History of Reflectors and Optics in Theater Lighting?

[StradivariusBone]

I was revising some of my lighting intro materials and trying to expand a bit on the intro section (The Greeks used the sun, then we burned stuff, then electricity), but diving into it I realized I couldn't really pin down two seemingly ubiquitous aspects of modern theater lighting. I found one source that seemed to point to a fella named Inigo Jones as the progenitor of the reflector as used with candlelight and the stage, but I am drawing a blank with the origination of optics and theatrical lighting instruments. Beyond creating a little "How we got here" blurb, I have to admit I have developed a healthy curiosity about this.

I have found a few threads here on the booth, and I'll go ahead and send up the @ship flare, but it seems that the earliest optics arrived around electric lighting and were initially pretty basic beam shaping PC lenses. A couple of other rabbit holes pointed toward lighthouses which of course would include Augustin-Jean Fresnel, but I found that the first proposed use of a lens in a lighthouse allegedly occurred in 1759 where a spherical reflector and a PC lens could be combined with a lamp, however the proposed lens was 15' in diameter and so thick it would obfuscate most of the visible light from the source- a problem Mr. Fresnel was instrumental in solving, of course.

It's a pretty interesting read about lighthouses here.

In any event, it seems that at least in lighthouses we were using optics as early as 18th century. Found a little bit about Thomas Drummond and his version of the limelight, and that seemed to incorporate some rudimentary lenses? But it looks like he was more interested in using them for surveying. Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource that might relate information about glass and the stage?

 

[SteveB]

Go look for the video interview with David Cunningham, he describes the process of designing the S4 reflector and optics. Might be on a ETC site.

 

[JChenault]

My understanding:

When electric lights came about - the earliest fixtures were some form of 'borderlight' types fixtures. A long trough of metal with a naked bulb in it. These would typically be either long strips at the top of the stage or foot lights.

At about the same time we got olivete's ( ship has posted some pictures). Basically a box with a large lamp in it.

Next was PC's - a box with a plano convex lens and a large lamp. You could move the lamp forward and back to change the size of the beam.

Later we got a spherical reflector behind the lamp

Then we got a reflector behind the A lamp in our borderlights which made them so 'bright' thew were called X-Rays.

I believe the next innovation was the fresnel fixture. Basically a PC with a fresnel lens instead of a PC. By the way the advantage of the fresnel lens over the PC was not that light got eaten by thick glass, it was that the thick glass would break when it got hot. A fresnel lens had so much less glass it held up better. You could also cast it and make the flat surface rough so it gave you a softer edge.

The LEKO was next and introduced the idea of an elipsoidal reflector and one or two PC lenses ( or a step lens - a fresnel in reverse) with shutters.

Somewhere around there was the beam projector. An open face instrument with a parabolic reflector in the back.

Then came a new innovation in light source - the quartz or hallogen lamp. This let us make much smaller fixtures that put out a lot more light.

 

[JChenault]

For a more authorative source, you might look up Joel Rubin's collection of papers / catalogs / history which is housed at the Ohio State University. One of the collections is titled "Theatre and Lighting equipment company promotional materials 1890's - 2017'

My understanding is you have to go there in person to view the material. Might be worth a trip.

 

[ship]

Wow, you are in for a hard study and lots of time line questions. PM me and I will provide direct email for what I can provide if you want to advance history.

Rubin's collection I did not know about but read his book and many other books from others, but as with Penn State and no doubt Yale should have good resource collections. I have a large collection of books and notes also on the subject. Often books help me date fixtures in the collection. Details like the actual date of the first Fresnel left in question of was it I believe left at 1928 or 1932?

Carbon arc fixtures not mentioned by JC were a big development yet date back to the 1890's. I have one carbon arc wash with self sustaining mechinism for the arch's of the period. I have I believe the first c.1910 PC fixture which was for all intensive purposes a carbon arc light fixture modified for a 500w incandescent lamp once bromine or iodine was added to the lamp. The invention of the Bunch light c.1916 or 1910 before should be in my "Chicago Stage Lighting" catalogue somewhere on this website. Before the invention of Halogen filler, Nitrogen and Bromine fillers were great advancements about 1910 for the stage ligthing industry. It allows for the invention of higher than 100w vaccume lamps. The Bunch Light Pre-dates the scoop and Ovalitte = a bunch of 100w lamps.

Ovalitte follows the 1916 and quickly later higher wattage of incandescent lamps of both the carbon arc wash light more specifically than the bunch light by way of fixture type. I have examples of the first c.1911 ones that still had a ruby red lens in them so as to adjust the carbon arc they no longer needed also. Invention of silvered paint verses silvered high temperature reflector mirrors National X-Ray specilized in, verses about 1928 the Alzarc alumimum process were all great inventions well before dichroics.... By the way, Dichroics if I remember correctly were invented in the 1960's... A long lag time to get to the entertainment industry. Sometimes it takes time for inventions to get useful. The process of rounding a reflector inside a Ovallite frame made it possible for a scoop to be invented. Almost makes me sad in seeing one being prepped for donation in being obsolete, but at least not going to scrap like the past 100 years of history.

