouper but for a RJ Topaze. OK, I'll shut up for now.
RickR
Well-Known Member
Well those kids will just have to learn about color. They will have a mish-mash of "old" LEDs that have gone through 60-80% of life and had their own color shift and fade out. You know, those fixtures that were promised to never burn out!
Us fogies had to deal with it and they may too. But wouldn't it be nice to have a gel that could 'normalize' things a bit more precisely than just CTO or Minus Green?
Us fogies had to deal with it and they may too. But wouldn't it be nice to have a gel that could 'normalize' things a bit more precisely than just CTO or Minus Green?
@JohnD Was your Olivette incandescent or arc? Surely not an old gas-fired one?
Long ago, when I first became involved with a local amateur group, they had a collection of about a dozen and a half square and rectangular Olivettes, mostly with Mogul screw sockets and 300, 500 and 1Kw incandescent lamps. They were suspended via dual hanging chains, were fitted with single conductor asbestos wiring and 2 pole, non-grounded, fiber stage-pin connectors.
On the plus side: They had dual frame slots and protective mesh screens. You'd have loved them.
I modified one to make a great Linnebach projector for a production of "Waiting For The Parade." It was a fabulous effect rear projecting shadows of the troops marching home from war. The effect was used early in the production and the shadows appeared to be men marching home with their long guns over their shoulders. The actresses were actually marching up stage towards the Linnebach thus with their silhouettes increasing in size on the sky drop. In the oh so brief snap black out; the sky cloth flew, the actresses doffed their helmets and flat wooden guns, spun to face downstage and were revealed as the four waiting wives marching towards the audience as the scene lighting came up. It was a great effect and a slick opening to the production.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
theatricalmatt
Well-Known Member
A friend of mine works in early childhood education, and they use gel quite a bit for creative play with the children. Often shows up during light play (kids love light boxes, go figure) but also making art. It's great giving her the odd scraps of gel after a light hang.
Amiers
Renting to Corporate One Fixture at a Time.
@RonHebbard Im not that old.....
But yes fighting a 575 , X , LL all in the same hang is no bueno. Been there done that and it’s always the fixtures that are the hardest to get to.
But yes fighting a 575 , X , LL all in the same hang is no bueno. Been there done that and it’s always the fixtures that are the hardest to get to.
My local theater shop had to put all the gel swatch books behind the counter for a while when "Scrapbooking" hit it's high point a couple years ago. The local scrapbookers found out about free gel books and were taking them all!
Dinshah Color Therapy.
Short story time: In the 1980s, I sold Roscolene to disciples of this "cult." I never asked them what color they thought I needed, but I suspect they'd say 828.
@derekleffew I'd never thought of you as a salesman and still have a little trouble wrapping my mind around it.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
If you can hit Rosco, Lee, and Gam colors perfectly along with your own then this could be interesting. I'm a road house so I'm not really interested in custom colors. We have a large color room and stock pretty much all rosco and lee colors already... I'd be really wary of bringing in anything that is "different" into our stock. I stopped buying color completely from Production Advantage because of the Rosco E-Color subs for Lee. (No, its not the same, don't pretend it is.)
You guys know your sales numbers and who your current color media customer is. If this is a way for you to open up new markets go for it. I know you guys don't have much of a foothold in the world that I am in, if other professional areas are similar to the dance and R&R touring world I would say you have nothing to lose, give it a run.
The custom color thing is interesting, but I'm not sure how many people will want to jump through the hoops to deal with it. Before I bought a lot of a custom color I'd want to try a small batch first... and I'd probably want to try a few.... which means more lead time... which means I need more time to get that all together.
Like I said before, I don't care how you make your color. If you want to play the angle that no one will be making color in 5 years so you can then become the one supplier that is an interesting idea that might play out well for you.
You guys know your sales numbers and who your current color media customer is. If this is a way for you to open up new markets go for it. I know you guys don't have much of a foothold in the world that I am in, if other professional areas are similar to the dance and R&R touring world I would say you have nothing to lose, give it a run.
The custom color thing is interesting, but I'm not sure how many people will want to jump through the hoops to deal with it. Before I bought a lot of a custom color I'd want to try a small batch first... and I'd probably want to try a few.... which means more lead time... which means I need more time to get that all together.
Like I said before, I don't care how you make your color. If you want to play the angle that no one will be making color in 5 years so you can then become the one supplier that is an interesting idea that might play out well for you.
Printing the cut pattern on the gel (customer specified)?
