Christophe Goulard

Christophe crossed paths with L’Abo in 1999, and quickly became an integral part of the operation, moving into a small loft space above our premises in Asnières, where he shared our daily routine, bringing his scientific rigour and inexhaustible engineering knowledge to the service of the filmmakers in our group. He eventually left the French education system where he had been working for years and became an employee of the association in 2014. We’ve worked together on so many projects; refurbishing machines for the lab, repairing them day and night if problems arose, and eventually, inventing and imagining new ones! With him, beyond the simple maintenance of the lab’s machines, we constantly transformed, modernized and invented the tools of our trade: 16mm loopers, developing machine modifications, LED lamps for contact printing… the list is endless and we learned from him every day we spent together.

During this same period, he was also developing a rather active camera repair business and acquired extraordinary expertise with a wide range of different types of cameras, most notably ARRI and Bolex 16mm cameras and Nizo and Beaulieu Super 8 cameras. He was constantly helping filmmakers with their projects, whether it was during the shooting, development or projection phases. Some of his design and engineering projects came to fruition and were produced, sometimes in dozens of units, while others were still at the prototype or testing stage at the time of his death in July 2023. We have decided, both to pay tribute to him and so that others can benefit from his work, to make a certain number of his work files available here online as open source.

We do this in the spirit of sharing knowledge, without seeking to make a profit. If you use these resources, please mention Christophe Goulard’s contribution and we’ll be delighted to hear about it. And if you use them to develop a professional activity, please consider making a donation to the Navire Argo.

Of course, we offer no guarantee of functionality.  These are simply the files from his personal computer (with a year-by-year history for his long-term projects), which we were able to retrieve thanks his gift to the lab of all his work and tools and the understanding of his family – for which we would like to offer our sincerest gratitude.

Now it’s your turn to carry on where Christophe left off!

30m developing spiral (prototype)

(2010)

First attempt to build a 30m development spiral for 16mm (and 35mm).

One was made for L’Abominable, but the machining time was considerably long!

Spire 30m

(2022-2023)

Thirteen versions of Christophe’s project to have development spirals made for 30 meters of 16mm film.

Eventually, Christophe was thinking of having a mold made, as he didn’t hold out much hope that 3D printing could achieve the necessary precision.

Super-8 cartridge opener

(2021)

At last, it’s easy to open S-8 cartridges in the dark before developing them! After a first model was successfully built and tested at L’Abominable, the model was branded filmlabs.org and shared on the website.

24V dimmer for Eiki

(2008-2018)

A board for dimming the 24V 250W lamp in EIKI 16mm film projectors by connecting directly to the lamp’s 24V AC supply. This board was a great success!

Eiki focusing knob sleeve

(2022)

To counter the fact that the focusing knobs on Eiki projectors age badly, Christophe designed this part to be 3D printed and cut down into a series of individual pieces, enabling 33 of them to be made in one go for just a few euros!

Optical tachometer

(2013)

Version 2 of a device that measures the speed of cinema projectors by counting the pulses of light in the beam

A working model was made for L’Abominable, where it is still in use.

Opti-Film-o-Sync

(2016-2019)

A system for synchronizing image and sound using Zach Poff’s free ‘Film-o-sync‘ software by capturing light pulses from film projectors (S8, 16mm, 35mm).

We have a working prototype for use at L’Abominable, but plans to produce a first series never came to fruition.

Moteur ACL modernisé

(2014-2023)

Since the motors of Éclair ACL cameras have an unfortunate tendency to fail, Christophe developed a replacement electronics system for those of the MIALA motor, while surpassing the advantages of the ACL II’s MIVAR motor.

A working prototype was produced, and Christophe was working on an optimized version.

ACL wireless clapper

(2017-2022)

This small circuit records a ‘beep’ tone on the recorder corresponding to the veiled image that the ACL2 can generate. This circuit is based on an NRF24L01 2.4GHz ultrasonic transmitter/receiver module, easily found on ebay or elsewhere.

Bolex EBM re-motorization

(2020-2022)

Christophe, who used to repair Bolex cameras, had a project to modify the EBM model, replacing the original motor with a smaller, much more energy-efficient modern motor and an internal lithium rechargeable battery. This made the camera lighter and more autonomous. Unfinished project.

Bolex conference

(2019)

In 2019, at the invitation of the experimental film collective Braquage, Christophe gave a one-day talk on Bolex cameras, filmed by Zsolt Boros.