DESISTI REMBRANDT 12K HMI LAMP REPAIR

[Les Hillis]

Congrats on the successful restoration Robert. That's a nice light/resource to have and make available to your local production community.

 

[Robert Hart]

Les. Thank you for your kindly thoughts.


The light and generator are probably only suitable for low-budget projects or non-film events where the folk are prepared to eat the lesser reliability of my having only the one big lamp in my inventory.

There are several professional gaffers in Perth, some going back quite a few years. There are among them several big lights and generator trucks.

There have been a few features this year to give them some work. Two in particular family - M15 features to look out for are "Blue Dog", which is either a sequel or prequel to "Red Dog" and "Jasper Jones". The novel which founds the latter, has a sort of "To Kill A Mockingbird" feel to it but is different.

The project the light is out on is worktitled "3rd Night". It seems to be a contained location scary drama. The "contained" location is actually a medium sized stonefruit and apple orchard, a delight to be at. There is something in the Anglo-Saxon-Irish genetic memory which instinctively likes deciduous forests. As a kid, I spent my first ten years on an orchard. Rural kids get to drive tractors. Modern orchards have all manner of wonderful machines.

As a kid on an orchard now I would be in pig-heaven with cherry-picker cranes, tractors, quadbikes, little light Kubota trucks like your golfbuggies over there. But it is as hard a yakka as ever it was despite mod-cons and more competitive than ever with the two big supermarkets wielding too much monopoly buying power and predatory practices.

 

[Les Hillis]

Not familiar personally with the film-making scene over there in the West, but I've seen/heard/read a few things about it here and there, enough to have it tagged in my mind as a viable region for a wide range productions. In fact, looking at the 'ScreenWest' website, seems like things are going alright. So yeah, by local production community, I meant very local, while thinking with envy of low-budget uses I could put such a light to if I had easy access to one locally myself.

Can relate to what you're saying about orchards. Have some good memories myself, from the limited time I've spent in them. Would love to try translating some of those (probably rose-tinted) memories of atmospheres and details onto the screen, sometime, somehow.

Anyway, nice work getting the light up and running again, was interesting to see.

 

[Robert Hart]

This hails from the early 1950's. We were a bit like the Mortons and McCoys in those days. My mother went crook on my father because he gave up on two-horse ploughing and bought this crawler tractor after the old blind horse passed on, then the other one my mother used to have to catch for him jumped the fence and ran away with a wild herd up near a local dam. Going over the fence was not a bad gymnastic for a plough horse. The patch of land they had was too steep for safe work with wheeled tractors.

My father's navigator from WW2 bought one of those fancy cameras which made colour slides. We only had B/W box Kodak 620. I was forbidden to drive the machine on the road but an exception was made for the photo. I was not all that keen on having my photo taken at any time and was sweating on "being taken away by the Policeman and put in a home" for having the tractor on the road. The trailer behind was an old two-wheeled horse cart which had been refitted with two bren-gun carrier wheels which were sold as unused surplus after the war.

The cart had been overturned along with the horse and my grand-uncle Hank. The jersey cow being led behind by a rope tied to the cart suddenly jibbed when an untethered heifer "bulled" ( attempted to mount the cow ). She pulled the whole lot over. The wooden spoked wheels were not up to much after that happened, were old, dry, half rotted and could not be fixed, so the bren-gun carrier wheels went on. The solid rubber tyres did not half hurt when they ran over your foot.

The guy who took the picture wanted the tractor turned to face him. I couldn't fathom what for but just did as I was told.

 

[Les Hillis]

Fascinating stuff Robert. Interesting picture too, in terms of subject, composition and image-quality.

Unfortunately, this is all probably going too far off-topic even for the 'Off-Topic' section of Reduser, so I'll have to bow out of the conversation before it gets stepped on.

Take care, and thanks anyway for the insights into the lamp repair and other subjects.