I use this (beautiful) short during my first week of Film History.  We read an excerpt from Edward Said’s “Beginnings” alongside it.  Together, the film and text raise a number of interesting questions about the relationship between photography/film, old/new media, science/spectacle. Both (film and text) likewise trouble the security of film objects and origins, and call attention to the difficulty of beginning (to teach, write, and communicate history).

The short comes from Adam Quirk, Aaron Valdez, and Eric Nelson of Wreck and Salvage, the team responsible for the viral four-part series, “Everything is a Remix.”