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Fred Ott's Sneeze

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Also known as Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze

1894 film by William Kennedy Dickson

Key facts

Directed by
William K.L. Dickson
Produced by
William K.L. Dickson
Starring
Fred Ott
Distributed by
Edison Manufacturing Company
Release date
January 7, 1894 ( 1894-01-07 )
Running time
approximately 5 seconds
Country
United States
Language
Silent

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Has part
film frame
Country of origin
United States
Cast member
Fred Ott
Production company
Edison Studios
Cinematographer
William Heise
Filming location
New Jersey
Duration
4
FilmAffinity ID
632198
Image
Fred Ott sneeze 1894.gif
Show 8 more facts
title
Fred Ott's Sneeze
aspect ratio (W:H)
4:3
Commons category
Fred Ott's Sneeze
publication date
1894-01-01
copyright status
public domain
assessment
Bechdel test
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Fred Ott's Sneeze” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.