VLVL(7):Annotations, questions, &c pt2

[Sebastian Dangerfield]

Excellent spade work, Keith.  Following some possible answers to some of
the queries.

232.13:  "land of the May Events":  ???

I gather a reference to Paris in '68 where, as was not the case in the
US, (1) students *and* workers were united in a general strike, (2) the
brink of revolution was neared more closely, and (3) a government was
brought down (i.e. DeGaulle).

247.23:  "Mole-Richardson series 700 generator":  Have not found one of 
these generators.  The company apparently produces lighting and effects 
equipment.

Mole-Richardson was the Hollywood standard for lighting for many years;
by the '80s there were competitors entering the field and new
technologies making old tungsten-filament lighting of the kind that made
Mole the industry leader somewhat passe.  I've never run across a Mole
generator -- generator technology having turned over more quickly than
lighting technology (plus, being mechanical, generators have shorter life
spans).  My impression is that this is an old hulking piece of equipment
-- appropriate seeing as it is part of the stock of a film school.

247.31:  "Eclairs":  16mm camera.

Also for a long time the standard camera for documentary work.  Not quite
as durable as the legendary wind-up Bolex (also something of a relic),
but very dependable.

261.31:  "1,000 watt Mickey-Mole spot":  

One of the items in the Mole-Richardson armory.  Mole had peculiar names
for all of its pieces, each designating a particular wattage wattage: 
minis, midgets, mickeys, babies, mighties, juniors, etc.  "Spot" is a
loose term for the kind of lamp that a Mickey is--it has a Fresnel lens
(an almost anagram of Frenesi), which consists of concentric rings of
lenses--much like having two or three lenses on top of each other, making
the light focusable.  He might have the wattage wrong (horrors!), as I
seem to remember Mickies as being in the neighborhood of 500 watts, with
"babies" being 1,000, but it's been a while since I was in the biz.  The
Fresnel lens is named after French Physicist Augustin Fesnel.
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