Mole-Richardson

Last updated

Mole-Richardson, also known as Mole, is an American stage lighting instrument and motion picture lighting manufacturing company originally based in Hollywood, California. The company was started in 1927 by Italian immigrant Pietro "Peter" Mule (changed to Mole). Born November 10, 1891, in the Italian town of Termini Imerese, Sicily, he first worked for General Electric (GE) in New York.

In 1927 he began selling incandescent tungsten lighting to the film industry, which allowed a more natural lighting than the previous arc lights. The new lights were also silent, an advantage for the new sound films. [1]

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]

During World War II, Mole-Richardson concentrated their efforts on developing searchlights for battleships, tanks and artillery units to aid the Allied Forces' battle in Europe and the Pacific. In 1945, Peter Mole was invited to light the first United Nations conference held in San Francisco.[ citation needed ]

Peter Mole died on August 2, 1960, very suddenly. His son-in-law, Warren Parker, took over the company. Mole-Richardson Company LLC is now run by Michael Parker, one of Warren Parker's four sons and grandson of Peter Mole.

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 (Hydrargyrum Medium-arc Iodide) day-light lighting units. Their lighting is generally recognized by their maroon coloring and "MR" logos.

In August 2015, the company moved to Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. [3]

In July 2021 the company moved to Sylmar, CA. 15148 Bledsoe St. Unit A, Sylmar, CA 91342.

Related Research Articles

Film stock Medium used for recording motion pictures

Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film. The emulsion will gradually darken if left exposed to light, but the process is too slow and incomplete to be of any practical use. Instead, a very short exposure to the image formed by a camera lens is used to produce only a very slight chemical change, proportional to the amount of light absorbed by each crystal. This creates an invisible latent image in the emulsion, which can be chemically developed into a visible photograph. In addition to visible light, all films are sensitive to X-rays and high-energy particles. Most are at least slightly sensitive to invisible ultraviolet (UV) light. Some special-purpose films are sensitive into the infrared (IR) region of the spectrum.

Mole may refer to:

Stage lighting Craft of lighting at performances

Stage lighting is the craft of lighting as it applies to the production of theater, dance, opera, and other performance arts. Several different types of stage lighting instruments are used in this discipline. In addition to basic lighting, modern stage lighting can also include special effects, such as lasers and fog machines. People who work on stage lighting are commonly referred to as lighting technicians or lighting designers.

Incandescent light bulb Electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows

An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation. Current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections.

Fresnel lens Compact composite lens

A Fresnel lens is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships."

Arc lamp

An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc.

San Fernando, California City in California, United States

San Fernando is a city in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is bordered on all sides by the City of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census the population of San Fernando was 23,645.

Klieg light

A Klieg light is an intense carbon arc lamp especially used in filmmaking. It is named after inventor John Kliegl and his brother Anton Kliegl. Klieg lights usually have a Fresnel lens with a spherical reflector or an ellipsoidal reflector with a lens train containing two plano-convex lenses or a single step lens.

Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamp

Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide (HMI) is the trademark name of Osram's brand of metal-halide gas discharge medium arc-length lamp, made specifically for film and entertainment applications. Hydrargyrum comes from the Greek name for the element mercury.

Balloon light

Balloon lights are a specialized type of luminaire used primarily for lighting in the motion picture industry, night highway construction, incident management, and public security applications such as police checkpoints. These luminaires typically consist of one or more high-intensity lamps surrounded by a translucent fabric balloon. The balloon acts as a diffuser to soften and disperse the light. The upper portion of the balloon sometimes has a reflective inner coating to direct more of the light downward. Some commercial products use a blower to expand the balloon, while others have an umbrella-like internal wire frame. The device is essentially an industrial version of a Japanese paper lantern.

Solid-state lighting

Solid-state lighting (SSL) is a type of lighting that uses semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), or polymer light-emitting diodes (PLED) as sources of illumination rather than electrical filaments, plasma, or gas.

Tungsten film is photographic film designed to accurately represent colors as perceived by humans under tungsten light; the more usual color films are "daylight films", balanced to produce accurate colours under direct light from the sun or electronic flash. Tungsten film was developed for photographers who use tungsten lights, also known as photofloods, which have a much lower color temperature than daylight, at 3200 kelvins or 3400 kelvins. It also renders colors more accurately than daylight film under ordinary household incandescent lighting.

Stage lighting instrument

Stage lighting instruments are used in stage lighting to illuminate theatrical productions, concerts, and other performances taking place in live performance venues. They are also used to light television studios and sound stages.

Source Four

The Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) Source Four is an ellipsoidal reflector spotlight (ERS) used in stage lighting. First released in 1992, the Source Four was invented by David Cunningham and features an improved lamp and reflector compared to previous ERS designs, tool-free lamp adjustment, and a rotating, interchangeable shutter barrel. The Source Four is widely used by professional theaters across the globe.

A colour scroller or colour changer is an electro-mechanical lighting accessory used in theater, film, dance and concerts to change the colour projected by stage lighting instruments without the need of a person to be in the vicinity of the light. A colour scroller moves plastic "gel" colour gel [actually dyed polyester and/or other base materials coated with dyes] into the beam of the light. It is generally attached to the gel frame holder at the transmitting end of a lighting fixture, so colour is introduced after the beam characteristics have been defined by the optics of the lighting instrument. Most scrollers are controlled via DMX512 protocol, but some models also utilize the RDM protocol. When colour scrollers were first introduced around 1980, a number of companies produced them, including: Avolites, GAM Products, Morpheus Lights, Rainbow, Rosco Laboratories and Wybron Inc. Now the main manufacturers are: A.C. Lighting, Apollo, Morpheus Lights and Rainbow.

American Film Manufacturing Company

The American Film Manufacturing Company, also known as Flying “A” Studios, was an American motion picture production company. In 1915, the formal name was changed to the American Film Company.

Articles related to the field of motion pictures include:

Kliegl Brothers Universal Electric Stage Lighting Company

Kliegl Brothers Universal Electric Stage Lighting Company was an American manufacturer of electrical stage lighting products in the 20th century. The company had a significant influence in the development of theatrical, cinema, television, and specialty lighting. It equipped many major performing venues in the United States and its products were used in several other countries as well. Their eponymous product, the Klieglight, was the trade name for two quite different production lights manufactured by the company, and survives today in both industry argot and in popular idiom as a synonym for "spotlight" or "center of attention".

Kino Flo is a manufacturer of professional LED-based lighting equipment for cinema and television and production. Located in Burbank, California, Kino Flo is best known for developing proprietary LEDs based on a color science technology that ensures color quality for lighting both close-ups and on large studio spaces. In 1995 Kino Flo earned a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for developing cool, tube-based arrays with color-correct tungsten and daylight balanced light that "changed the way motion picture movies are made," according to the academy.

Aputure Company producing lighting fixtures etc. for the film industry

Aputure is a global designer and manufacturer of cinema lighting fixtures, light-shaping accessories and lighting software. Its products are used in studio and on location film sets along with in photography and live production.

References

  1. Hollywood Glamour: Sex, Power, and Photography, 1925--1939. ProQuest. 2008. pp. 130–. ISBN   978-0-549-60639-0.
  2. Richard W. Kroon (30 April 2014). A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms. McFarland. p. 425. ISBN   978-0-7864-5740-3.
  3. "WE'RE MOVING!Mole-Richardson Co.12154 Montague St.Pacoima, CA 91331". Mole-Richardson Company. August 11, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2017.