As I discussed in the opening chapter of this series, Parisian magician-turned-filmmaker, Georges Méliès gave birth to the genre. Unfortunately, as groundbreaking as his magical cinema was, he still had no true feeling for the camera and what it could do.
His films were shot from one angle, and his camera rarely ever moved. His films were great - no doubt - and the tricks he used were then unto unseen, but his films also had the problem of seeming stage bound.
Meanwhile, in America, or more specifically, in New Jersey, the early epicenter of American filmmaking (studios would not head West until 1909-1910, and would not truly establish a small town called Hollywood, as the movie mecca until at least 1915 or 1916), a man by the name of Thomas Edison was helping to create a new medium himself.
In the late 1890's and early 1900's, in his "Black Maria" movie studio, Edison, along with his assistant - the true creative force behind the Wizard of Menlo Park - W.K.L. Dickson, were making the kind of movies that not only sold tickets at all the Nickelodeons (actual movie theaters were still a few years down the road) but also broke ground for the great cinematic boom that would come soon after.
One of these movies, was a sixteen minute film called Frankenstein - the first film adaptation of Mary Shelley's iconic novel. Thought traditionally as more horror than sci-fi, the story of a mad scientist who creates life from death, is surely a science fiction story if I ever hear one. Granted, the film was cheap, and not really all that interesting - a far cry from what James Whale and Universal would do with it twenty-one years later - but it did help usher in a genre.
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