''Fred Ott's Sneeze'' (also known as ''Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze'') is an 1894 short,

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

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 A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

to be copyrighted, although it is now in the public domain. In the approximately five-second film, which was shot in January 1894, one of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

'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 ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper (publisher), Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many su ...

''." The published ''

'' version is slightly longer than what now survives on film, and depicts a second sneeze. In 2015, the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

selected the film for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Production

The film was produced by the

Edison Manufacturing Company The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as under the name of the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by scientist / inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas A. Edison (1847–1 ...

, which had begun making films in

1890 Events January * January 1 – The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony in the Horn of Africa. * January 2 – Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House. * January 11 – 1890 British Ultimatum: The Uni ...

under the direction of Dickson, one of the earliest film pioneers. It was filmed within the

Black Maria Black Maria may refer to: Art and literature *Black Mariah (comics), a character in the Luke Cage comics series *List of One Piece characters#Animal Kingdom Pirates, Black Maria, a character in the manga series ''One Piece'' *Black Maria (nove ...

studio at

West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from t ...

, which was the first U.S. movie studio. It was filmed between January 2, 1894, and January 7, 1894 and was displayed, at the time, on

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

Current status

As a film published in the United States before 1978 and more than 95 years ago, its

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

expired and the work is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

in the United States. In countries where copyright expires 70 years after the author's death, the copyright of the film expired in 2006. Originally, the film was submitted to the

as a "paper print" (a photographic record of each frame of the film) for copyright purposes. A digital copy is now kept by the Library of Congress and can be viewed on their

American Memory American Memory is an Internet-based archive for public domain image resources, audio, video, and archived Web content. Published by the Library of Congress, the archive launched on October 13, 1994, after $13 million was raised in private donati ...

website. This short film was featured at the 30th Annual Academy Awards, and was included as part of the TV documentary, ''The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Movies''.

References

External links

Library of Congress

Library of Congress

Video of ''Fred Ott's Sneeze''
at

Archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

Video of ''Fred Ott's Sneeze''
on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fred Otts Sneeze 1894 films 1894 short films 1890s American films American short documentary films American black-and-white films American silent short films Articles containing video clips Thomas Edison Films directed by William Kennedy Dickson Films shot in New Jersey 1890s short documentary films Black-and-white documentary films United States National Film Registry films Edison Manufacturing Company films Sneeze Surviving American silent films

Production

Current status

See also

References

External links