Georges Méliès

Personal Info

Birthday

December 8, 1861

Day of Death

1938-01-21

(76 years old)

Place of Birth

Paris, France

Also Known As

Жорж Мельес

조르주 멜리에스

Marie Georges Jean Méliès

ジョルジュ・メリエス

マリー・ジョルジュ・ジャン・メリエス

Georges Méliès

Biography

Georges Méliès (December 8, 1861 - January 21, 1938), full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French illusionist and filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. One of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, tracking shots, dissolves, and hand-painted color in his work, Méliès pioneered effects that would define cinematic special effects for decades to come.

A prolific innovator in the use of special effects, Méliès accidentally discovered the substitution stop trick in 1896, a method of creating seamless disappearing and/or appearing effects used throughout both films and television for decades to come. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality through cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the first "Cinemagician". Two of his best-known films are A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).