Ellipsoidal (profile)

An ellipsoidal reflector spotlight, called a profile outside North America, gathers light with an ellipsoidal reflector and pushes it through a lens train. Functionally it works like a slide projector, and that is what gives it the three things a wash fixture cannot do.

It has four framing shutters at the internal focal point, so the beam can be cut in straight lines — off a wall, off the edge of a screen, off a ceiling line. It has a slot at the same focal point that accepts a gobo, which is what makes pattern projection possible. And its lens tube slides, moving the edge between razor sharp and soft.

Fixtures are specified by field angle rather than by size: narrow units around ten or nineteen degrees for long throws, wider ones at twenty-six, thirty-six or fifty degrees for close work. The angle is chosen from the throw distance and the size of the pool wanted, which is why the lighting plot carries throw distances.

Two brand names are used as though they were the generic term. Leko is a trade name from one manufacturer and Source Four from another; both describe particular ellipsoidals rather than the category. Asking for the category by name avoids a quote that turns out to be for something else.

Event lighting — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Fresnel A soft-edged wash fixture with a stepped lens, adjustable from spot to flood by moving the lamp — and controlled at the edges with barn doors, because it has no shutters.
• Gobo A cut or etched template dropped into a fixture so it projects a shape — texture, a window, a pattern on a floor, or a logo — and sized by what fits the gate, not by the picture.
• PAR fixture The simplest instrument in the rig — an oval pool of hard, bright light with its beam spread built into the lamp rather than adjusted at the fixture.