Edison kinetoscopic record of a sneeze, 7th January, 1894. The five-second film, also known as Fred Ott's Sneeze, was produced by Thomas Edison and was the first motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States. It was directed by William Dickson, a Scottish photographer and inventor, and an assistant of Edison. The film was viewed using a kinetoscope, an invention of Dickson and Edison's. In the film, Fred Ott, one of Edison's assistants takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. It was not meant to be shown as a film but was shot to serve as a chrono-photographic record of a sneeze for an article in Harper's Weekly.