In our second installment of our ‘Magic of Early Cinema’ series, we take a look at ‘The Vanishing Lady’ (or ‘Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin’ as it was originally titled) – The short film was produced by Georges Méliès, a director who continually pushed the experimental boundaries of cinema. Read on and watch a true magician at work!
In a similar way to Edison’s ‘The Execution of Mary Stuart’, Georges Méliès used the cut shot to clever effect in ‘The Vanishing Lady’ – Apparently Méliès stumbled upon the technique entirely accidently when his camera jammed whilst filming a street scene – He was filming a taxi and it changed into a hearse when he watched the movie back!
The vanishing lady in Méliès’ movie is made to vanish and reappear by the majestic magician – However, he does seem to stumble upon a problem 48 seconds into the video when she turns into a skeleton.
Can you recreate the same Méliès magic in your LomoKino videos? We can’t wait to see!
Bringing analogue back to the movies with a bang in the 21st century, the LomoKino is a Lomography movie camera that shoots spectacular, creative movies on all kinds of 35mm film. Head to the Microsite, watch some Movies and begin your analogue movie-making journey today!
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