AFC-related activities

The second annual “Festival Chefs Op’ en lumière” organized by La Bobine, took place at Chalon-sur-Saône, from 11 to 15 March 2020. The spotlight was shone on Jonathan Ricquebourg, AFC, and Elin Kirschfink, AFC, SBC, joined by Manu Dacosse, SBC, Sébastien Goepfert, Antoine Héberlé, AFC, Gilles Porte, AFC, Marie Spencer, AFC, SBC, and Virginie Surdej, SBC. Pierre Lhomme, AFC, has been honored at this event, and a photographic exposition dedicated to Roger Corbeau was also featured.

Not only a warm and friendly atmosphere, but also a high level of technical expertise at the second annual Post-Production Days organized by the AFC at the Forum des images, as part of the Paris Images Trade Show (PITS), following the Micro Salon. Introduced by Caroline Champetier, AFC, and Gilles Porte, President of the AFC, the Post-Production Days were prepared by Thierry Beaumel, consulting member of the AFC, and moderated by François Reumont.

The 7^th Annual Paris Images Trade Show (PITS) is comprised of six main events with complementary themes intended to promote the entire French audiovisual and cinematographic industry. PITS will be an opportunity to develop a reflection around France’s place in international cinema from the economic, technical and artistic standpoints.

The second AFC Post-Production Days will take place at the Forum des Images in Paris on:

• Tuesday, 21 January.
• Wednesday, 22 January 2020.

One location, two days, three reasons to mark your agendas for AFC’s upcoming Micro Salon at the Parc Floral de Paris

• on Thursday, 16 January -10am to 22pm
• and Friday, 17 January - 10am to 18pm

Two days of good cheer, discussions, and knowledge dedicated to the tools used to create cinematographic images.

Cinematographer Elin Kirschfink, SBC, recently joined the AFC. Marie Spencer, one of her two AFC sponsors (the other being Caroline Champetier), makes the usual introduction below and welcomes her arrival.

To Bruno Nuytten and Caroline Champetier, AFC
Although it might seem an exaggeration, this little wink at Robert Doisneau is the opportunity to remind our readers that over a dozen members of the AFC – and I may not have had the opportunity of recognizing everyone in attendance – attended a nearly-full auditorium on Wednesday, 20 March at 8pm to support Bruno Nuytten at the opening of the retrospective that was dedicated to him at the Cinémathèque française.

The 19^th annual Micro Salon, held on 8 and 9 February 2019, made a decisive change, which had been in the works for the past two to three years, and moved to the Parc Floral de Paris. There, a massive open space awaited it, which allowed for easier set-up, a design that made visiting more pleasant for attendees, and large meeting spaces where conviviality, one of our event’s hallmarks, went hand-in-hand with equipment presentation and screenings of images, the creation of which is the principal subject of interest of all in attendance.

At the 44^th Annual 2019 César Awards ceremony, it was possible to moon Robert Redford or to have a César awarded to the box-office champion by one’s own father, but it was impossible to voice a number of important questions regarding French cinema without being interrupted by a little tune…

From 20 March to 3 April 2019, the Cinémathèque française is organizing, in partnership with the AFC, a retrospective dedicated to Bruno Nuytten, cinematographer and director, through a selection of 22 films out of the 30 or so feature-length films that he lit and for the most part also shot during a fifteen-year period. This selection is complemented by three short films that he shot in the early 70s and three of the films he directed (Camille Claudel, Albert Suffers and Jim, la nuit).

As part of the events organized at the end of January and the beginning of February to provide a forum for showing off the achievements of the audio-visual and cinematography industries, the AFC is organizing two days dedicated to postproduction right before the Micro Salon. They will take place at the Forum des Images on 29-30 January and will end with a Master Class by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, AFC, ASC.

Wednesday, 7 November 2018, 9^th Arrondissement of Paris, 19:30
Ceremony Honoring Jean-Pierre Beauviala with a Special Award
 by the President of the ASC, Kees van Oostrum, with some AFC members in attendance. Aaton, Beauviala, these two names are inseparable from one another, a magic spell, a password on every continent and part of the vocabulary of all men and women who have chosen to make images their profession.

Jean-Pierre Beauviala, is an inventor amongst whose many creations are the Aaton cameras and Cantar recorders. He is also a consulting member of the AFC. In Paris, on Wednesday, 7 December 2018, he received a “Special Award” presented by Kees van Oostrum, President of the ASC, which honoured his exceptional contribution to the field of cinema. Accompanied by a few friends from the association, Gilles Porte, President of the AFC, addressed Jean-Pierre with the words in the following text.

We’ve all heard the saying: “Cats have nine lives.” It’s a popular myth, one that’s been around for hundreds of years — and one that even earned a reference from no less a legend than Shakespeare, who worked it into Romeo and Juliet, giving Mercutio the line, “Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight.”

As every year for four years, the AFC gave, this Wednesday, November 14, a Master Class as part of the Festival Camerimage. As in previous years, the format of three cinematographers / speakers was preserved (each ½ hour) and in this year 2018, Céline Bozon, Gilles Porte and David Ungaro defended the colors of the AFC in front of a a large audience of young people, and under the leadership of Maestro Benjamin Bergery, Benjamin B, who, as usual, had studied and prepared his score well.

Quentin Bourdin, assistant cameraman, DIT and colour timer, a graduate of the Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière, accompanied the AFC cinematographers to London for a day of training and discussion around images and the expectations of contemporary colour timing. It was the opportunity to discover Baselight and its colour timing tools. He offers us a detailed report of the trip.

From 15-17 June 2018, Leica Camera AG celebrated the opening of the new Leitz Park, in Wetzlar (Germany) with many guests from the region and around the world. Gilles Porte and Vincent Jeannot represented the AFC, which was invited to attend, and here they recount their visit to the new complex, which is an important centre for the lens industry, combining research, art, and culture.

Dear Thierry Frémeaux, Dear Pierre Lescure, I wish to personally thank you for having made a little bit of room for me on the steps of your immense red carpet during a time of the year when Cannes becomes many peoples’ centre of gravity. Thierry, I hope that I didn’t ruffle your feathers when you mentioned Lyon’s football team to me at the top of the steps. Although I hail from Lyon, I have been a supporter of Saint-Etienne for years now and began supporting them even before I’d noticed that the colour of their jerseys was the same colour regularly used in the Seventh Art for chroma keying.