ELECTRICITY has certainly revolutionised the way of livingof society as a whole albeit stillonly largely in the economically developed world.

The greatest benefit deriving from this form of energy was electric lighting. The inventionof the incandescent lamp by Thomas Edison, patented on 4 November 1879, was awatershed event which lengthened the amount ofuseful hours in the day and which brought a light that was closer to visual pleasantness linked to our perception of white.

In the intervening 130 years scientists have striven not only to light up our lives with suitable colour, but to also achieve better energy efficiency matched with greater light flows to increase the light's pleasantness. Lighting in the areas of leisure and entertainment is one of the most specific areas of all.

In the cinematography industry the advent of ad hoc studios in 1909 made it necessary to adopt lighting systems that had hithe to been used for streetlighting, which had progressed from mercury-vapour lamps to sodium lights. The low film sensitivity of the period however required large energy sources to power the many lights or lamp clusters –right up to the genuine ceiling fittings with the already known neon tubes. Use was even made of the light emitted by large, slow-consumption carbon arc lamp sand with different-coloured flames.