Advancements

Georges Melies discovered trick photography when he was filming a banal street scene. After a while of shooting, his camera jammed. After a few seconds of fixing the camera, he began recording his street scene again. When he processed his film, he noticed that a strange effect occured due to the malfunction. Objects in the scene suddenly appeared, disappeard, or were morphed into new objects, such as a man into a woman, and a carriage into a hearse. This accident was one of the very first trick photography editing. Georges Melies took this discovery to a new level, creating whole films with many of these effects. This also inspired him to create complex special effects including the first double exposure, split screen shots, and dissolves.