As a film lighting history guy, I was interested in tungsten lights from Mole Richardson Company. When we traveled to Los Angeles recently, I checked out their set lights on display. Some date back to 1930.
According to their Wikipedia page, “Mole-Richardson invented the Fresnel Solar Spot unit in 1935, adapting the fresnel lighthouse lens for use in motion pictures. It won the first of four technical Academy Awards the company has earned.[2]\”
Their Wikipedia page continues, “Mole-Richardson is considered by many to be the staple of motion picture and television lighting in the movie industry today, setting the standard for tungsten fresnel fixtures. However, they do also manufacture HMI day-light lighting units. Their lighting is generally recognized by their maroon coloring and ‘MR’ logos.”
And then to my surprise, when I traveled to B&H Photo Video Pro Audio in NYC we saw some iconic Mole-Richardson Company 4K ZIP lights for sale.
Enjoy this walk down the memory lane of Tungsten lighting.