What is Georges Méliès?
{{Infobox person | name = Georges Méliès | image = Méliès portrait (cropped).png | birth_name = {{nowrap|Georges Méliès}} | birth_date = {{Birthdate|1861|12|8}} | birth_place = [[Paris, France]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1938|1|21|1861|12|8}} | death_place = Paris, France | occupation = Actor, movie director, movie producer | years_active = | spouse = }} '''Georges Méliès''' (8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French moviemaker. He led the way in the use of [[Special effect|special effects]], multiple exposures, time-lapse [[photography]], dissolves, and hand-painted colour in his work. His movies include ''[[Conquest of the Pole]]'', ''[[A Trip to the Moon]]'', and ''The Impossible Voyage''. These movies involve strange, [[surrealism|surreal]] [[voyage]]s, like those in [[Jules Verne]]'s books. These movies are among the most important early [[science fiction movies]]. Méliès's ''[[The Haunted Castle]]'' is an early [[horror movie]]. == Life and work == Méliès was born in [[Paris, France]] in 1861. He liked drawing and playing with a [[puppet]] theater as a child. He went to the theater often as a young man. About 1888, Méliès bought the Théatre Robert-Houdin and worked there as a [[magician]]. He became obsessed with moviemaking after seeing a movie by [[Antoine Lumière]] in 1895. In May 1896, he acquired his own movie [[camera]] and set up a [[movie studio]]. At the end of 1896, he formed a new company, Star Film. Méliès began making movies that were three to nine minute long. He wrote, designed, filmed, and acted in nearly all of his movies. He liked putting magic tricks into his movies. While filming a street scene one day, the camera stopped briefly. When Méliès looked at the movie later, he noticed that at the moment of the break, the bus he had been filming suddenly disappeared and new vehicles replaced it. Making items appear and disappear by stopping and starting the camera would become one of his most commonly used movie tricks.