Essay Writing

With a growing number of movies these days, one’s eyes get attracted by how stories are represented in a visual form and get the audience eyes. Film editing is a crucial element for movie making. Various techniques and tricks have been invented throughout film history to make their work easy and efficient among these George Melies inventions have contributed a lot in the film sector which I’ll be briefly discussing in this essay.

Marie- Georges-Jean Melies known as George Melies was born on the 8^th of December 1861. He is a French-based illusionist and film director who was an early Pioneer to invent many technical and narrative developments regarding films. His early films were so successful in winning worldwide market and it had also attracted worldwide plagiarism. He is considered as a father of special effects, illusionist and film director. His techniques involve multiple exposures, substitution splices, time-lapse photography, fade-out, slow motion, dissolves, and hand-painted color.

From 1899 to 1912, Melies made more than 400 films, among these best ones, combines illusion effects, science fiction, fantasy, horror, comic burlesque, and pantomime to express core idea of his shots in a very playful and absorbed fashioned way. He is also considered as the first person to introduce storyboards in his film and especially specialized in depicting extreme human body using camera shot techniques. Some of his movies include as diverse as Cleopatra, Le Christ Marchant Surles eaux, Le Voyage a Travers I'm impossible, Hamlet, etc.

George Melies has inspired many film directors and artists around the world. His ideas and works are still being carried by almost every film director and editor. Visual effects and special effects are the most popular these days. Highly successful movies like Avatar, Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Avengers use a wide range of visual effects and special techniques that are photo realistic. The credit somehow goes to Melies for coming up with these incredible ideas and experimental works. This inspires the upcoming generation to explore and learn more in the film sector. Remembering him and his contribution Frenchman would write of this outburst, “The demon of invention tormented me,” This is believed to be the vocabulary of the film which was single-handedly carried away. (Georges Melies, Mage et "Mes Memoires" par Georges Melies, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Editeur Paris, 1961)

These days, the most commonly used techniques are Dissolves, Fadeout, Multiple Exposers, Jumpcut, Intercut and more importantly Storyboarding. In my point of view, Jumpcut, Intercut, and Multiple exposers techniques seem to be a very creative and artistic way of expressing captured camera shots in videos which I will be using them in my future projects. In-depth jump cut refers to the techniques where two sequential shots of the same subjects are captured from camera positions that vary only slightly. This subsequently helps editors to draw viewers’ attention.

Similarly, Multi exposer, a state where two different shots with different exposers are combined to appear as a single shot. It can put the dynamic range to my character and environment.

A storyboard is another fundamental aspect of movie making. It is an overall representation of a storyline in a very short and roughly illustrated sequence. This helps projects to be organized and well planned and can be manipulated later. This is considered as an essential element for 2D, 3D movie makings and is a first step of building concept in animation.

As a first-year student of Animation, The previously mentioned techniques have highly influenced me to work on my future projects and it would be appropriate to use in my 2D animation short videos for the upcoming semester. I’ll be using storyboarding techniques for most the animation videos that help to illustrate and develop story concept. The software I’ll be using for my upcoming projects are Adobe After effects for final video compositing and Toon Boom Harmony Pro for both animating and storyboarding. This software is also being taught in my classes which benefits me to show some of the techniques used by Melies. As a result, these editing skills would make my video transition go smooth and well organized and help me to become a better artist.

In Conclusion, the tricks and techniques developed by Melies is still in practice and considered as a fundamental element of cinematography which should be learned by every individual and his contribution should be always remembered.

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References

Georges Melies | Biography, Films, & Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Melies

Georges Méliès | MoMA. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/artists/3918

What Is A Storyboard And Why Do You Need One? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.vyond.com/resources/what-is-a-storyboard-and-why-do-you-need-one/