HMI & Tungsten Lights

Here is how this works in practice. HMI and tungsten stock for Hungarian productions runs out of Pannonia Cine Service Budapest and Origo Film Group at Origo Studios. Plus secondary inventory at Stúdió Etyek for the Korda Studios stages thirty-five minutes west of the city. The HMI roster carries the working ARRI M-Series spread. M18, M40, and M90 ballasted units. Plus K5600 Joker 800, 1600, and 2500 packages that ship complete with bug-a-beam adapters, Chimera Lantern extras, and the par-to-fresnel head swaps.

Here is the short of it. Larger 12K and 18K HMIs route through Pannonia Cine Service on schedule when an exterior daylight punch through Korda Studios Etyek's stage windows or a Buda Castle night-exterior balance demands the capacity. Tungsten stock leans on classic Mole-Richardson 5K Senior, 10K Big-Eye, and the full ARRI T-series Fresnel ladder from 150W Pepper through the T24. Mole and ARRI tungsten still anchors the day-to-day MTVA, RTL Klub, and HBO Magyarország series and telenovela custom. Plus every period piece staged at Korda Etyek where the Mole stock has lived since the early 2000s. Dedolight DLH and Source Four ellipsoidals round out the small-fixture and pattern-projection end of the tungsten inventory.

Hungarian winter shoots demand cold-start protocols that don't exist on summer-only briefs. Bükk National Park and Aggtelek Karst location work from December through February runs at minus ten degrees Celsius on the cold nights. Plus HMI ballasts need warm-up time and a covered staging area before strike. We pre-condition ballasts on the heated truck rather than firing them straight onto the stand. Plus we keep spare lamps in insulated cases so the quartz envelopes don't shatter on first strike. Generators get block-heater pairing for the same reason.

Here is the breakdown. A cold diesel start in puszta-plain conditions damages the genset and the load both, so heated generator enclosures or pre-warm circulation pumps are budgeted into winter cost guesses. Hungary's 230V/50Hz European voltage means incoming US 120V tie-in or any North American HMI ballast needs transformer routing. We stage 30 to 100 kW step-down transformers ahead of any incoming production with US-spec gear. Power distribution runs through Pannonia Cine Service distro boxes and standard Socapex feeder. Plus Korda Studios Etyek and Origo Studios stage tie-ins handled directly through the in-house electric pools at each site.