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ABOUT US

A HISTORY OF INNOVATION

From blockbuster franchise movies in Hollywood to emerging production centers around the world such as Atlanta, Eastern Europe and China, Kino Flo lighting has played a starring role in production lighting for the motion picture, television, TV broadcast, and photography communities. Kino Flo has earned an Academy Award for technical achievement and continues to advance the art and science of soft lighting with a ground-breaking family of LED based lighting systems.

1987

Gaffer Frieder Hochheim and best boy Gary Swink start Kino Flo after inventing a fixture for the comedy drama Barfly that was small enough to tuck into little alcoves in a bar location, without getting hot and causing damage

1987

4Bank makes its debut, as well as the high frequency ballast, giving lights greater intensity and eliminating flicker commonly found in off-the-shelf fluorescent tubes

1992

Kino Flo introduces Fluorescent tubes, that are cool to the touch and contain a number of special phosphors designed to eliminate the characteristic tints in the magenta-green spectrum which are present in most domestic fluorescent light

1993

Micro-flo makes its debut as one of the smallest portable soft lights and instantly gains popularity to light tight and unconventional places. Jamie Lee Curtis tapes it to the side of her face to light up Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1995

Kino Flo earns a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for developing cool, tube-based arrays with color-correct tungsten and daylight balanced light.

1998

Diva-Lite makes its debut and quickly becomes the industry’s most popular professional cool lighting fixtures for small studio and video location work.

1999

Image is introduced to give a large soft light coverage and easy rigging options. It quickly becomes the darling of motion picture and TV visual effects designers.

2005

Kino Flo purchases a 100,000 square foot warehouse and manufacturing facility for its Head Quarters in Burbank

2006

VistaBeam wins the Cinec Award for Lighting Engineering category

2009

Founder Frieder Hochheim wins CSC Bill Hilson Award

2012

Celeb is introduced as a powerhouse LED soft light for TV and Film, boasting 2700K-5500K, Tungsten and Daylight modes.

2013

Kino Flo wins the TV Technology Star Award (Superior Technology Award Recipient)

2016

Select LED is introduced with unique features that make it the perfect imaging tool for studio production or on location

2016

Kino Flo wins Videomaker Best of NAB Award

2017

Founder Frieder Hochheim wins ASC Bud Stone Award of Distinction

2017

FreeStyle Panel is introduced with an extremely lightweight and modular design that provides multiple form factors

2019

Founder Frieder Hochheim wins BSC Bert Easey Technical Award

2019

Kino Flo introduces a new Camera LUTs feature to its proprietary True Match® firmware that pushes the color space to new artistic levels

2019

Kino Flo develops the FreeStyle LED tube system. A line of LED portable systems with the same award-winning elements as the 4Bank, but with Kino Flo designed LEDs and Kino Flo programmed light controllers.

2019

Founder Frieder Hochheim wins Cine Gear Expo Lifetime Technical Achievement Award
“Changed the way motion
picture movies are made.”
– Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences

A VISIONARY FUTURE

Kino Flo has developed a line of LED portable systems with the same award-winning elements as the 4Bank, but with Kino Flo designed LEDs and Kino Flo programmed light controllers.  The FreeStyle Tube Systems can be dismantled and assembled quickly to adapt to changing production challenges.  The four basic components, an LED controller, head cable (25ft), modular fixture head and removable mounting system have been advanced with LED technology.

Kino Flo makes another leap forward in color management firmware and color rendering.  The company is pioneering a new generation of LED softlights that include camera look-up tables for harmonizing. Kino Flo lighting with cinema cameras and a suite of upgradable color and special effects features via Kino Flo’s proprietary True Match® firmware that are pushing the color space to new artistic levels.  Like the great European art masters of old, cinematographers can select and mix their own LED “pigments” to control the look of their image. 

INDUSTRY AFFILIATIONS & AWARDS