Celebrating Georges Méliès's the Conquest of the Pole

George Melies was a French illusionist and film director who contributed to many technical and narrative development in the earliest days of Cinema.

Marie-Georges-Jean Melies also known as George Melies was a French illusionist and film director who contributed to many technical and narrative development in the earliest days of Cinema. He was a prolific inventor in the use of special effects, popularising technique such as substitute splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolve and hand printed color.

Google Doodle is celebrating the release date of The Conquest of the Pole in 1912. Marie-George-jean Melies was born on 8 December 1861 in Paris to Jean Luis Stanislas and his wife Johnannah Cathrine Schuering. Since his early childhood days, Melies showed his creative instincts and artistic intellect as he was often disciplined by teachers for covering his notebooks and textbooks with drawings.

Melies was also the first filmmakers to use a storyboard, his films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904) both the films involving strange, surreal journey similar to the style of Jules Verne. Flims made by Melies are considered among the most important early science fiction films as their approach was closer to Fantasy.

For his contribution to the cinema, he was presented with Legion of Honour by Walt Disney in 1936. In 2007 novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick and 2011 film Hugo was center on the life of Melies, academy award winner Ben Kingsley played the role of Melies in Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese.

Georges Melies was honored into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2015.

Melies died of cancer at the age of 76 on 21st January 1938.