Melies began his career as a magician and theatre owner in Paris, but it was a chance encounter on a late winter evening that would forever alter the world of Mr. Melies and the artistic, cultural and social realms of the modern age.

On December 28, 1895, Melies was huddled together with a group of anxious on- lookers in the basement of a Parisian Café. There, two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere introduced the audience to a device they had developed called the cinematographe (the world's first camera and projection mechanism).

No one really knew quite what to expect, but as the lights dimmed and the images began flickering along one of the walls of the cafe, every accepted notion of reality seemed to wither away like the trails of breath seen in the cold air.

Witnessing these moving photographs was truly astounding, and perhaps no other individual was more enthralled with the experience than Melies, a man who had spent much of his life conjuring up the impossible and now stood in awe of the magic being projected before him.

When the film had finished, Melies eagerly approached the brothers’ father Antoine and inquired about the price of such a device. Antoine replied, “The invention is not for sale. It would be the ruin of you. It can be exhibited for a while due to its scientific interest, but apart from that the machine has no future."

A Year later, Melies was creating and displaying his own cinematic creations. By means of trial, error and often accident, Melies was able to develop camera tricks such as fades, dissolves and superimpositions. This technical wizardry propelled motion pictures from simply an observance of actuality, into a journey of narrative storytelling.

In 1902, Melies created his most commercially and critically accepted work, A Trip To The Moon. The film represents a major turn in the art and production of filmmaking. From set design, to special effects, to editing, the whole experience is extremely rewarding, and was a work that would subsequently give Charlie Chaplin reason to dub him “The Alchemist of Light.”

But Melies was not able to keep up with the changing tones and technologies of the growing film industry. His theatre, The Theatre Robert-Houdin closed in 1914 with the start of World War I, which forced him into bankruptcy and eventual obscurity.

It was only with the emergence of the French Surrealist movement in the 1920’s, that a re-evaluation of Melies’ contributions to the form began to be recognized.

His surviving works were once again projected in Paris movie houses, and soon a search began to track down the once great innovator of motion pictures. Eventually, he was found operating a Kiosk at the Gare Montparnasse where he was selling candy and toys.

 It was Melies who first took us to the foreign crevices of the cosmos, and over a century later audiences still find themselves captivated by space battles, quests for distant lands and the moral dilemmas plaguing the heroes and villains in the far reaches of the imagination.

Science Fiction is not merely a tool of entertainment, but rather an educational device with the possibility of informing and presenting forth the dilemmas of the everyday human being.

The triumphs and struggles of emotion are presented in breathtaking beauty, allowing social, cultural and environmental issues to be acted out in fantastic detail. It is a world that we both admire and fear with equal intensity.

Recently I spoke to Effie Brown, founder of Duly Noted Inc. and producer of the critically acclaimed film Real Women Have Curves on the topic of the science fiction genre. Through her interest and insight on the topic, I was able to take away a better understanding and admiration for the characters and creators making up this sensational world.

Effie: “I’ve always loved genre films, but mostly science fiction because they’re an excellent pulpit to educate as you entertain. Because they don’t shove it down your throat. It shows how people can draw in an audience. Like here, look at this piece of candy, come and get this candy. And then you find out later that the candy is actually medicine for you. So that’s what I’ve always liked.”

 “Growing up in Jersey, Star Trek was huge. What most people don’t realize is that Star Trek dealt a lot with racism, sexism, violence and community. What is a community? The first interracial kiss was with Captain Kirk. But people didn’t go up and arms about it because it was so carefully done that you didn’t care he was kissing a woman of color. Even though I think she was painted green or something. So I remember growing up and being wow, that’s crazy. That’s one of the reasons why I love it.”