Then is the Prat #73 and Preveir as examples of in the first case a pre-Leko... Almost Leko, and the Preveir a PC box spot in large are smaller version c.1926 which had the capability in concept to be a Fresnel, but with PC lenses. X-Rays and Beam Projectors are a similar but different animal dating back to c1911. They were a imporvement to the main concept around 1910-1920 of basically "wash light or spotlight." X-Lights are similar to a beam projector or VNSP PAR lamp. I have a 1911 version, there is at least six still up in the attic of the Chicago Theater of the 1928 version I'm yet to get one of.

Were I in college for lighting in searching for a term paper.... Above and more research to be done on early 20th century lighting. I did some, as much as I could in even up to contacting the building Chicago Stage Lighting lights were made at without results. They are a black hole as with a brand from about the date "Madelight" from between say 1916-1928 in existing. Many details and simlar parts with Major and other companies....

I'm in semi' retirement about collecting old lighting fixtures and researching them. Should I find something on-site, I might acquire it, but less active in restoring it or the rest of the next in line hanging from the lighting grid in the garage. It's been a hard 20+ years of my buying or trading for lights, than restoring them and researching the heck out of them. Some of my past posts notate the past efforts. Hundreds of lights restored over the years, problem I ran into... nobody wants restored lights anymore. Even have two restored Shakespheres, one for the museum in finally getting one... one nobody wants a 20 degree Shakespere. Amongst other lights.

Yea, I have at the shop a very damaged from a fall c.1926 Ovalitte that amongst four other versions of, I don't have that brand. (It shows painted reflective silver paint on it's reflector, two years before when this reflectore paint was previously known to be done.... details in history.) Should take it on. Boxed up in the home garage is a 1880's arc light Magic Lantern that got hacked up to it's final version of a 60w A-lamp just kind of hanging out on a cord in the fixture.
Long story. Let me know in post or off line if I can help your research. I was honored to help a past friend of mine Nook the LD' research his PLSN article about the PAR 64.

 

[RickR]

Fires built against a rock wall are not only prehistoric, they are probably pre-sapian!

 

[microstar]

Most stage lighting textbooks use the term "Olivette" instead of "Ovalitte" for the same type of fixture. Spelling?

 

[derekleffew]

Most stage lighting textbooks use the term "Olivette" instead of "Ovalitte" for the same type of fixture. Spelling?

It's what we refer to around here as a "ship-ism."

There is not now, nor has there ever been, an "Ovalitte". Closest one can some is the oval beam Fresnels made by Kliegl Bros. (and possibly Century) in the late-1960s/early-1970s: https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/oval-beam-fresnel-fixture-notes.21662/ .

@StradivariusBone DId Serio or Sabattini use reflection/refraction?

 

[Catherder]

Fires built against a rock wall are not only prehistoric, they are probably pre-sapian!

Neanderthal cinema, if these folks are right.

Prehistoric humans turned their campfires into makeshift movie theaters

Stone Age Europeans made the earliest animated movies by placing limestone tablets engraved with animals in the flickering light of a fire, a new study suggests.

amp.cnn.com

 

[ship]

Most stage lighting textbooks use the term "Olivette" instead of "Ovalitte" for the same type of fixture. Spelling?

spelling on my part.

 

[ship]

Once almost 25 years ago, someone didn't ask to borrow my personal, at the time $200.00 Klien ratchting cable cutter so as to cut some wire rope. I found it months later hidden under a shelf. Work at least replaced the broken parts.

Found this last month, about a year since it was transported to storage.... new shop "organization", less antique display area and in general, less ready storage area in gear stored to prep for shows, gear now amongst buildings at many local locations... "But the open space concept" was done in exchange for efficiency. Nobody told me that the top gel frame of the wooden poplar "home built" bunch light, based on Fuch's 1928 chapter 7, "Design and Construction of Home-Built Equipment for Amateur Use" had broken in transport to the other remote building.

Gorilla Glue fix on my part should work. Shows a lack of respect and knowledge in general. I have no idea of how many hours it took me to make this light. Those that transported it, in working for a lighting company, had no idea about it's historic importance.
Just yesterday, I told someone where to find the battery drawer - under the Fresnel on the cabinet. He kept searching and searching for it.... No idea on his part, of what a Fresnel was apppirent in having to help him find the battery drawer and teach about what Fresnel as a concept is. This is a Fresnel!

When the bunch light was in the shop, and on lighting museum tours, I used to ask those on tour.. What do you think this light is called? Bunch light'. Because before 1910, the invention of broimine etc. in lamps. allowed for a other than vaccum tube lamp maxing out at 100 watts. 1910 was a big thing for stage lighting over halogen as invented before 1964, but most known for. Bunch light literally a bunch of lights to make the "ovalitte" become the primary wash light over a carbon arc version. Carbon arc PC and Ovalitte's were in 1910/11 made incandescent out of carbon arc fixture frames. Some holes not drilled, inspection lenses still there etc. Than after that the Alzark process c.1928 (I think possibly in my home town) which later made the ovalitte into a scoop that these days we are recycling in obsolete.
What you might research up will surely be very interesting for those that have also researched the subject. What would be incredible would be research the next generation would read... lost history unless conveyed. Any help I can give in your research...

