Is this even possible?

Eric Boellner said:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-cronenberg-reveals-how-he-620841

I know very little about lighting, and what I know is mostly just asthetics and "what looks good," but is this even possible? Cronenberg says he lit the H-wood sign from 1.5 miles away. I checked the comments section, and it seems someone else has their doubts too. So... ?
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I don't have time to go through the calculations, but basically a 'search light' is a high intensity light, with a parabolic mirror, such that the light beam is 'almost parallel'. The 1/r^2 law holds for light that is essentially expanding as a 'sphere from a point source'... however, the parabolic mirror 'displaces' the location of a virtual 'point source' far from the actual light source, and so the distance, in this case 1.5 miles, relative to the distance to the virtual 'point source' is small, there for low loss of light.

If that was what you were thinking of relative to 'is this possible'.
 
Probably Xeons. They used them in blade runner. It's an intense spot light. If anything 4k can do it its a Xeon.
 
I had a flashlight I could shine out of my childhood bedroom window and light up a barn half a mile away with, so yeah, it's possible. :)
 
Anyway, from the comments section:

I was the location manager for this movie. It seems that David's quote may have been misinterpreted or taken out of context. First, the lights weren't 1.5 miles away, but 1,435 feet as the crow flies (about 0.25 miles). Second, we DID have permission from several different Los Angeles entities, including LAPD and Parks & Recreation. We also cleared the use of the sign through Global Icons who represents the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The local councilman was also involved both before and afterwards. The issues of concern in that neighborhood weren't the lights, but the constant stream of tourists. The neighbors treated us very well and the shoot itself was quite successful.
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During WWII, both sides used search lights to light up enemy aircraft at night, 4 miles up in the sky. Totally doable. Carbon arc searchlights are very bright.
 
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