Fred Ott's Sneeze (also known as Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze) is an 1894 short, black-and-white silent film shot by William K.L. Dickson and featuring Fred Ott. According to the Library of Congress, it is the second oldest surviving U.S. motion picture to be copyrighted, although it has since entered the public domain.

The film was shot on January 7, 1894; however the film's copyright was filed two days later. In the approximately five-second film, one of Thomas Edison's assistants, Fred Ott, takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. According to the Library of Congress, the film was "made for publicity purposes, as a series of still photographs to accompany an article in Harper's Weekly." The published Harper's Weekly version is slightly longer than what now survives on film, and depicts a second sneeze.

In 2015, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Production

The film was produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company, which had begun making films in 1890 under the direction of Dickson, one of the earliest film pioneers. It was filmed within the Black Maria studio at West Orange, New Jersey, which was the first U.S. movie studio. It was filmed between January 2, 1894, and January 7, 1894 There was an audio recording of the sneeze but it has since been lost.

See also

  • 1894 in film
  • Sneeze
  • The Horse in Motion

References

Bibliography

  • Library of Congress
  • Library of Congress
  • Video of Fred Ott's Sneeze at Archive
  • Video of Fred Ott's Sneeze on YouTube