Jean-Pierre Beauviala RIP

[Brian Drysdale]

Jean-Pierre Beauviala has died, he was 82. Designer of the Aaton, he was man who kept improving his cameras.

https://vimeo.com/86334994

 

 

[Gregg MacPherson]

What an amazing guy he was. A while back I saw a doco on youtube on him designing the penelope. He was a very inspiring man

[Todd Anderson]

Very sadden to hear this. But what a fulfilling life he must have lived. It will be very difficult for me to ever sell my Aaton cameras, as they are such beautiful machines. Does anyone know of the "dragonfly" project that he was working on and how close that was to being completed and/ or realized? If my understanding was correct, it was a very small (documentary?) camera — digital as I recall — that he was working on.

[Tyler Purcell]

Yea it's sad news. It's especially sad for me because I have friends who know him and was going to meet him at one point. Being a huge Aaton fan and owner, to see the designer die is kinda like seeing Beethoven die to a music lover. ?

[Michael Lehnert]

Very saddening to read this all of a sudden.

But JPB – one of those few who successfully combined being an engineer, and inventor, and entrepreneurs – immortalised himself with a family of products that are ingenious things of beauty, while allowing others to create with them Cinéma Vérité and Direct Cinema documentaries that manifestly progressed le septième art.

[David Sekanina]

Very sad to hear. Bought a mint XTR prod two months ago to upgrade from my LTR 7. Such a brilliantly engineered piece of art.

[Mike Krumlauf]

Breaks my heart to hear he's gone. Aaton is one of my all time favorite companies. the 35-III i think was one of the best 35mm cameras ever made.