Micro Salon 2012 : an important and exceptional event

By Jean-Noël Ferragut, AFC, & Eric Guichard, AFC

par Jean-Noël Ferragut, Eric Guichard

[ English ] [ français ]

Once again, the curtain fell on the Micro Salon with acclaim for its success. We know that if the event is held again in the future, there are many things that could be improved. But, the presentations made by our associate member partners on their know-how were a success, whether they took place at their booth, during a workshop, or at a screening.

Can we claim that 2012 was an exceptional year ? Yes, because this year, it is not necessarily the quantity of visitors that answered our invitation or their quality (although we are always impressed by this), as the fact that many key cinema image companies from all over the world, including America, came to La fémis !
Honestly, this strong showing is partially due to our associate member Emit (Steele Family & Co.) who decided to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary with us and had invited about forty participants.
Forty countries also participated in the annual General Assembly of Imago, the European federation of directors of photography, which had decided to accept the AFC’s invitation to hold this meeting in Paris during the Micro Salon. We gave them carte blanche on Saturday morning, and were treated to a presentation by Imago and the visit of about sixty directors of photography from Europe and beyond.

For those who might not know, about ten years ago, we had the simple but brilliant idea of bringing together the members of teams from our films—as well as those who are directly concerned by the way images are produced (production and post-production)—in a friendly forum for an entire day (now two days) in a place that has been inhabited by the spirit of cinema for over half a century. One of our goals was to build relationships and dialogue between our members and participants, and reality has surpassed our wildest dreams.

Since its first edition, the Micro Salon has not stopped growing. The growth in the number of visitors and the floor space occupied by the booths of our associate members means that we have to do our best to reduce the problems related to this situation. Our approach is the same we take towards the images in our films : experimentation.
We believe that what is essential is the state of mind that reigns over our Micro Salon, which is wonderfully alive but never truly established. Of course, this attitude means that we sometimes experience unexpected “false notes” such as when we had to redistribute new spaces at the last minute…

What more can we say than has already been said in similar articles at the end of previous events ? Our thanks, of course : although they are expected, they are so very sincere on behalf of all of the AFC and its directors of photography !
To Marc Nicolas and all the team at La fémis who took us in under their roof without ever complaining, despite the extra work it gave to the students and the few little problems we may have caused.
To the CNC and Eric Garandeau, its president, who along with Laurent Cormier and Igor Primault, did us the honor of their presence, which was a new opportunity for them to examine the material we use during shoots and to meet the representatives of our associate members who develop this material for us.
To all of our associate partner members who, as usual, gave life to our Micro Salon with their participation and their visitors, and also to our visitors who came to discover the know-how that our industry is able to skillfully demonstrate and show off.
To Pierre-Franck Neveu and Sony France for their great help with digital screenings in 4K.
To Emit, again, for its “buffet-bar” made even better by thirty years of existence…
To our “surprise guests” : Cinesphère (plasma lighting), Craft Communications (drone for aerial shots), Nexyad (visual effects and postproduction), Totavision (360° shots), to the AOA, the AFCF, cinematographie.info, the CST, and presenters from La fémis and UP3D, who uniquely and with good cheer animated the corners and other spaces that were unoccupied…
To the team in charge of organization, Mathilde Demy, Claire Marquet and Claudia Marschal, who backed them up with administration and coordination ; Eric Vaucher and Nicolas Jeanpierre for technical and general management.
Lastly, in our disorganized order of precedence, to the AFC’s directors of photography for these two days, the worthy stooges of our 12th Micro Salon !

The AFC would like to extend its warmest thanks to those without whom the 12th Micro Salon could not have taken place :
- Raoul Peck and Marc Nicolas, President and General Director, Marc Urtado, technical director, and the administrative, technical, and pedagogical staff of La fémis, for their renewed hospitality and assistance,
- Eric Gardandeau, President, Laurent Cormier, Director of Cinematographic Patrimony, Igor Primault, Director of Innovation, video, and technical industries, for the unending support of the CNC,
- The associate members of the AFC who presented for their kind participation and support : Aaton, ACS France, Airstar France, Arri, Arri Lighting, B-Mac, Binocle, Broncolor-Kobold, Ciné Lumières de Paris, Cinésyl, Digimage Cinéma, Dimatec, Eclair, Eclalux, Emit, Fujifilm - Fujinon, K5600 Lighting, Key Lite, KGS Development, Kodak, Loumasystems, Lumex, Maluna Lighting, Mikros image, Next Shot, Panalux, Panasonic France, Panavision Alga, Panavision Cinecam, Papaye, Roscolab, RVZ Lumières, Soft Lights, Sony France, Sublab, Thales Angénieux, Transpacam, Transpagrip, Transpalux, Transvideo, TSF Caméra, TSF Grip, TSF Lumière, Vitec Videocom,
- The AFC’s guests : Jurgen Thiele (Cinesphere), Steve Duchesne (Craft Communication), Gérad Yahiaoui (Nexyad), Patrice Garlot (Totavision),
- Pierre-Franck Neveu (Sony France) for kindly lending the 4K Digital Projector and Christophe Pitre for impeccably installing and calibrating it,
- Christine Janeau (Airstar), Franck Ledesma (Key Lite), Gilles Rousseau (Lumex), Marie José Collet et Yann Blitte (Panalux), Evelyne Madaoui (RVZ Lumières), Henrik Moseid (Softlights), Laurent Kleindienst (TSF Lumière), for their ‘luminous’ help (electric and lighting equipment),
- Manuel Louranço (Transpagrip) for transporting various equipment,
- Joanna Shapley (Roscolab) for the “AFC” gobo over the Foyer Jean Renoir,
- Et aussi, the team in charge of welcoming and much more, Laura Acquaviva, Nejma Ayadi, Gervaise Blattmann, Félix Demy, Raphaël Drion, Clément Duroux, Margaux Duroux, Léa Giraud, Delphine Grand, Nicolas Guichard, Sarah Guichard, Claudia Marshall, Flore Mounier, Aurore Pourteyron, Raphaël Ridao, Julie Vignolles,

- Eric Vaucher for logistic and technical coordination,

_ - Nicolas Jeanpierre for general management, assisted by Olivier Bargès, Benjamin Laurent, Benjamin Tasimovicz,

- Allain Vincent, for his knowledgable distribution of the electrical current, helped out at the last minute in his hour of need by Manon Bluet, Antoine d’Artemare, Jérémie Fau, Mickele Guirrieri, Simon Roche, Guilhem Touzery,

- Nathalie Durand et Vincent Jeannot for lighting various spaces, efficiently assisted by Marc Beaurepaire, Théo Vanstaevel, Dominique Gonin, et Jean-Baptiste Moutrille, for the machinery,
- Jean-Jacques Bouhon et Eric Dumage, for the excellent quality of the screenings, Jérôme Pocholle (La fémis), Stéphane Gadroy, Daniel Dubuisson, the projectionists, François Reumont, for making the introductions,
- Jean-Marie Achard for the design of Micro Salon poster,
- Pauline Maillet for her photographic documentary.


And we haven’t forgotten that the masters of the house also rolled up their sleeves and helped us set up and clean up, Arthur Cloquet, Gérard de Battista, Etienne Fauduet, Pascal Gennesseaux, Gilles Henry, Jean-Michel Humeau, Marc Koninckx, Jean-Claude Larrieu, Armand Marco and the fifty-odd directors of the photography and members of the " AFC " who honored our association by representing it during the event.