Stop trick
Encyclopedia
A stop trick is a film
special effect
. It occurs when an object is filmed, then while the camera is off, the object is moved out of sight of the camera, then the camera is turned back on. When the film is watched it thus seems to the viewer that object disappears.
Georges Méliès
accidentally developed the stop trick while filming street traffic in Paris. The gate mechanism of his camera jammed; the traffic continued moving normally but Méliès's camera stopped filming until he could free the gate mechanism. Later, when he screened the printed footage of the street traffic, he was astonished to see an omnibus suddenly turn into a hearse. What actually happened is that the omnibus moved out of frame after the camera jammed, to be replaced by the hearse before the camera continued filming. Méliès used this technique to do magical tricks. For example, he would film a magician and a girl; the magician would make a gesture and Melies stopped the camera. He told the girl to go out of sight and started the camera again. When viewing the finished film, it looked like the girl disappeared suddenly after the magician's gesture.
This technique is not to be confused with the stop motion
technique, in which the entire shot is created frame-by-frame.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
. It occurs when an object is filmed, then while the camera is off, the object is moved out of sight of the camera, then the camera is turned back on. When the film is watched it thus seems to the viewer that object disappears.
Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...
accidentally developed the stop trick while filming street traffic in Paris. The gate mechanism of his camera jammed; the traffic continued moving normally but Méliès's camera stopped filming until he could free the gate mechanism. Later, when he screened the printed footage of the street traffic, he was astonished to see an omnibus suddenly turn into a hearse. What actually happened is that the omnibus moved out of frame after the camera jammed, to be replaced by the hearse before the camera continued filming. Méliès used this technique to do magical tricks. For example, he would film a magician and a girl; the magician would make a gesture and Melies stopped the camera. He told the girl to go out of sight and started the camera again. When viewing the finished film, it looked like the girl disappeared suddenly after the magician's gesture.
This technique is not to be confused with the stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
technique, in which the entire shot is created frame-by-frame.