Star Film Company

Background

The Manufacture de films pour cinématographes, often known as the Star Film Company, was a French film production company run by the illusionist and film director Georges Méliès.

Georges Méliès had produced films in France, which had become popular around the world. Some distributors began infringing Méliès' work, especially in the United States. Méliès asked his brother Gaston to go to the United States and guard Méliès copyrights.

Gaston arrived in New York City in 1902 and began distributing his brother's films. By 1903, Gaston began making films himself, mostly documentaries. The films were not successful.

The company moved to San Antonio looking for warmer winters and leased twenty acres including a two-storey house and large barn that became the "Star Film Ranch" movie studio. Star Film Company was the earliest non-Texas production company to operate in Texas.

The studio had actors Edith Storey, Francis Ford, and William Clifford under contract along with writer Anne Nichols. The studio also hired local ranchers and cowboys to give its Westerns genuine character. The films were normally one reel in length with an average running time of fifteen minutes. Of the seventy films made in San Antonio, only three are known to have survived.

Star Film moved to California in April 1911. Gaston originally planned to relocate to Santa Barbara but chose Santa Paula instead, perhaps because the scenery was better, or perhaps because it was less expensive. In Santa Paula, he built stages across from a resort called Sulphur Mountain Springs, where the troupe rented rooms. Financially, things started going wrong for Gaston. His popular stars, Edith Storey and William Clifford moved to other companies. His California films were not as profitable as the Texas films had been. In November 1911, Gaston met with Vitagraph Studios in New York and sold fifty percent of his company, including his brothers negatives and distribution rights.

On July 24, 1912 Gaston, his wife and a crew of fourteen left for a Pacific and Asian voyage to make movies in exotic locales. Documentaries and dramas were filmed at various locations such as Tahiti, Bora Bora, New Zealand, Rarotonga, Australia, Java, Cambodia, Japan, and others. The footage was sent to New York for processing, but much of the footage arrived damaged because of the harsh conditions in which the negatives were shot or mishandling in transit. What was released met with an unappreciative audience and bad reviews in the trade press.

Gaston stopped the tour in 1913 and settled in Corsica, where he died two years later. Gaston's son Paul sold what was left of the company to General Film Company in 1917. It was believed that "bad blood" developed between the Méliès brothers, but recent research indicates that despite losses in the American branch, Georges received all payments he was entitled to.

1st Logo (1897-1908)

Visuals: A five-pointed star shape appears on the center of the screen for a single frame during the first few seconds of the film.

Variant:

On Dreyfus Court Martial—Arrest of Dreyfus, after the star shape, a smaller star which is drawn appears with "STAR FILM" written upside down and arched above and "MELIES" below.
On The Human Pyramid, the catalog number is seen above and below the star shape.

Technique: The star shape is manually cut out of the film. Thus, the exact proportions may vary from film to film.

Availability: This was seen on Star Film's earlier productions such as After the Ball, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and various others. All works of Méliès are in the public domain nowadays, so it can be checked easily.

Legacy: This was the earliest known production logo.

2nd Logo (1902?-1912)

Visuals: Over a black background, a large five-pointed star is seen, surrounded by two stacks of words. The upper words read "STAR FILM", while the bottom words read "Geo. MÉLIÈS". Underneath the text is the word "PARIS".

Trivia: Apart from appearing in the beginning of some movies, the logo made cameo appearances in the backgrounds of several Méliès short subjects, like Pathé and Gaumont logos.

Variant: The star and the text may appear with the title or the opening credits to the film, each in a different style.

Technique: A printed graphic filmed by a cameraman.

Audio: None or the opening theme to the film.

Availability:

The logo can be seen in movies made by the company, such as The Impossible Voyage and A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune).
All works of Méliès are in the public domain nowadays, so it can be checked easily.