Jean-Pierre Beauviala, inventor of the light camera called "cat on the shoulder", died

The cat left the shoulder.Jean-Pierre Beauviala, born July 22, 1937 in Alès (Gard), engineer and creator of light cameras Aaton, whose famous so-called "cat on the shoulder" in 1972, died on Monday April 8 in Paris, after'cancer.Since the creation of his company Aaton in 1971, and until these last days when he was still working on the Libellule prototype, a miniature made to stick to the eye, he invented the most daring devices, extending the revolution of the first cameraslight.The Aaton arrived in the early 1970s, after the Cameflex Eclair who were already on his shoulder and that François Truffaut had adopted in the four hundred shots (1959) and Jean-Luc Godard in a breath (1960), to make virtuoso tracking.

One of the most striking innovations of Beauviala was the "time marking", which consists in registering the shooting time, every second, on the edge of the image, and to postpone it on the track of the band-his.Another was the "quartz system" which makes it possible to control the synchronization between the sound and the image, or to cut the "wire" between the two.For the director of photography Caroline Champetier, close to the inventor, Jean-Pierre Beauviala was "a gifted"."At 14, he made an optical enlarger.Jean-Pierre often said: invention is often to know how to return the question, "she said.Like many leaders, such as Eric Gautier for travel diaries (2004), Walter Salles, Caroline Champetier used an Aaton Pénélope 35 millimeters to shoot men and gods (2010), by Xavier Beauvois."You might think that many plans in the film are fixed.But this is not the case: 40 % were shot in the shoulder with the Penelope.I used it in the tiny monk cells, or rather I was carrying it against me.We put it on the shoulder, it holds almost alone.And we are immersed in the viewfinder, ”she testifies.Louis Malle, Jean Rouch, Eliane de Latour, Peter Greenaway, Raymond Depardon, Xavier Beauvois… All these filmmakers have at least turned once with an Aaton.

An architectural and town planning enthusiast

Originally, it was the desire to shoot a film that triggered the desire for invention in the young professor at the University of Grenoble, where he taught until 1968 - he also worked for a time for Eclair Society, before being disgusted.The time was in new cities and Beauviala was a sworn enemy.Passionate about architecture and town planning, he wanted to make a film on a living city, in which he would develop his idea of "coverage", which "makes people attentive to each other".The film is not done, but Beauviala created a super 16 millimeter camera.

You have 64 left.11% of this article to read.The rest is reserved for subscribers.