Mapping Méliès This is draft written in December 2020 by RF Lack and publish posthumously in July 2021 Georges Méliès’s first film, number one in his catalogue, shows three men at a table in a garden playing cards. One of the men is Méliès himself, another is his brother Gaston, and the third is I think Méliès’s fellow-magician and associate Harmington. Though there are no distinguishing features that might help identify the location, film historian Georges Sadoul placed the making of Une partie de cartes in the 8000 square metres of garden surrounding Méliès’s house in Montreuil-sous-Bois. [1] Sadoul added that in 1896 Méliès also shot several conjuring films in the garden at Montreuil, in front of a painted backdrop. Even though his first studio was built in 1897, a photograph from 1898 shows that Méliès still used sets erected in the garden. [2] The film being made in that photograph is La Lune à un mètre , which has its place in the history of cinema on two counts. One: