First movie special effects studio

The first movie special effects studio was built in 1896 in Montreuil-sous-Bois, Paris, France by pioneering special effects filmmaker and illusionist Georges Méliès. The facility was a hybrid photography studio and stage with theatrical mechanisms. It measured 17 m long by 7 m wide (56 ft by 23 ft) and was an iron structure with frosted glass walls and a wooden floor featuring trapdoors with hoists and winches underneath. Melies was an outstanding designer and for a few short years one of cinema's first superstars. He created scenery with trompe l'oeil effects from painted cutouts and canvases that played on the perspectives of staircases and the volume of his studio. Holder's name is accented Georges Méliès