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Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (Also known as Fred Ott's sneeze)

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Thomas Edison <a href="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fredott_animation_small.gif"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-2848" src="http://jeanatacc.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fredott_animation_small.gif" alt="" width="250" height="180" /></a>

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January 9, 1894

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Thomas Edison's Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, also known as Fred Ott's sneeze, is a five second long clip of Edison's assistant taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing. This should be preserved because it is arguable the greatest achievement of the 19th century, and has no doubt been one of the most significant technological leaps in human history. From recording short silent clips with a Kinetoscope, to taking hour long, color films with hand-held devices, our recording technology has undeniably grown greatly from Edison's simple idea of capturing and viewing moments in time.

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One of the first ever recorded motion pictures, Fred Ott's sneeze recorded by Edison was a five second long clip of one of Edison's assistants taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing. Essentially this was a monumental achievement to not only record a moment in time, but moments. It was considered one of the most remarkable things to be able to see a person or thing in action. After viewing  still photographic experiments of Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey, Edison started conducting his own experiments in 1888. Edison sought out to do "for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." as quoted by the Library of Congress.  And so he and a young Englishman named W. K. L. Dickson, whom he tasked with filming, worked on a way to bring motion to pictures

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With the creation of still photography, of capturing a single moment in time, the next step in technological innovation was to capture multiple moments in time. In a sense this was beyond typical, to go from seeing a single image captured in time, to viewing moments of time passing. It was the next step, and what we consider today to be entertainment, this was science, discovery, and one of the greatest inventions of mankind. We've come a long way from this to say the least. The work itself was received with awe. To see Fred's sneeze in motion, though not exciting, it's implications were well understood. It had become a feat of human creativity and a monument on which to grow and develop upon.

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Not surprisingly, many people today don't even know about Fred Ott's sneeze, though they use the technology that came from it every day. And the few that do would usually credit Edison for the invention but it was he and Dickson that should both be credited for the development. Interestingly enough, even IMDB.net has given it a page and some people have even written reviews for it!  Most upon viewing it would pass it off as insignificant but that is mainly because the technology that has come from it is in every aspect of out daily lives, so it comes natural to take it for granted.

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I, personally, find it to be a huge stepping stone to one of the greatest technological achievements of all time. Everyday whenever I get on Youtube, or look at my cell phone, or play a video game, I know who to credit in my ability to do so. Though one of the least exciting short clips to watch, I understand it's significance, and in doing so I can disregard to fact that it's of someone sneezing.

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Most inventors were not working on such inventions  at the time other than the work done by Étienne-Jules Marey, there wasn't much to compare this invention to. Étienne-Jules Marey worked on things such as his Chronophotographe, which was able to capture multiple images on the same photograph. His main focus on photography and of anatomy and physiology. This is stated via http://www.body-pixel.com.

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We have come a very, very long way from what is considered today as a flip book. We capture color images in milliseconds, of which we don't even have to be still. We can take hours worth of video from a hand held device, and we watch movies for entertainment. This kind of technology could not even have been imagined in Edisons time, yet we're constantly on the verge of the next technological breakthrough. We have clear screens that we can view images on, and cameras almost microscopically  small, so what will be next?

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This five second sneeze of Fred Ott's by Thomas Edison and W.L. Dickson using a kinetograph is one of the greatest achievements and inventions of mankind. And from it I have been able to not only view it in real time from whatever source I choose, but I am also able to get every detail and information about it from the inventions created from it.

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 .Gif from http://www.precinemahistory.net/images/fredott_animation_small.gif

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 "for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear."  "A Sneeze Caught On Film." Loc.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. &lt;http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr018.html&gt;.

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"Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze." IMDb. IMDb.com, 14 Apr. 2009. Web. 05 Nov. 2012. &lt;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000008/&gt;.

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Pondar, Ivana. "Body Cinema: Films by Etienne-Jules Marey – Vintage Motion Capturing." Body Cinema: Films by Etienne-Jules Marey. Ivana Podnar, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2012. &lt;http://www.body-pixel.com/2011/02/01/body-cinema-films-by-etienne-jules-marey/&gt;.