The Father of Special Effects

Movie Magic....Really Old School Style

Whether it is seeing a T-Rex come to life in front of our eyes or seeing our billionth explosion on screen, special effects have a special place in film. It is one of many tools of the trade that allows a filmmaker to create an illusion to their liking. When done well, the audience is taken to a place not thought possible; done poorly and popcorn bombards the silver screen. Even if most effects are done digitally, the principle of having effects at all is key to creating a whole new world. One question may come to mind as you are reading this... Who is this old dude here?

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This individual here is Georges Méliès. If anyone saw the film Hugo, you would recognize him as the man Ben Kingsley portrayed. This man was a great film innovator. He was one of the few to look at a film camera and see much more than a simple gimmick.

Stage Magician to Film Magician

Special effects in cinema are often considered magic tricks, so it is fitting that the father of special effects was a magician in real life. Although he originally was part of a family business in shoe making, Méliès hated making shoes. He sold his share of a shoe factory to his brothers and bought the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Attendance was low at first, but Méliès was able to increase ticket sales by creating his own magic tricks.

When he first saw the film camera by the Lumière brothers, Méliès immediately tried to buy one from them. Although refused, he was actually able to build one himself. As soon as he got his hands on a camera, Méliès began to use effects such as the jump cut, the dissolve, and the double exposure.

Example of Double Exposure. (http://www.mexicanpictures.com)

Anytime you saw an object suddenly appear in a film, that is usually a jump cut. The story goes that while Méliès was filming a trolly, the camera jammed. He got the camera working again, but there was a hearse in the place of the trolly. When the film was developed, he noticed that the trolly turned into the hearse. This discovery led to one of the 1st instances of editing and was a common trick he used in his films.

Double Exposure... Or How to Clone Yourself

Today we have green screen and computers in order to duplicate an individual. However, Méliès was able to do so only with a film camera using double exposure. The reason it was called double exposure is because the same strip of film need to be exposed twice or more. First a subject is shot, with half of the lens covered; this allowed only part of the film to be exposed. Then the camera operator would have to rewind the film and cover the other part of the lens. When exposed and played back, it would look as though there are clones. In order to do the ghostly effects, the same process would be repeated without covering the lens.

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It is fun to think that without this one French man, we would not have the film The Avengers. While his tricks are not nearly as advanced as special effects are today, Méliès paved the way for many special effects to come.