Complete light blocking material used to eliminate ambient illumination during night scenes or controlled lighting setups.
Technical Details
Modern blackout systems operate with the DMX-512 protocol and achieve switching times of 0.1 to 0.3 seconds for LED arrays, while tungsten lamps require 1-2 seconds due to filament inertia. Professional dimmer racks like the ETC Sensor3 enable blackouts across up to 96 channels simultaneously with a precision of ±0.05 seconds. HMI lamps require special blackout shutters, as switching off the ignition causes excessively long cooling times. For large productions, mechanical dousers are used, which physically block the light without interrupting the power supply.
History & Development
The first documented film blackout occurred in 1942 in Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons" using manually coordinated switches. In 1965, Strand Lighting developed the first electronic blackout system for the BBC Television Centre with 24-channel control. The breakthrough came in 1982 with the introduction of computer-controlled lighting consoles, which could store precise blackout cues. Since the 2010s, LED panels like the ARRI SkyPanel series have enabled instantaneous blackouts without color temperature drift, which was unavoidable with traditional incandescent lamps.
Practical Application in Film
Stanley Kubrick used 147 coordinated blackouts in "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) for the Stargate sequence, with each blackout lasting exactly 24 frames. Modern productions like "Blade Runner 2049" (2017) combined LED blackouts with practical effects – DoP Roger Deakins synchronized 400 SkyPanels for the replicant factory scene. The typical workflow requires pre-light tests 48 hours before shooting begins, as blackouts offer no correction possibilities during recording. In multi-camera setups, all cameras must use identical shutter angles of 180° to ensure uniform blackout frames.
Comparison & Alternatives
Fade-out gradually reduces light over 2-10 seconds, cut-to-black occurs in post-production, and iris-out uses the camera aperture. Modern virtual production stages like StageCraft technology replace physical blackouts with digital transitions using 120fps LED walls. Practical blackouts using switches within the frame appear more authentic than technical solutions but require 4-6 additional backup light sources outside the frame area. For budget productions under €500,000, manual 12-channel dimmer packs dominate, while blockbuster productions employ fully automated blackout systems with failsafe redundancy.