Transcript Trick Films and Georges Melies

Trick Films and Georges
Méliès
Trick films

Use camera techniques to create magic tricks or primitive special effects.

Stop motion photography was the first big camera technique to create tricks
and used often afterwards. This was discovered by Georges Méliès
accidentally.

Dissolve: an editing transition that was created by Georges Méliès where one
shot fades out as another shot is coming into view.
The Life of Georges Méliès

He was born in 1861 in Paris, France and worked/managed a theater as a
magician until he witnessed the Lumiere Brothers camera.

He bought a camera, created a film studio, and started writing/making films.

Here are all his contributions to film: stop motion, slow motion, dissolve,
fade-out, superimposition (the same as double exposure: adding an image
over another image), and double exposure (meaning you can film once and
then go back and film over it to have two simultaneous images).

How do you think they made the film faster or slower back then?
His films

From 1899 to 1912 Méliès made more than 400 films

Characteristics: surreal or magical, non-realistic, creative sets, fantasy
storylines, made of multiple shots in different locations/sets, each shot often
filmed from one angle with no close-ups, and the use of tricks

Méliès’ principle contribution to cinema was the combination of traditional
theatrical elements to motion pictures - he sought to present spectacles of a
kind not possible in live theatre.

The commercial growth of the industry forced him out of business in 1913. He
returned to show business.

Why do you think that was? What was it about his films that people liked and
didn’t like?
Life After Film

His theater was not doing well during the war.

In 1923 he was declared bankrupt and his beloved Theatre Robert Houdin was
demolished. He and his wife lived from the proceeds of a tiny boutique selling toys
and novelties on the Gare Montparnasse.

Méliès almost disappeared until the late 1920’s when his substantial contribution
to cinema was recognized by the French and he was presented with the Legion of
Honour and given a rent free apartment where he spent the remaining years of his
life.

http://www.victorian-cinema.net/melies

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/373930/Georges-Melies

http://www.melies.eu/English.html