The Louma

The camera, freed from its earthly constraints, could move fluidly through space, rise to great heights or drop down low. Obedient to the nearest millimeter, it could make light of obstacles, like a remote-controlled mechanical bird. It physically separated the camera from the operator, who remained on the ground, but they both gained in flexibility and freedom of movement.

Easy to dismantle, the Louma (contraction of Lavalou and Masseron) is made up of four basic parts: the camera, supported by a head allowing horizontal and vertical panoramic views as well as rotation around the optical axis; the arm—modular in the first version, then telescopic in the Louma 2; the support, which could be mounted on a Dolly or on rails; and the counterweights. The operators control the frame, zoom, focus, and movement via a remote-control head, or a video control desk with operating handles.

The original version, designed in October 1970 by Masseron and Lavalou at the French military institute of cinematography and photography, allowed a blind sequence shot (without a video viewfinder) to be filmed. This caused a sensation: inside a narrow submarine in Toulon, in a room that was about 8 meters long, the camera passed over a table at which the sailors were sat, moved forwards fluidly and steadily, took in a 360-degree shot and finished by exploring the whole space, despite the cramped nature of the room.

Albert Viguier, who hired out equipment (Alga-Samcine), was fascinated by the idea. So he recommended the two young inventors to the British manufacturer and distributor David Samuelson, who gave them his financial backing from London. They improved the equipment, and in 1972 a very sophisticated version of the Louma was presented to the press. Shooting René Clément's film, La Course du lièvre à travers les champs (And Hope to Die), served as a test run for using the Louma on location. In 1974, a model with a motorized head and remote control was designed. The first prototype was completed in 1975. Roman Polanski, along with the cinematographer Sven Nykvist and production designer Pierre Guffroy, first used it in 1976 to create The Tenant's opening and closing sequence shots. Seven such cameras were made and sent to Paris, London, New York, and Hollywood, as well as Sydney, Australia.

Steven Spielberg heard about this revolutionary system, but his scheduled meeting to view the equipment in Paris had to be canceled. Determined not to be defeated, Lavalou and Masseron took the demonstration to him in the garden of his hotel at the Deauville festival, where he was showing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg tried out the equipment and, immediately seduced, decided to send a Louma to the United States to film 1941. Lavalou went to California to be present when it was shot in 1979. “This is my new toy!” proclaimed the enthusiastic director, who would use it again, notably for Indiana Jones. The Louma had conquered Hollywood.

Following this, the Louma would undergo numerous improvements: hydraulic telescopic column (1990), Backpan system (automatic compensation of horizontal panoramic shots by the camera head when the arm pivots, 1993), telescopic version (Louma 2, 2006), shot-assist real-time software (2007), on-set previsualization (2010), etc. Masseron and Lavalou were assisted by Guy Tournerie, Hervé Theys (designer of the electronics system) and Nicolas Pollacchi, all of whom contributed greatly to the success of the device.

In 2001, Lavalou and Masseron, along with Nicolas Pollacchi, took over the company that rented out the equipment (Loumasystems) and started developing new systems. In 2005, Jean-Marie Lavalou, Alain Masseron, and David Samuelson received an Oscar for designing and developing the Louma crane and its remote-control system, which had opened up new possibilities in cinematography.