- While shooting one of his life scenes in the Place de l'Opera in Paris, the camera jammed. It took about a minute to clear the problem and resume shooting. When the film was processed and screened, Méliès saw a bus suddenly turn into a hearse; people in the scene suddenly appeared or disappeared. This accident led to his discovery of stop motion trickery which became his first filmic special effects technique. This stop motion technique had previously been discovered and used by Thomas A. Edison, but Méliès made extensive use of it in his short films.
- Charles Chaplin said he was "the alchemist of light."
- Martin Scorsese said that "he invented everything, basically, he invented it all".
- On December 28, 1895, he was a member of the first audience in the world to see the Lumiere brothers' Cinematographe.
- He built the first movie studio in Europe.
- Is regarded as "The Father of Special Effects."
- By the time he left film production in 1913, he had created over 500 films.
- Was cinema's first real fantasist. Considered the absolute greatest fictional fantatsist of his time.
- D.W. Griffith said about Méliès, "I owe him everything.".
- He was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards.
- He considered the United States such an important market that his company had an office there. Many of his production sketches and storyboards were captioned in English as well as French.
- Showed the first versions of movie trailers by projecting images above the entrance of the Théâtre Robert Houdin, Paris in 1898. This gave passers-by an idea of what was inside and on the actual screen.
- When he discontinued film production, Méliès himself reportedly destroyed the original elements of most of his films.
- His movie studio was made entirely out of glass.
- The French surrealist movement in the 1920s brought about a rediscovery of Méliès' surviving films, and the acknowledgment of his contributions to the art and the industry of motion pictures. Eventually this led to his being awarded the Legion of Honor in 1931.
- Before getting into motion pictures, his jobs, which he reportedly loved, included work as a conjurer, illusionist and theater owner/manager. It was this background that fueled his imagination in regards to making motion pictures. Unlike the Lumiere Brothers, especially director Louis Lumière, Georges didn't think that the cinema was simply for recording, films actualities and taking snapshots of reality. Instead, he considered the medium a perfect vehicle to further escape for an audience.
- Méliès worked with two engineers at his theatre workshop to build a camera of his own. The first prototype weighed over 75 pounds.
- Had all of his early equipment (projectors, printers and processing equipment) custom made from designs of others (namely the Lumiere's) that he had improved on.
- His grave is situated in the Père Lachaise cemetery (Paris, France)
- The Théâtre Robert-Houdin was closed in 1914 as a result of World War I. This sent him into bankruptcy.
- His first films, like those of the Lumieres, were simple life scenes in single frame shots which he added to the program at his theatre, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. He later filmed scenes of himself doing magic tricks.
- On May 3, 2018, Google honoured Méliès with its first ever virtual reality doodle.
- After three years of mandatory military service, his father sent him to London to work as a clerk for a family friend. While in London, he began to visit the Egyptian Hall, run by the London illusionist John Nevil Maskelyne, and he developed a lifelong passion for stage magic.
- His brother Gaston Méliès helped his older brother in his screenplays and film productions, and in 1903 he opened a sales office in New York City to market his films in the US. They published a film catalog with extensive descriptions in English. In that period, Georges would shoot two negatives of each of his films, one of which would be sent to the States. After his bankruptcy, younger brother Henri Méliès was most helpful running the family shoe factory in London.
- Founded the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in France in 1896, which played most of his films.
- He was also one of the first filmmakers to use storyboards. His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.
- After completing his education, Méliès joined his brothers in the family shoe business, where he learned how to sew.
- The Melies studio in Montreuil was destroyed in December of 1945, though French Cinematheque founder Henri Langlois was able to rescue a number of historic objects from the building.
- Father of Georgette Méliès & André Méliès.
- He tried to buy Cinematographe equipment from the Lumieres but they refused to sell to him. He got into the film business by buying a projector from Robert W. Paul and buying a Bioscope camera.
- After his film career declined and ended in the early 1910s, he worked at a small candy and toy stand that his second wife Jehanne d'Alcy owned in the main hall of the Gare Montparnasse railway station.
- Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 747-765. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
- Although he was never able to make another film after 1912 or stage another theatrical performance after 1923, he continued to draw, write to and advise younger filmmakers and theatrical admirers until the end of his life.
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