Sound and Image Synchronism - Text 7
For the two technicians to be liberated from this “shackle” an HF connection was initially used to transmit the signal. But it was the tuning fork from a Bulova watch used by the Maysles brothers which gave an image to the principle: that of a clock as a common reference. The use of a new component, quartz, brought these initial experiments to fruition by perfecting a reliable servo control system. By always oscillating at the same speed, this electronic “clock” sends a signal which enables each motor to regulate its speed against a stable reference.
To make synchronous recording possible, it was also necessary that the lightweight camera be silent. But no such camera existed before the industrial production of the Éclair 16 in 1963.[5] Marketed in the United States under the name NPR, for Noiseless Portable Reflex, the Éclair 16 met with success worldwide by becoming the first lightweight, self-blimped camera. At the same time, however, the first motors marketed with the camera did not make synchronism with the magnetic tape recorder possible. These motors, produced by Perfectone for the Éclair 16, were in fact noisy, not very reliable and heavy: the portable camera found itself condemned to a tripod. In 1966, a young electronics researcher, Jean-Pierre Beauviala, presented to Éclair the servo control circuit he had designed using new components (integrated circuits, a more accurate tachometric wheel and a frequency monitor). Becoming the French firm’s consulting engineer, Beauviala then adapted this system to Éclair’s BEALA motor, which remained heavy and noisy. It was not until 1971 that a compact and silent motor for the Éclair 16 was marketed by Aaton, bringing to fruition a decade after the beginnings of direct cinema the promise of a lightweight, synchronous camera, thereby solving the equation noise, weight and exact synchronism.
