Abel Gance

Abel Gance

Abel Gance is considered to be a very important figure in film. He "embarked on his greatest project, a six-part life of Napoleon." Apparently, he used a lot of concepts that were rare for the time. You can see his work influences movies now still.  For example, Gance was the first to use a handheld camera. If you watch the movie Cloverfield, the whole movie is filmed from the viewpoint of a handheld camera. He made a widescreen image of a French flag. If you notice, all of our movies are showed in widescreen. He is most famous for a system he called Polyvision which used "triple cameras to create a spectacular panoramic effect." Personally, I think the most influential technique he brought to the table was the rapid cutting. It's something that we use in every movie, show and cartoon.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Gance