 His works are often considered as important precursors to modern narrative cinema, though some recent scholars have argued that Méliès's films are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century "féerie" tradition.After attending the first demonstration of the Lumière Brothers' Kinetoscope in December 1895, he bought a film projector from the British film experimenter Robert W. Paul and began using it to project short films at his theater of illusions, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, in Paris.Having studied the principles on which Paul's projector ran, Méliès was able to modify the machine so that it could be used as a makeshift camera.