Robert Martens
March 7th, 2004, 02:42 PM
I'm sorry to ask such a trivial question, but it's something that's been bugging me for the longest time, and the search function has revealed no answer to my query.
I just want to know if "cucaloris" is one of those "cable-stretcher" things the vets tell the new guys, just for fun. For all the reading I've done on the subject of lighting, I gather that the term "cookie" is SUPPOSED to have come from "cucaloris". According to the glossary in John Jackman's "Lighting for Digital Video & Television", however, the word is NOT ancient Greek, and he isn't sure where it came from.
It looks like nobody knows what the heck cucaloris really means. Or if it's even a real word.
Taking these things into consideration, along with that Occam's Razor thing, it seems to me the more likely origin of "cookie" is that in the film world, they are patterns, used to create interesting shadows in a scene, which are cut out of a larger sheet of material, such as plywood, in much the same fashion that a cookie is cut out of a larger sheet of dough with a cookie cutter, to make crazy shapes.
I like that explanation better. Am I wrong?
Or do gaffers say "cucaloris" just because it sounds funny? Sorta like your tweenies, betweenies, and inbetweenies? Lighting designers love their cute nicknames, it seems...:)
I just want to know if "cucaloris" is one of those "cable-stretcher" things the vets tell the new guys, just for fun. For all the reading I've done on the subject of lighting, I gather that the term "cookie" is SUPPOSED to have come from "cucaloris". According to the glossary in John Jackman's "Lighting for Digital Video & Television", however, the word is NOT ancient Greek, and he isn't sure where it came from.
It looks like nobody knows what the heck cucaloris really means. Or if it's even a real word.
Taking these things into consideration, along with that Occam's Razor thing, it seems to me the more likely origin of "cookie" is that in the film world, they are patterns, used to create interesting shadows in a scene, which are cut out of a larger sheet of material, such as plywood, in much the same fashion that a cookie is cut out of a larger sheet of dough with a cookie cutter, to make crazy shapes.
I like that explanation better. Am I wrong?
Or do gaffers say "cucaloris" just because it sounds funny? Sorta like your tweenies, betweenies, and inbetweenies? Lighting designers love their cute nicknames, it seems...:)