 

[StradivariusBone]

@StradivariusBone DId Serio or Sabattini use reflection/refraction?

Sabattini I am aware of, but I admit ignorance about Serio. The former's era is more toward where my curiosity is going. So much of the surface level information I've found on lighting history tends to gloss over the Pre-Renaissance up thru Romantic and then once electricity gets involved there is an explosion of technology. I just find it odd that we'd have a span of history last several hundred years of just using candles and lamps and not really experimenting with it. Knowing theater people, I can't imagine that period being that uneventful. But maybe like Ship's bunch light, the old stuff gets underappreciated by the next generations?

I guess it makes sense logically that experimentation with reflectors and optics would advance parallel to the improvements in brightness of the source. But I just wonder how prolific the use of optics were prior to the carbon arc? It's purely for personal interest, and I appreciate the rabbit holes to pursue!

 

[RickR]

You might dig further into gas lamps. I've often heard that lighting took a step backwards from gas to electricity. And that there were valve consoles comparable to early dimmers. Sorry no sources come to mind.

Considering the size of candle flames I'm not surprised optics were primitive. Gas mantles and early filaments were even larger. Arc sources were a new world of power: size ratios.

 

[ship]

Jones Indico Jones https://www.britannica.com/biography/Inigo-Jones to look into. @StradivariusBone DId Serio or Sabattini use reflection/refraction? I have not studied the subject in years and have no idea.

And there is the Fortney (sp) system age approitate, say 1880'-1920's I think changes in lighting in this conversation in how to gel or color. Might have mentioned it in correct spelling on this website years ago somewhere on the website. Sorry my books are in in the very cold attic, but it was based on bouncing lighting off some silk strands of cloth on different pipes for rigging so as to reflect down some amazing effect in color this bounced light. This also will have diffused the PC hard edges of the lights.

Got a Wow! recently, some surviving wooden gel frames and gel from almost 100 years ago. They might fit into some of my 1916-1928 "Ovalitte" fixtures... Think I have all but the one in style of "Ovalitte" that got the Alzark spun alumum insert. The gel in the frame is cracked, but if anyone wants a part of it to send to a school lab in finding out what the gel was really was made out of.... contact me off line. Wooden gel frames are very rare and other old accesories are very hard to find.

Years ago, I acquired a lot of Sciopticon accessories and other PC fixture accessories for PC fixtures from c.1911. Believe seven of them including one hand punched oiled fiber material star wheel which my guys by mistake thru out at one point and I will never let them forget. Imagine a cloud wheel where it's not plugged in, it's run on a clock spring mechanism. Speed of is regulated by way of it's adjustable brass sail fins within the mechanism.
Concept and how such a think works is like Steam Punk wet .... Add to it the optical lens as somewhere in CB Wikki of the optical system Season 1916-1917 Chicago Stage Lighting Co catalogue (somewhere in pdf form on CB Wikki) that not just references early lighting, and details about the owner of this catalogue. - I have both types of optical lenses on display, Magic in the theater was possible way back 100+ years ago.


Such a subject, I think really cool. Cool enough back than when I bought the accessories, I was faced with a problem. I bought accessories and parts includng front and rear castings to 1920's eara lghts. Fixtures missing a lot of parts. I could purchase a lot more old lights so as to display the accessories, and would want to display them also, or given I already had to fabricate missing parts to a bulk of old lighting parts I had on hand, I set up plywood jigs to make replacement parts and had fab shop at work help me with various weldngs. Spent a summer literally hand stamping out with foot and small sledge hammer inventing modern old fixtures - that work, so as to display the accessories. Based on a c.1926 or so Major 6" PC fixture, I made six or seven lights over the period of a summer, so as to mount the accessories.

Such work has helped me over the years including currently.... need to fit three PAR 64 lamps into a 2Kw Mole Mole Beam projector.... Can do. Don't want to make the modification, and expressed my concernes. But well onto that project now. Want to make a 1K Altman studio Fresnel into a 75w fixture reading lamp... Can do with a few hours, and can go back easily.

In my case, study of lamps, study of history of lighting, and how such things were made or how they were made
has not just helped on incandescent lighting or prop light projects. The base of knowledge helps on LED projects. Optics etc. Many projects.... Old study is never obsolete, Suddenly PAR cans come back after we sold them all off. Beam Porjectors came back, after long gone. Making a 10Kw studio Fresnel into a 1K Fresnel or more modern them and 5K versions into LED or moving light prop lights all goes back for me into optics etc.

Good thing in history to study, much less in loosing one of mentors in the industry from the 50', Clyde Foster his loss as a source of knowledge is gone now. What I learned from him was both good and bad in a way of accepting current ways, but not enough the good of what he lived thru and helped advance. Clyde passed on a lot to me, not enough I was ready to learn about sufficient for my want to know yet or understand. That darned PC fixture lighting the pinrail. I own it now and did rewire it. It used to spark the grid if you mis-wired it.... Part of why he didn't other than accept that problem. I digress about someone that knew the history of a lot, I didn't spend enough time with in now lost.