Every year, during their studies, the students from La Fémis, produce around a hundred short films, dramas and documentaries. These films, more than just simple exercises, are produced from the very start to be real professional productions that regularly win awards in international film festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Clermont-Ferrand, etc…

 

To meet such a high level, they must comply with the mandatory level of professional requirements from the Audio-visual industry.

Up until today, La Fémis was using stereo recorders for their location sound recording and Film production. "We were looking for a device suitable for documentaries, able to also be used as a secure recorder on drama shoots and compact enough for ambient location sound or sound only productions" Michaël Stab, Responsible for the Sound technical team explains. A true benchmark standard started then with the collaboration of the Vice-Director of the Sound Department in La Fémis, Jean-Pierre Laforce, a well respected sound mixer of feature films who’s films have been awarded 3 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

Practical tests, as well as tests performed on many recorders, were done. After three days of real shooting with the 4MinX, Jean-Pierre Laforce came back very enthusiastic: “The audio quality from the 4MinX is really amazing, it has a huge headroom, strong and efficient microphone pre-amps, the sound is transparent and the limiters are discreet. Unlike American type pre-amps, efficient for recording dialogue, but where one always feel like one needs to set up a low-pass filter, the 4MinX produces a warm sound that is very pleasant on the voice but equally good for ambient sounds or music. The Double-MS feature, as well as the Ambisonics one for using Soundfield microphones, were the final convincing arguments for the 4MinX’s potential." 

Versatile and upgradeable, the 4MinX has 6 analogue inputs, 4 digital inputs, 8 analogue outputs and 6 digital outputs. It is available in 2, 4, 6 or 8 track versions and is user-upgradable at a later date if a low track-count version is chosen originally.

Located in the former Pathé Studios, rue Francoeur, in Paris where mythical Directors like Marcel L'Herbier, Marcel Carné, Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Sacha Guitry and many others filmed, La Fémis (Fondation Européenne des Métiers de l’Image et du Son), the National Foundation for the Image and Sound professions, stands amongst the highest of French public schools. The main activity of the school is the basic training of professions related to the cinema and, added from 2013, specific courses on “TV series creations” and a PhD in Research in Cinema. As the school’s intention is to stay very close to Industry realities, they don’t have any permanent educational team but ask around 500 industry professionals each year to supervise the different courses and internships. Every year the school produces more than 100 short films, dramas and documentaries. These are more than simple exercises, but real works that have received prizes at many Festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Clermont-Ferrand…) that introduces real talents that will be the stars of the future. More information on www.femis.fr