Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1895)

This short film was a test for Edison's "Kinetophone" project, the first attempt in history to record sound and moving image in synchronization. This was an experiment by William Dickson to put sound and film together either in 1894 or 1895. Unfortunately, this experiment failed because they didn't understand synchronization of sound and film. The large cone on the left hand side of the frame is the "microphone" for the wax cylinder recorder (off-camera). The Library of Congress had the film. The wax cylinder soundtrack, however, was believed lost for many years. Tantalizingly, a broken cylinder labeled "Violin by WKL Dickson with Kineto" was catalogued in the 1964 inventory at the Edison National Historic Site. In 1998, Patrick Loughney, curator of Film and Television at the Library of Congress, retrieved the cylinder and had it repaired and re-recorded at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound, Lincoln Center, New York. Since the Library did not possess the necessary synchronizing technology, Loughney - at the suggestion of producer Rick Schmidlin - sent multi-Oscar winner Walter Murch a videotape of the 17 seconds of film and an audiocassette of 3 minutes and 20 seconds of sound with a request to marry the two. By digitizing the media and using digital editing software, Murch was able to synchronize them and complete the failed experiment 105 years later.

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[de1043]

I wonder how these two guys would react if they found out they were on youtube now..

[kurisux]

You can hear the tale-tale tick of a cylinder for the audio.

:) I love that sound.

also, this focus on gay? Seriously.. why? Are you guys all that obsessed with it that you need to hunt for anything remotely homosexual from 100 years ago?

Ok, look at this logically: do you REALLY think they would have wasted the time to get some women in the area to dance with them for a few seconds of a recording? Doubtful. Add in the way in general women were kept FAR away from these things, and there ya go

[DomeArmin]

It seems to be... ööööö.... FAKE!

[TehBirdzNBeez]

My favorite guy is the one who wonders in at the end.

[MrWackypackages]

So amazing! ! It's like traveling bak in time!!

[crocetti1984]

@de1043 They'd probably soil themselves at the very idea! Lol!

[altoids79762]

@kurisux it's tell tale tick

[aymirala]

WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK IF THEY WERE GAY?? I don't care if they're fucking aliens. The point is that ole' Edison got sound and video in the nineteenth century, which is pretty damn fantastic! I guess that makes this the earliest music video ever... :D :D

This made my day :) Two guys dancing with each other as a third guy played a violin. But the best part was when that other random dude entered the frame. Can't you just picture Edison going, "CHARLES! You interrupted the scene AGAIN!"?? :D

[Zene00]

@de1043 They would probably try to eat your brain right now xD

[justj99XX]

@de1043 xDDDD

[ZeroGhostDog]

I think this may be the closest we'll ever get to seeing life from the 1800s on film with both sound and moving picture. These kind of things are very interesting to me. Very interesting.

[The2010SnowDay]

@melbrooksjew I never knew that ( number 3) Is the remainder of the film surviving? I would love to see that.