 “It’s also a place where you can let your mind go. You can imagine and you can explore. It’s kind of like a parable. A story where this is what could happen if you do x, y and z. A lot of the time in science fiction you’re able to do that. Star Trek was able to do that. I also remember back in the day, okay and I know everybody hates Charlton Heston, but I absolutely love him. Because back in the day he was so on point and progressive. He did Soylent Green and he also did The Omega Man. The Omega Man was a futuristic story that took place in L.A. where there was a virus that knocked out everybody and he was the last white man on Earth and there’s a black woman who’s the last woman on Earth. And they had this torrid affair, and they’re star-crossed lovers and they had to bond together in order to survive and there’s these vultures that were out to get them that were sort of vampiric. I mean come on, Charlton Heston man. People always say he’s like a huge racist, but him and Rosalind Cash had huge love scenes and romantic scenes together. And it also dealt with race relations, and man’s inhumanity to man and also how technology is also killing human interaction and going back to basics.”

 “These sorts of things were things I was able to grasp onto. If someone’s able to tell me a story where I can get wrapped up in the story and then I can still get a message out of it, people are much more receptive to that and you can also inspire and foster change.”

 “Like Blade Runner to me is genius. And that was a movie that dealt with science fiction but they were able to blend in some noir as well. And also if you notice, it was very multi-cultural. Edward James Olmos.  It’s also a vision of what is to come. To look at it now, we’re dealing with stem cells, we’re dealing with cloning, and we’re dealing with things right now. And we can also manufacture things. We can give you this, we can do this and that. And actually we’re doing it now with social responsibility.”

“Gattaca as well. That was a beautiful movie. On the surface it seems like a movie about beautiful people. But it’s like, you know what, its gotten to the point of being viral. But you can also liken it to today where people can do tests and say oh you know what you’re baby is going to have Down Syndrome or your baby’s going to have a disease. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong, but we’re a step away.”

 “It’s always much easier to hold a person’s interest by presenting a point of view in a movie. And I don’t know if that really speaks of intelligence of an audience, but you become more receptive to those sorts of ideas. Like when I was growing up dealing with race relations. I was always put in a very white environment. I went to private schools and often times I was the only black person there. And a lot of times people would be hesitant about talking about Roots or some other bio pic like that because they would feel guilty or how do you respond or deal with that. But if you’re like, oh it’s in a movie, then it opens up more of a dialogue.”

One of the major aspects which sets science fiction films apart from other films is its incorporation of special effects. Georges Melies said, “It is the trick, used in the most intelligent manner, that allows the supernatural, the imaginary, even the impossible to be rendered visually and produces truly artistic tableaux that provided veritable pleasure for those who understand that all branches of art contribute to their realization.”

We often times think of visual effects as being simply eye candy for an audience, and granted laser beams, space ships and explosions are a fantastic tool that allows a filmmaker to tug an audience member to the edge of their seat. But it is the effects that help to sell the world, and allow the manifestation of emotion, struggle and accomplishment to be vividly illustrated upon the screen.

Effie: “I think that’s almost with any medium. I can tell you about movies where oh my god the editing, like that’s really great. I know we’re all A.D.D sort of people now, but you can do this flashy cutting, and it’s awful but do I think editing is bad? Absolutely not. You can say oh the camera work is beautiful, but you can go overboard with camera work too where you get distracted. Sometimes it moves you fast, or it’s gratuitous. I think the same thing goes with special effects. Special effects can definitely heighten a story and bring a point home.”

“Look at the Matrix. The first one, not the second and third. Genius. That movie, granted, it was well acted and the story was divine but you know what really hit that home? The visual effects. I’ll tell you that in a heart beat. That is definitely where I thought it held it’s own.”

Along with the special effects of a film, the landscapes and physical structures are as well vital to the science fiction realm. Luis Bunuel once said, “Film will be the faithful interpreter of the most daring dreams of architecture. Physics and chemistry transformed into rhythm.”

It is a film’s location and architectural compositions that in many ways become characters themselves. Take films like Metropolis, or City of Lost Children or Alien. The physical sites of these stories often embody the feelings and struggles of the characters themselves.

