Molepar Love

I bought a couple of Molepars on Satan eBay. They arrived rusted and damaged. I should know better, the one camera angle that something isn't photographed from is the one angle that you really need to see. So, my OCD kicked in and I sanded them down and refurbished them. Fortunately, they were pretty cheap.

Molepars are one of those lights that I think everyone who owns any lights at all should have, especially low-budget filmmakers. They kick out one heck of a lot of light for a 1K (Par 64 globes) and are light, compact and incredibly flexible. Need to light up a building or trees at night? How about a fixture to give a decent-sized room your base exposure (by bouncing off the ceiling or a bounce)? They are great for any application where you just need a lot of light and want to plug into a household circuit (2 units per 20 amp circuit). The key to using them, as with any other fixture, is how you control the light. You can also use a variety of globes in them, from extra narrow to wide beam as well as daylight balanced dichroic.

They are also not expensive units. I have seen them new online for about $350/unit (without globes). And a rental will run about $14/day. They will also last a lifetime because they are made by Mole Richardson. The one unit I bought dates from the mid-1960's (number 493) and now looks/functions like new (and when I got it, it looked like it had been used as a rental for 40 years). The paint color is Mole Maroon and is available directly from Mole Richardson as an air dried spray paint. They also sell individual parts for all of their lamps at a reasonable cost.