what I just submitted to BoingBoing
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 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 the cylinder was repaired and re-recorded at the Rogers and Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound, Lincoln Center, New York. Around 2000, Walter Murch got a videotape of the 17 seconds of film and an audiocassette of 3 minutes and 20 seconds of sound. By digitizing the media and much fiddling around, to find the right speed and placement, Walter Murch was able to synchronize the two and complete the failed experiment! He generously donated the clip to the Internet Archive for all to download. Go Dad!