George Méliès

Movies to study

- The Four Troublesome Heads - The Man with the Rubber Head - A Trip to the Moon (1898-1902)

What is his most famous film?

A Trip to the Moon

Why did he go bankrupt?

A combination of pirating and overspending

Reverse Motion

A series of images are photographed with the film reversed. When projected normally, the effect is to suggest backward movement.

Double Exposures

A technique of exposing film frames, then rewinding the film and exposing it again, which results in an image that combines two shots in a single frame

How did many of his films survive despite the negatives being melted down?

Bootlegged copies

How many films did he create and where?

Created hundreds of films in his Paris studio

Techniques attributed to Méliès

Double exposures, dissolves, mattes, reverse motion, cutting in the camera, and numerous other cinematic techniques

What was Méliès' occupation before becoming a filmmaker?

He was a magician, hence his obsession with illusion

How is A Trip to the Moon still prevalent today?

It created many of the generic situations that are still used in science fiction films today

How to you spell his last name?

Méliès

Mattes

One portion of the image is "masked off" and then rephotographed to create spatial, or spectacular, illusions; goes hand in hand with double exposure

A Trip to the Moon is considered one of the first __________ films.

Science Fiction films

What is Méliès know as today?

The Godfather of Special Effects Cinema

What happened to his films in other countries?

They were bootlegged

What happened to his negatives?

They were melted down for their silver content

Dissolves

Where one image "melts" into another

Cutting the Camera

used to make objects appear and/or disappear