That they succeeded so spectacularly is a testament to the NPR's sturdiness.
Wadleigh used sixteen NPR cameras, and in Woodstock: 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. Two years later, the NPR was chosen by director Michael Wadleigh to shoot his documentary Woodstock.
Kit Carson (and discussed, on camera) in Jim McBride's ground-breaking film, David Holzman's Diary (1967). The last models designed by Eclair in the early 80's came too late to save the company from bankruptcy and were hardly produced, if at all : the Eclair EX16 (similar to ACL with fixed viewfinder and 24/25fps fixed motor) and the Eclair PANORAM (first dual format 16+ Super16 camera with "Varigate" system).Īn Eclair 16 was used by L.M. NPR stands for Noiseless Portable Reflex and ACL comes from the letters of the names of its designers Agusti (Austin) Coma and Jacques Lecoeur.
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. Their real breakthrough design, the Caméflex (shoulder-held portable 35mm camera with instant-change magazines, with later 16/35mm dual format option) introduced in 1947, played a major part in the French New Wave by allowing for a freer form of shooting 35mm fiction films. Among their early models was the Caméréclair of 1928, then the Camé 300 Réflex, both successful studio cameras. Originally a production company, they started building cameras in 1912.
Éclair was a film production, film laboratory and movie camera manufacturing company established in Épinay-sur-Seine, France by Charles Jourjon in 1907.