The French engineer, inventor, architect, and founder of Aaton, Jean-Pierre Beauviala died 8 April 2019 at age 81. In memory of the revolutionary Aaton cameras or Cantar audio recorders, here is our tribute to a one-of-his-kind motion picture genius. Image credit: Telerama Birth of Aaton Digital Born and raised in Alès (south of France) in 1937, Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s mother wanted him to be an architect. Instead, he decided to study electronics in Grenoble, France, a city that he’ll never leave. Around 1970, he bought an Arriflex camera and creates in his attic the quartz motor, that enabled him to synchronize picture and sound. He showed his invention to the French company Éclair which immediately patented the quartz motor and hired him as the R&D lead engineer. Jean-Pierre would work there for about a year and leave in 1971 to create Aaton. At first, he didn’t have a lot of money, but he had a lot of ideas and friends. One of the main goals of Aaton was to create cameras based on the actual needs of filmmakers and documentarists, like Jean Rouch, Donn Alan Pennebaker, Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard…etc. Two years later, in 1973, the first 16mm camera with Timecode by Aaton called the LTR or “cat-on-the-shoulder” was released. The Aaton LTR and the Ergocine rig. Image credit: A Cinematographer’s Journal The Aaton Revolution The Aaton LTR was a real revolution. At that time, other cameras like the Caméflex were very loud, clumsy, and not very “operator-friendly” for documentarists. Jean-Pierre Beauviala’s idea was to...
Published By: CineD - Thursday, 18 April, 2019