Just like the sun ...back in the '70's-'80's my buddy's parents owned a drive-in movie theater and had carbon arc projectors ... I learned a little bit about them they have better light then the bulbs they use today. The mirror in the back of the projector is very expensive I remember Ted telling me about $1,000. Bak then to reflect the light to the film .. The light is just like the sun burn your eyes that have the dark green glass window to adjust the arc ...
@@peterrivney552 Fantastic --- back then you needed those big arcs to light up those big screens... movies are so clinical now.. too clean.. cold... no emotion..
@@12gauge_shawtyy UV rays can be filtered out without degrading the quality with a piece of the right type of glass, and the actors can also stand further away or a smaller lamp can be used, the reason we don't use this type of lighting anymore is because they're inefficient and operation isn't nearly as trivial or as fire safe as any of the alternatives
@@12gauge_shawtyyYou might be forgetting they are both there voluntarily and compensated quite well for their "experience" with the light. They all would tell you "hot!" but notice you never really heard of anyone actually truly complaining about them. It was part of the game.
When you hear the term "lights, camera, action", that dates back to the earlier days of filmmaking when these lights were not turned on until just before the camera was ready to roll. As you can hear the guy in the video say the carbon rods only last for a certain limited amount of time so they tried to minimize the amount of time they were burning when the camera wasn't rolling. In those days you had one man per light so that they could quickly turn them on and shoot and then shut them off. These days lighting crews are a lot smaller because modern lights don't need the kind of constant attention, reloading, and adjusting that the arc lights did. A good carbon arc operator could adjust the speed at which the worm drive fed in the carbon rod so that it burned most efficiently and maintained proper spark gap during the burning process. having the carbons contact each other or feed too slowly until the gap was too big would negatively affect the quality of light.
During a wide-ranging interview that celebrated the 30th anniversary of "Home Alone," Columbus told Insider that he had heard about Rogen and Evans thinking "Angels with Filthy Souls" is real. And he has a theory on why it's tricked so many moviewatchers. "'Home Alone' is one of the last films shot with an old carbon-arc lighting system that was popular back in the 1940s through 1960s for Technicolor films," the director explained. "That means you have to put a carbon piece of charcoal into each lamp and it creates a warmer and richer light to shoot." Columbus said the movie's cinematographer, Julia Macat, insisted on doing the lighting this way for the entire film. The result is that "Home Alone" has a warm and rich look, perfect for a holiday movie - and when you're trying to imitate the look and feel of an old movie. "We also shot the 'Angels with Filthy Souls' scene the same way," Columbus said. "That richness of black and white made it look like a movie from that era and I think that's why some people think it's a real movie."
I saw these in big studio set ups on a film in the 1990's. The light is amazing but changing out the rods is risky business. With today's OH&S laws these old lighting beasts would be seen as being too dangerous.
Just found a second carbon rod made by General Electric Company here in the woods, they must date back to WW2 and were used in one of these carbon arc lights I assume; there was a lot going on here during WW2 where we live.Thanks for the video!
when I was a kid my dad ran ww2 searchlights with the generator mounted all on a trailer at car shows and events, , each searchlight is on its own trailer with generator ,that you tow with a truck , the rods came in a square tin cans , I remember listening to the generators for hours , I wonder what happened to them searchlights after the guy that owned them passed , prolly all scrapped out , I have never seen one scene
now , imagine you are on a set , in a costume (godzilla for example ) and these lights are on a catwalk over head. doing take after take after take with these things running. they said that the godzilla suit operator could only do his stint for minutes at a time because of these lights .
A ingenious mechanic jig permits to mantain an ideal shift of distance on carbon contacts as long as the material is progressivily left by the voltaic arc that is transformed into light...
Cinema projectors were arc lights, in my state projectioners had to have a licence. Even teachers showing movies in class had to have a licence. I think that was to reduce fires, perhaps also from the hot bulbs that were used. I don’t know if a licence is still required today. Apparently the training was not hard.
Haven’t seen one used for quite a few years now. The last time was at St. Pancras station in London before it was converted for Eurostar; don’t know what the production was. I think it’s all HMIs now.
These lights are mostly from before my time. Ive seen the rise of HMIs, and kino flos and now LED. Guys that could operate, change out carbons and properly adjust these beasties are a sying breed. I ran a carbon arc spot once, ONCE. They give out a quality of light that you just dont see today
I recently owned a Siemens-Schuckert carbon arc spot from around 1911 It is in a beautiful state of preservation and I'm curious whether it would still work.
These lamps can take an EMP spike in the grid in case of Carrington event or Miyake event ( solar CME in X10+ class Google it) or Nuke generated EMP ( if grid do not have weak spots like semiconductor bridges, thyristor/ igbt regulators, computers to control it instead of them analog bulb mercury thyrathron regulators....) .... Same to old mercury high pressure or sodium high pressure bulbs in hich dor short time seconds of o minutes support a 200% power spike! LED ( semiconductors ) cannot withstand those surges ( are even ESD sensitive that requires gloves and ESD decoupling)... Also electronics behind is sensitive to overheating ( Ecuator heat, +38°C >> ) or cold ( freezing under -20°C )
I'm coming from Joe Bob Briggs and The Last Drive-in where Michael Berryman is describing the difference in filming with Carbon Arc Lighting on the set of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest to 16mm out in the desert with Wes Craven on the set of The Hills Have Eyes
@@TheFalseShepphard Think about it they had a light source that had pure daylight color from the 1870s. How long did it take us to get back to that point? With high output halogens and HIDs and LEDs? The main issue with Arc lamps is the heat and also power consumption. But they are a superior form and color of light. And when you're talking about film and photography you generally need a hell of a lot more light than the human eye needs to have it come out right on film. Of course all of this has changed relatively recently.
Is that a Mole Richardson? Haven’t seen one in use for probably about 25 years. I think the last rime was at St. Pancras station in London before it was converted for Eurostar. Can’t remember what the production was but they were using several of them, and one of the operators let me strike the arc. Great lamps, pity it all seems to be HMIs these days.
Voltage on the arc after the ballast resistor is typically about 25 Volts. 125 Amps at 24 volts is about 3KW of light and heat from the arc. Movie projectors for the big screen typically ran 60 Amps. Searchlights would run close to 180 Amps.
Dude's understanding of the electrical aspect of it is weak at best, but enough clues are there. The ballast box is dropping almost as much as the arc. So all told actual supply and dissipation is about twice that lol
@@isettechI don't know which set of numbers is correct but given the generator for that unit was given as 120V DC in another video, and ~70V at the output of the ballast resistor box, he is almost certainly referring to a struck voltage at the output, as the reading with the arc extinguished would be as if open circuit, simply passing through a low value resistance (sub ohm range), and would be whatever the nominal 120V the genset has available on a meter. That said, it doesn't make sense from a design (efficiency!) standpoint to run 120V in, only to lose 95 of it in the ballast. ~50/50 as given in the videos is bad enough but necessary... 80% loss, combined with the inefficient nature of a broad spectrum source (heavy in IR and UV, useless to the eye)... you'd feed it nothing but diesel and get abysmal visible light out of it for what goes in. I don't know for sure, never messed with a real arc lamp such as in the video, but from an electrical design consideration standpoint, I gotta go with the higher numbers in the videos.
Great demo, sir! Thanks for this video. Good question by the guy how long does it take to warm up. Carbons are instant warm, vs. HMI lamps take a little bit to warm up and get to color temperature. Definitely more cool mechanically than a 12K HMI. haha! I wonder if the light quality is better with this brute arc than with a 12 or 18K HMI?
The arc is struck with a lever that just brings the carbon electrodes together them releases them back to the distance they're set at. The wheels are for adjusting the electrodes. You see one spinning because as they burn they get burned away so need to be continuously kept the same distance apart and that's done automatically so they're basically constantly being brought closer together. The positive one burns 3x faster than the negetive as he noted. The wheel you see spinning is probably for the positive one.
@@CeruleanFilms I meant to make that comment also a totally get what you mean about the shape of it and how it looks similar to one of those boilers. Hope you have a wonderful day
There is actually a thing, carbon arc gouging... the only difference is a jet of compressed air to blow away the slag/metal. You can buy carbon electrodes at the welding store. ICWeld channel is the king of this.
@@scowell there is also CAW Carbon Arc Welding.....CAC carbon arc cutting is very loud, but it will cut any metal that will conduct electricity...it was invented to cut armor plate on ships in WWII
@@scowell the [CAC] Carbon Arc Cutting process needs about 35 volts or more to run properly...so not all welding machines can CAC. they are a blast to use though, they throw molten metal 35 or 50 feet away......a standard Constant Current machine which is used for Plasma welding, shielded metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding along with submerged arc welding is used, A constant voltage machine used for gas metal arc welding [mig] is not used.you can CAC with AC or DC Constant Current Machines.
16 volts 135 amps? isn't that only 2kW? A 2kW tungsten couldn't compete with daylight like this; are carbon arcs super efficient or something? What's the wattage on this thing?
@@shacoclone3299 I think he said that was the open-circuit voltage, which drops quite a bit after the arc is struck. There is also a voltage drop across the ballast resistor.
