Jean-Marie Lavalau, co-inventor of the world’s first remote-controlled camera system that generated more streamlined crane footage and a new world of creative possibilities for motion pictures, passed away on July 15. He was 76 years old.
Born into a famous family of camembert cheese makers in Normandy, Lavallo’s career took its technological development when he met co-inventor Alain Masseron. In the 1970s, the duo created unique camera movements while making film inside a submarine during their national service in France.
This eventually led to the invention of the Luma Crane, which has become widely used in film and television productions around the world. (The term Louma is derived from LOU & MA from their names.)
For the project, Lavalou and Masseron assembled a team of engineers. Subsequent research and development in Paris, as well as in tandem with partner and David Samuelson of Samuelson Film Services and his team of engineers in London, resulted in the world’s first remotely controlled camera crane.
Director Roman Polanski was an early user of this system with his cinematographer Sven Nyqvist on The Tenant in 1976, where it was published to create the film’s opening and closing sequence footage.
Andy Romanoff, retired Panavision CEO, recalls that the Louma Crane came to America in 1978 and was used in the Steven Spielberg movie “1941.” The system, he says, “introduced us to a whole new camera language.”
“Jean-Marie worked day and night to adapt the crane to the demands of the Hollywood film industry,” Romanov adds. “In subsequent years, he became friends with film crews around the world while visiting filming sets to see how he could make the crane easier and more useful for them…He spent his whole life dedicated to making better tools for making films.”
In 2005, the Academy of Motion Pictures awarded the Technical and Scientific Achievement Award to Lavallo, Masseron, and Samuelson for the Louma remote-controlled camera head.
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