At the invitation of ESL, a partner of the Union, and of Prolights, some twenty directors of photography and gaffers gathered in mid-January in the small town of Minturno, Italy.
It is there, on the border between Lazio and Campania, that the headquarters of Prolights is located, a family-owned company historically specialized in light sources for live events, entertainment and architecture. In recent years, Prolights has expanded its range of fixtures to the cinema and audiovisual sector, all LED. Naturally, that interests us!
A full day of visits and presentations on site, supervised by Fabio Sorabella, CEO, with the participation of the ESL team — that is what it took to discover a manufacturer still relatively unknown in France, but well established in the English-speaking world.
The tour of the warehouse, followed by the quality control labs, the after-sales service department and the R&D labs kept us busy all morning, while the afternoon was dedicated to comparative tests and our various questions, in a showroom where nothing was lacking.
Fabio explained to us that between the design of a source and its market release, an average of two years goes by, and that two thirds of prototypes never make it to production. Prolights wants to do things right: they file patents, extensively crash-test their products, verify their performance from design through to end users. And they transparently publish on their website the measurements taken during quality control, source by source.
The comparisons were done on soft panel and Fresnel-type sources (including a tungsten source, at 3200 K and 5600 K, with and without blue or red color filter, spotted and flooded), which allowed everyone to form their own opinion of the comparative merits of Arri, Creamsource, Fiilex, and Prolights.
I found the Prolights fixtures quite convincing, both in power and color rendering, with all the expected technical characteristics of modern products (IP65, multiple protocols for remote control…) even though they would now need to be tried for real on a project.
Beyond the performance of the sources presented during the comparison, one source likely destined for a bright future (available in a few months) was notably unveiled: a 5 kW Fresnel equivalent, with a dedicated accessory to transform it into a large soft source of over one square meter! Ideal for lighting faces in a run-and-gun setup.
I am thinking of the Mosaico range, projectors dedicated to architecture, and more specifically the Mosaico FX100FC. The Mosaico’s purpose is to project dynamic patterns whose power, color and remote control vary depending on the models.
The principle of the Mosaico is simple and effective: two glass wheels with patterns whose direction of rotation and speed can be controlled, an RGBW lamp and interchangeable optics to cover a wide or narrow area, all in an IP66 housing. A very interesting source for animating backgrounds, creating material effects such as water reflection (caustics) and moving textures.
I am also thinking of the ECL Profile CT+HP, an ellipsoidal projector, which could well be the powerful colored profile spot I have been looking for over the past few years.
Beyond the projectors specifically dedicated to cinema and audiovisual, this day at Prolights reminded me that motorized sources, which are extremely versatile, fully deserve their place among the variety of tools at our disposal, provided they meet our expectations in terms of color rendering.
And on this point, Prolights’ expertise has undeniable value: that of a manufacturer who knows how to produce on a very large scale and who has been able to identify the needs of directors of photography.
Thank you to the ESL and Prolights teams for their warm welcome and for inviting us to this wonderful moment of exchange between people passionate about light.
