A Brief History of Light and Orion Lighting

In the beginning, around 1968, there was darkness and bands performed in dark smoky cellars, then came the light, in the form of the liquid wheel. Developed in America from shows using clock glasses on overhead projectors, the liquid wheel has proved to be the most enduring projected effect. Unfortunately this proved a little boring for my band (D’Arcy Spice), and I then came across the Sarex Wheel, made by Colin Cadle of Andromeda Spiral Lighting in Blackheath, London. The Sarex was a mixture of glass paint and glue, and gave a very psychedelic effect. In time this also become boring, so I used my photographic experience to create some graphic design wheels consisting of dots, stripes and patterns. Now, with the film between my teeth so to speak, I made up a 35mm slide mask wheel featuring Dinosaurs in Crystal Palace. Whilst not a big success it led the way to the concept of a continuous panoramic design. A visit to the famous space artist, Dave Hardy (responsible for many of the paintings and illustrations in Sir Patrick Moore’s books), produced the original panoramic wheel, the Space Panorama. This wheel was a huge success, and soon copied by others. At the same time I had another artist draw a cartoon design, his name was Steve Maher, and the design was the Streak Wheel. It was first made in black and white, and hand coloured, but the colour printing techniques used on the Space Panorama, rapidly led to colouring the Streak master and saving hours of time! Many other designs followed, another by Dave Hardy (War of the Worlds), and most of the remainder by Steve Maher. For a change I had a few done by other artists. The Medieval, Roman Orgy and Dinosaur were painted by Maggie Gould, and the Wild West by a well known artist who used to draw a western comic strip for the newspapers. Unfortunately I can not remember his name, and I suspect he is no longer with us, as he was already retired in 1976.

Whilst I was busy making new designs, other companies were also busy such as Optikinetics, Pluto, Solar Prism, Compar, Project and Light Fantastic. Optikinetics are still going strong with a range of 50 wheels, the Pluto designs are also still available on line. The remainder are no longer around unfortunately. I also used to make the wheels for Solar Prism Lighting from his (Dave Hone) designs. They were all graphic wheels designed in intricate shapes in Letraset, along with a vast range of 2" slides. I suspect Dave kept Letraset in business all by himself! There was at least one other wheel manufacturer, but I never managed to find them, I seem to remember an Alice in Wonderland design by them that I never got hold of. All my designs were test run by my mobile lightshow, The Doctor Who Lightshow which performed at a number of venues in Essex lighting up all the main acts of the day. The show had 6 Tutor 2 projectors, a couple of slide projectors, numerous UV, strobes, spots etc, all rigged on an 8ft by 8ft lighting rig. My wheel box had just about every known wheel, along with a selection of test wheels. We used custom made control equipment which eventually led to the Orion 10 Way Chaser, and the Spirochaser, both good sellers.

It all came to an end in 1981 when Orion finally succumbed to the recession. The equipment was sold off, and all that remains are my artworks, proof wheels and 1 Tutor 2 projector. I have a web site for my current work as a stereographer making 3D photographs, and I have created some extra pages featuring all the wheel designs, catalogue scans and photos that I can get hold of.

Larry Wooden

19^{th April 2009}