Basically,
they are floodlights of the simplest type for the stage,
made up of a lamp and reflector inside a ‘box’ which
can be panned from side to side, and tilted up and down,
to control the direction of the light.
There are no other adjustments which means there is no way
to focus the light to control the beam size – the spread
of the beam and the subsequent area that it will cover will
depend on the distance between the flood and what is being
lit.
These luminaires deliver either a fixed beam of light for
lighting a cyclorama / backcloth or broad relatively uncontrolled
washes of light and come with a colour filter holder for adding
gel to.
The beam can be crudely shaped with the aid of a barndoor accessory.
Selecon floodlights rely on precisely shaped reflectors to
collect and distribute the light from linear (long lamps for
improved horizontal light spread) tungsten halogen lamps. Two
shapes of reflectors provide the required beam angles:
Asymmetric or Cyc– used
to light the cyclorama or backcloth, an asymmetric reflector
directs more light down to produce visually even illumination
down the vertical surface.
90° Flood– an even 90° flood
of light with minimal spill.
Groundrow– a Cyc fitted
with feet that allows it to sit on the ground for when a backcloth
needs to be lit from the bottom as well as the top.
Footlights– if groundrows are placed on
the downstage edge of the stage and used to light actors
from below then they are referred to as ’footlights’.
Floods can be combined during manufacture into 3-way and 4-way
compartment luminaires to provide colour mixing possibilities.
When these units hang above the stage they are known as battens;
when they sit on the front edge of the stage, they are footlights;
and when they sit on any other part of the stage floor, they
are groundrow.
To summarise: floodlights are so unselective that
their usefulness lies in the lighting of large areas of scenery
such as cloths, skies, borders and backings rather than in
lighting acting areas.
