Caroline Renouard

Caroline Renouard is a lecturer at the University of Lorraine in Metz and a member of the Research Centre on Expertise, Arts and Transitions (University of Lorraine, CREAT, F-57000 Metz, France, UR 202424515X). She co-directs the Performing Arts undergraduate programme and the Master’s pathway "Professions of Film Transmission" within the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Languages. Her research focuses primarily on the history, aesthetics, and professional practices of visual special effects, from Méliès-style trick films to the most contemporary practices in France and internationally.

The project

Title: Far from Méliès? (Im)material Circulation, from Early Cinema to Digital Media

"While Georges Méliès’s cinematographic work quickly spread throughout France, it was also distributed internationally at an early stage. Since their initial release, his films have continually changed form across space and time, and through multiple interventions, including recent restorations, reuploads, the upscaling of video files and AI-generated images.

By studying the social history of these films and analysing the ways in which they have been distributed, modified and reused, this project seeks to offer a critical reflection on media circulation and to reflect on the reception of virtual images and their illusory powers – from the "tricks" of 1896 to the "deepfakes" of 2026. It aims to examine the physical and symbolic shifts of Méliès’s works, their impacts and their uses, particularly among new generations."

Selection of Publications

Caroline Renouard, together with Réjane Hamus-Vallée, co-edited issue no. 155 of CinémAction entitled Les métiers du cinéma à l’ère du numérique (May 2015), and published Superviseur des effets visuels pour le cinéma (Eyrolles, 2015) and Les Effets spéciaux au cinéma, 120 ans de création en France et dans le monde (Armand Colin, 2018).

With Giusy Pisano, she participated in the 3rd "Méliès" conference at the International Cultural Centre of Cerisy-la-Salle in 2011 and contributed to the proceedings (chapter "Méliès and the Magic Lantern", in Méliès, carrefour des attractions, edited by André Gaudreault, Laurent Le Forestier and Stéphane Tralongo, PUR, 2014).

Réjane Hamus-Vallée, Giusy Pisano, and Caroline Renouard jointly edited the collective volume Truquer, créer, innover: Les effets spéciaux en France (PUS, 2024), as part of the research programme "Les Arts Trompeurs" (Labex Arts-H2H, 2015–2018).

With Katalin Pór, she co-edited L’Équipe de film au travail. Créations artistiques et cadres industriels (éditions de l’AFRHC, 2022).