House Power Lighting Package

I am getting ready to add some units to my 3-ton grip and lighting package, and I wanted to pose a question to this august body, who by the way helped very much with my questions concerning my recent shoot in Chile. Thank you again.

The Arrisun 12 has been the workhorse of my "house power" package, and I am looking to add equivalent units, but would like to save some space over the rather large Arri heads.

Do any of you have experience with the Joker 1200's or any other 1200 watt unit that would be as robust as the Arri, but have a smaller profile with equal punch?

I would prefer units with the single-ended lamp base, but not true PAR's. Your thoughts, as always, are most appreciated.

Steve Staley
DoP
Louisville, KY

Steve Staley writes :

>The Arrisun 12 has been the workhorse of my "house power" package, >and I am looking to add equivalent units, but would like to save some >space over the rather large Arri heads.

Here is a little something from my own experience. In one of our local rental houses I came across a couple of PAR's by SunRay, 1.2KW & 2.5KW they are American made and very compact; the 1.2KW is OK, the 2.5KW isn't (it’s lens is way too small for its bulb, which causes the spread to be very uneven).

Those units will save plenty space in your truck, and if you want to hide them in the set, they have no competition. If heavily diffused (Chimera or otherwise) it doesn't really matter that their photo-optics are far from optimal.

Two more cents

Victor Lefelman
Gaffer.

Steve Staley wrote :

>Do any of you have experience with the Joker 1200's

This is not a good rental item in regards to being robust. Know a lot of DP's that travel w/ them and like but they baby them and they are not subject to abuse of crews and such. IMHO its the worst joker of the bunch.

The 200 or 400 are a much better design. No experience w/ the 800.

John Roche,
Gaffer
Brooklyn

I agree with John that the 1.2 isn't as good a design as the 200s and 400s...

But I've owned a 1.2 for about 6 years and I've never had any trouble with it. Granted, I generally work with the same crew people who aren't excessively rough on the gear (Much like the other "DP-owned" Jokers John talks about!).

I guess it depends on how much abuse you expect the gear to take.

The Power Gems ballast that came with the Joker 1.2 has been a real champ running on house power...

George Hupka
Director/DP
Downstream Pictures
Saskatoon, Canada

Hi guys,

My 2 cents...

I love the Jokers. The 200, 400 and 800 are really nicely designed and I find they are a real nice complement to Kinos for running off of house power.

The Jokers pack a lot of punch for the watt and are very versatile with some of the add ons that are available.

I use them on some pretty tough shoots and they haven't failed me.

Arri pocket pars are also a nice light. I find the lenses and barn doors a little finicky but overall, provide lots of light for very few watts.

None of these fixtures take up a lot of space on a truck and the hard shell cases prevent damage in transport.

I receive no compensation for the opinions expressed here....

Andrew Gordon
Gaffer
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada