1. Trick Films and Georges Méliès

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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.victorian-cinema.net/melies  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/373930/Georges-Melies http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/373930/Georges-Melies  http://www.melies.eu/English.html http://www.melies.eu/English.html