Eclair (company)

Eclair,formerlyLaboratoires Éclair,began as a film production, film laboratory, andmovie cameramanufacturing company established inÉpinay-sur-Seine, France by Charles Jourjon in 1907.
What remains of the business is a unit of Groupfr:Ymagis, offering creative and distribution services for the motion pictures industries across Europe and North America such as editing,color grading, restoration, digital and theatrical delivery, and versioning. The company is currently made up of two entities: Eclair Cinema and Eclair Media.
The company produced many silent shorts in France starting in 1908, and soon thereafter in America. The American division produced films from 1911-1914 such asRobin Hood, one of the first filmed versions of the classic story in 1912.
Deutsche Eclair, laterDecla-Film, was established as its German studio branch. In 1909, Eclair took part in theParis Film Congress, an attempt by major European producers to form acartelsimilar to theMPPCin America.
Originally a film production company, Eclair started building cameras in 1912.
An Eclair studio, the Eclair Moving Picture Company, was established inFort Lee, New Jersey. It suffered a devastating fire in 1914 in which many early film prints werelost.A western studio set was also established inTucson, Arizona.Jules Brulatourwas involved with the company andDorothy Gibsonone of its stars.
Between 1911 and 1913, Eclair released a series of films revolving around the fictional character Zigomar that had been created in 1909 by the French authorLéon Saziein the Paris-based newspaper Le Matin. The movies would go on to be very successful commercially, but Sazie came to feel that they were too different from his idea for the series, and so sued the director,Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, and the Eclair company for excessive alteration of the source material.The courts ruled that 6,000 francs were to be paid to Sazie in damages, but Eclair appealed the case resulting in the amount to be paid increasing to 10,000 francs, with an additional 250 francs for any future violations.
The company was acquired in late 1968 by UK-based Canadian film producerHarry Saltzmanwho then founded theÉclair-Debrie(UK) Ltd. company and moved production to the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Soremec-Cehess took over the French side of the company and resumed production in France, so English Eclair cameras (similar to the French product with minor differences), were manufactured simultaneously for a few years until Éclair-Debrie (UK) Ltd ceased activities in 1973. Production then continued in France with a good degree of success, but the company eventually declined in the late-1970s and early-1980s until it was eventually sold toAatonS.A. in 1986 who ceased all camera production, offering only a license for maintenance of the many existing cameras.
The film processing and post-production side of Éclair continues to operate.
Among their early models was the Caméréclair of 1928, then the Camé 300 Réflex, both successful studio cameras. Their real breakthrough design, theCaméflex(shoulder-held portable 35mm camera with instant-change magazines, with later 16/35mm dual format option) introduced in 1947, played a major part in theFrench New Waveby allowing for a freer form of shooting 35mm fiction films.
Later 16mm silent models such as the 1960 Eclair NPR (aka "Eclair 16" or "Eclair Coutant") and the 1971 Eclair ACL were documentary cinema favorites. The NPR also saw considerable use in television production and was the standard camera used by 16mm film crews in the BBC's Film Department. Due to its light weight and ergonomic design, which housed the film spools at the back of the camera rather than on top, the NPR was seen as a considerable improvement over its predecessors. For 16mm cameramen out in the field, this ease of use and maneuverability was vital to capture the right shot, often in hostile conditions.NPR stands forNoiselessPortableReflex and ACL comes from the letters of the names of its designersAgusti (Austin)Coma and JacquesLecoeur. The last models designed by Eclair in the early-1980s came too late to save the company from bankruptcy and were hardly produced, if at all: theEclair EX16(similar to ACL with fixed viewfinder and 24/25fps fixed motor) and theEclair PANORAM(first dual format 16+Super16camera with "Varigate" system).
The instant clip-on design of thecamera magazineof the Caméflex and later the NPR, ACL, EX16 and PANORAM models' coaxial pre-threaded loop magazines revolutionized filmmaking, in particulardocumentary films, since magazine changes could now be made in seconds without the need to spend time threading the film through the camera.The ACL model used a focal plane shutter for exposure and a side-to-side oscillating mirror for reflex viewing to keep the camera body size to a minimum.
Jean-Luc Godardused an Eclair Cameflex when filmingBreathlessin 1959. Godard wished to film using ambient light, and the Cameflex was the only motion picture camera capable of usingASA 40035 mmIlford HPSstill camera film. CinematographerRaoul Coutardspliced the 18-meter still camera rolls into 120-meter rolls for use as motion picture film, and pushed it to ASA 800 during development.A handheld Eclair camera was used in the shower scene in the 1960 filmPsycho.
An Eclair 16 was used byL.M. Kit Carson(and discussed, on camera) inJim McBride's ground-breaking film,David Holzman's Diary(1967). Two years later, the NPR was chosen by directorMichael Wadleighto shoot his documentaryWoodstock. Wadleigh used sixteen NPR cameras. InWoodstock: From Festival to Feature, he explained some of the challenges he faced using a then seven-year-old camera in a manner that would have been unheard of for 35mm movie cameras, let alone the relatively untried NPR.