My God, I love the internet.
Threetails says,
This represents several months of work. I have taken Georges Méliès’ 1902 classic film “A Trip to the Moon” (Une Voyage dans la Lune), the first science fiction film ever produced, and dubbed on an original soundtrack! If I get a good enough reception I might make tracks from this piece available… Sorry I couldn’t make the audio quality a little better for YouTube.The music is inspired by a number of artists from the early days of electronica, including Kraftwerk, Vangelis, and even Rick Wakeman. So yeah… I took a 104 year old film and made it into a music video for my own experiments in electronic music.
Video Link part 1, Video Link part 2 via Bruce Sterling‘s blog.
There’s also a copy of the original film at archive.org with a more conventional soundtrack. The filmmaker’s family resigned copyright in 1961.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry on George Méliès, here’s the entry on “Trip to the Moon.”
Reader comment: Joe Francis says,
The Visual effects society has adapted that great Melies image of the rocket in the moon’s eye for their awards trophy: Link. I think it’s really clever – and not just because I’m a member.
Dan Novy, Technical Supervisor at Flash Film Works, says:
And here’s what a “Vessie” looks like in the wild. :-)
ekrem serdar says,
Even though the Melies film is wonderful, the “first” sci-fi film was made by the Lumiere brothers themselves. Named Charcuterie Mecanique, it’s a 50 second short about a machine: you put the pig in one side, and the sausage, ham, etc. comes out the other! As such a machine still doesn’t exist, it could righteously qualify as the first sci-fi film. :) I posted the google video on my blog a few weeks back: Link. Cheers! (source: Baydur, Memet. Cinema Writings. Iletisim Yayinlari, Istanbul, 2004.)
Lex10 says,
Noel Fielding as the moon from the Mighty Boosh – strangely Melies-like. Link.