Many early films by Edison's company, Max Skladanowsky and other pioneers, consisted of popular vaudeville acts performed in front of a camera instead of an audience. The famous movie pioneer Georges Méliès was a theatre owner and illusionist who treated film as a means to create spectacles that were even more impressive than stage shows, with lavish stage designs and special effects. The popular féerie theatre shows had often featured stage machinery for special effects (such as smoke, moving props, changeable set pieces) and magic tricks, but film allowed new tricks that were impossible to perform live on stage.