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How Does Melies Use Substitution Splicing

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Georges Melies pioneering work with special effects from 1896-1903. Georges Melies was a French film maker. He made hundreds of films between the years of 1896 and 1912. During the duration of film making career he invented and developed a number of special effect techniques that greatly benefited the film industry. One of the special effect techniques developed by Georges Melies is called substitution splicing, It is the first special effect that Georges Melies took advantage of in his films. Substitution splicing is the effect of a person or item suddenly appearing or disappearing from the frame in the film. For a long time the technique was referred to as 'stop motion'. However it was changed to the current phrase due to Jacques Malthete's. …show more content…

His camera jammed, After fixing the issue he reviewed the footage he had filmed. He was shocked to see that an omnibus he was filming transformed into a hearse, And men who were in the shot transformed into women. It has been suggested that Melies would of probably already known of an earlier example of substitution splicing from Thomas Edisons Film Execution of Mary Queen of Scots which was released a year earlier. Even though it is debated whether Georges Melies invented substitution splicing, He is widely regarded as developing the technique further than other film makers. Melies debuted this technique in his film L'Escamotage d'une dame chez Robert Houdin/The Vanishing Lady which was released in the year 1896. The Substitution splicing technique is historically significant because it is the first special effect technique used in film production. Georges Melies's work with it is also the first recorded use of film editing, This set the film industry down a path where editing the film was more widely used and is still used to this day in the modern film making …show more content…

Another special effect technique that Melies took advantage of in his films was called the replication effect he referred to it as superposition. Examples of this in use are in his films titled L'homme orchestre/ The one-man band which was released in 1900 and Le Melomane/The Melomaniac which was released in 1903. The method used to achieve this effect are that the film is exposed up to ten consecutive times in the camera. The actor who has to go through the scene up to ten times and they have to remember precisely to the second what they were doing in the previous take of the scene. If the actor steps out of place during one of the takes the whole scene is ruined and the whole process has to start from the beginning. The replication effect is historically significant because it opened the door to more complex and experimental types special effect techniques that make extravagant and unique films possible in today's film

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