Effie: “I think any physical environment where you’re setting a location in your film is very important in the telling of the story. If the location or setting of your film doesn’t help, then it’s not serving the story. It doesn’t make a difference. The things I respond to are the low-tech sci-fi. Like the Omega Man, Gattaca, where it wasn’t like big flashy laser beams and Star Wars stuff. But that environment in Gattaca is beautiful. You look at Blade Runner, beautiful. In Blade Runner, the settings that meant the most in that movie were grounded in reality. The rooftop where Rutger Hauer saves his life. That wasn’t a big spaceship or a lava planet, but it was beautifully done.”

“I love Primer. And I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but after awhile I sort of lose track of things. That’s why I think I’m a good audience member because after a while it’s like if you didn’t get me in the first five minutes, goodbye. But that movie got me and it kept you. It was a beautifully done, low-tech, sci-fi movie where these kids made this movie under 200,000 dollars. But it was story, setting and they used the plausibility factor. And what sci-fi is really able to do is here are the perimeters of the environment and I feel any sci-fi, and really with any genre film, you go what are the perimeters of my environment? I can do x, y, and z. And then once you have those strong perimeters, you’re able to let go of that story. If you are able to shut down all the questions with because here is the world of the movie, here are the perimeters of the environment and the story and now go. To me, that’s how it’s successfully done.”

The genre also acts as a platform for emerging and imaginative technologies to take shape. And although the accepted notion is that science fiction films in fact primarily revolve around science, it is the belief of many that this long held argument is simply incorrect. Film critic and essayist Susan Sontag once said of the issue, “Science Fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster. The science fiction film is concerned with the aesthetics of destruction, with the peculiar beauties to be found in wreaking havoc, making a mess. And it is in the imaginary destruction that the core of a good science fiction film lies.”

In most circumstances, conflict acts as the catalyst for progressing a story towards a resolution, but in the world of science fiction, conflict plays an incredibly important role. Destruction as well as physical and mental disaster ignites the characters and plotline into a raging and often out of control fire. In a sense, it is the dry grass of the situation that allows the blaze to continue to burn relentlessly, often leaving the characters to try and extinguish the flames with the charred remains of their once productive tools and carefree lives. It is a process and struggle which does not always achieve a successful outcome, and by the end the rich and fruitful areas which existed in the story’s beginning often become as barren as a desert. With science fiction though, the chance for growth is always present.

Effie: “There’s a point in every movie where there is conflict. Even in comedies there’s some sort of disaster or conflict. Like Octavia Butler, she just passed way. She was a brilliant science fiction writer, black female. All of her books, like Parable of the Sower, the perimeters of that environment were set up like here’s the situation, things have gotten out of control here and this is how people deal with it. And I think the science fiction books and films I enjoy are here’s the situation, this is where things have gotten really bad, and how they got really bad. Which can be a testament to like a foreshadowing or forewarning. It also humanizes it, because it gets a group of people who try to fight that. Which is sort of the every day person.”

“People find a story more powerful if you’re not preaching at them. People are much more receptive to hearing what you have to say if you come at it in an indirect way. Especially if it is a moral lesson or maybe something political. That makes sense to me. And that’s where any good story lies; especially science fiction.”

In the book 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne, there is a section which reads, “The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?”

Melies first delved into the possibilities of story and fantasy within cinema, and over a century later his recipes of alchemy have continued to influence filmmakers and delighted audience members alike.

Science Fiction’s boundaries are endless, and it seems that the ever-growing fascination with the unknown will continue to lead filmmakers and audience members wanting to journey to the deepest and most profound corners of the glowing apparatus known as creativity.

It is technology, destruction and above all hope. A chalkboard for the hands of morality to write across. One needs proper illumination to explore the darkness of space, and with eager minds willing to take on the expedition, science fiction’s future seems more promising than ever.

Effie: “I don’t think I would travel into space. To be quite honest, I don’t have that burning, driving force. I’ll wait for the pictures and people to tell me about it. I think a lot of the time people want to go out to space because they kind of don’t know what to do here. And they just sort of want to wipe their feet. I’m not necessarily dying to go. I think I’d rather do something on the ground. Just send me a postcard.”

Matthew Vasiliauskas is a senior staffer in Chicago.

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