Beginning of Film

      George Méliès was one of the fathers of early cinema. He wasn't a master of moving pictures, until 1896.  Originally, Méliès was only a magician and became affixed with the phenomena after witnessing Lumiere's work.  In the book, by Elizabeth Ezra, Georges Méliès: the birth of the auteur, he describes the moment and he said, "We sat there with our mouths open, without speaking filled with amazement."  (2, Ezra) From 1896 until 1914 he directed over a whopping 500 films.
      Méliès was notorious for creating tricks in his films, that were considered special effects back then.  The reason why he was able to succeed in these"tricks" was because he used multiple exposures.  He was able to make things change size and disappear.   In 1902 he produced his most famous work, "A Trip to the Moon."  The movie is a total of 14 minutes and used 16 frames per second.  Unfortunately, technology does move fast.  By1906 cameras became more accessible and cheaper. Competition became fierce with aspiring director such as Edwin S. Porter.  In 1923 George Méliès  declared bankruptcy and died in 1938.
     Abel Gance was a major, french film director in the 1920s.  He began working and directing for movies at the age of 21.  He is an extremely significant figure in cinematography because of his filming techniques.  Gance is also known for his historical battles that appear in his movies.  His name started to get recognized after his successful production of "J'accuse!" 
       In 1924, Abel Gance began the direction of the most groundbreaking film of his career, "Napoleon." It originally durated over 6 hours, but was later compressed to half that.  Gance introudced many new technologies, such as color tiniting and polyvision.  During the battle scences, he had numerous cameras filmuing to capture different scenes so everything was constantly in motion. Abel Gance was a master of editing, and also used superimpoisition. 
     Polyvision would serve as revolutionary for spectators to watch.  In the theature, three projectors played the movie and each projector showed different views for certain scenes.  He created a three-camera rig for shooting.  Gance had a tremendous impact for the future of film.  His experiments with different shooting approaches like close ups, different angle views and wipes paved the way for aspiring directors.