When I was on tour with the musical Chicago, decades ago, I got to operate the very, very old and original follow spots at the Shea's Theater in Buffalo (pre-renovation).
Made by
Hall and Connolly, they were a lime green
carbon arc, whose carbon rods were about 1/2" in diameter (as opposed to 1/4" for Super Troupers). These units were set up with positive rods feeding from the bottom on a diagonal (same as the carbon Strong Gladiators), with crank feeds to override the DC motors. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire
unit was DC. The color frame assembly was a
hand made wood box mounted on the front of the
unit, with 6 rectangular wooden color frames that slid in to place via a string on a horizontal slider arrangement - similar to an Abacus. The
iris and dowsers were wooden handled and the entire
unit could be operated from either left side or right side. A great light !.
Next in
line for cool early gear I got to use was the first generation of Strand-Century (US) computer lighting consoles - the Multi-Q and Micro-Q. This is the generation just prior to Light Pallette. The Multi-Q used 8" floppy disks.
We only recently stopped using our Strong carbon Super Troupers in 2001. They just got donated to a theater in Staten Island (NYC). Replaced with
Lycian 3kw xenons. MUCH better
unit, the
Lycian !.
Still in use is the very first generation of Strand-Century double ended, quartz
halogen ground rows. Originally configured for glass
color media with 1" horizontal strips, in soldered together aluminum frames, that came in Red, Blue and Green. Very low
profile. Eats color !.
Steve Bailey
Brooklyn College
Some notes about
Hall and Connolly spotlights:
>> I saw your pages devoted to
Hall & Connolly lamps, and thought I'd offer my own two cents worth. I have a very extensive background with
carbon arc equipment- I'm 58 and worked worked as a
projector mechanic when I was younger. Most of the machines we serviced still used arc lamps at that time. In some of the larger New York area theaters it was not unusual to see
Hall & Connolly spotlights still sitting up in the projection booth, from the days of live
stage shows presented before the film. The previous edition of Madison Square Garden was equipped with
Hall & Connolly spotlights. They were always of great interest to me, and I began collecting them from whichever theaters would part with them. Today I have 5 or six of them sitting around, in various condition.
>> A couple of comments about the history of the company: although
Hall & Connolly did use a burner that had Sperry patents, Sperry never owned the company. The Sperry burner was also used in searchlights, in a different configuration. And by the way, the term "high
intensity" does NOT refer to the brightness of
>> these lamps, although they certainly are radically brighter than low
intensity arc lamps. It refers instead to the
current density relative to the size of the carbon. High
intensity carbons are also of a different chemical makeup than low
intensity. The high
intensity carbon arc was discovered by a
German scientist named Heinrich Beck, and operates under different principles than the low
intensity arcs it superseded.
Hall & Connolly started in New York, and made lamp houses for film projection as well as spotlights. They were eventually acquired by J.E. McAuley Mfg in Chicago, maybe best known as the manufacturer of the Peerless Magnarc- a
projector lamp. After buying H &C, McAuley offered a
condenser style
projector lamp called the HyCandescent, which was clearly a reference to H&C. The very largest screens needed that kind of light output, and so the "HyCan" was often used in houses like Radio City and Loews Paradise. McAuley was eventually bought by Strong
Electric. Strong used to advertise a variable focus
lens on their spotlights. They'd inherited that from
Hall & Connolly. The light output of a
Hall & Connolly spotlight in good condition certainly exceeds that of a
carbon arc Super Trouper. While the
Super Trouper lamp was a high
intensity lamp, it was only a small one, a 1KW
projector lamp modified for spotlight use. In the world of film projection, the 1KW lamp was the smallest thing useable in a movie theater in terms of what it could do to illuminate a
screen.It used a 7mm positive carbon and operated at 42 amps at about 29 volts.
>> The
Hall & Connolly in it's most common configuration used a 13.6mm positive burning at 125amps at about 75 volts.
>> Efficiency of light collection notwithstanding, there's no substitute for cubic inches.
>>
>> Peter Askin