Special Effects

Illusions and visual tricks used to simulate events a production could not otherwise film, traditionally divided into mechanical effects staged live on set and optical effects created photographically, with computer-generated imagery dominant since the 1990s. Georges Melies pioneered the craft in early cinema after discovering the stop-trick by accident when his camera jammed mid-shot, going on to make over 500 short films between 1896 and 1914 using multiple exposures, time-lapse photography and hand-painted color, culminating in the 1902 A Trip to the Moon.