Georges Melies: BSA106 (Screen Arts 1) Week 3B

We learned a bit about French filmmaker Georges Melies and watched some of his films. Melies was a pioneer in filmmaking, specifically in special effects and the techniques used to produce scenes and images impossible on a stage. He was the first to use double exposure (in which two or more images are exposed over eachother to create one image), split screen (where an actor can perform opposite themselves) and dissolves (where on frame dissolves into another and acts as a scene transition). he also loved using stop motion, which actually came about as a mistake.



One of the movies of his that we watched is "The India Rubber Head", in which Melies stars as the lead actor himself and plays around with some of the techniques mentioned above (specifically double exposure and split-screen).

Another film we watched, his most popular, was "A Trip to The Moon", in which techniques like dissolve and stop motion was heavily used. Of all the films we watched this is definitely the one I personally enjoyed the most, especially some of the visual aspects like the painted background and illusionary techniques he used to combine objects within the scene and the background (e.g. The Canon). It gives the whole thing a dreamlike feel and proves that he achieved his original goal to show people things on a larger, more fantastical scale that would be impossible on a stage.

His work prompted many of the techniques he established to become staples of the cinematic medium, arguably you can't find a movie that hasn't, in some form, been influenced by him.