Roller Skating Craze (2007 Adaptation from the original 1907 Film):

Run length: 20 seconds

Summary: Early 20th century Americans roller skate and fall down. I composed some music and sound effects to enhance the original clip by film pioneer William Selig (published in 1907 under the title "The Roller Skate Craze").

Comments: One hundred years after the original film was made, people roller skating and falling down on film is still funny :) I got the footage for this from the American Memory section of the U.S. Library of Congress website. The original clip is silent, but I thought it could benefit from some background music and appropriately placed sound effects, so I created the same in Cakewalk Sonar and merged the two together.

I believe the original footage to be in the public domain under United States copyright law, based on the facts that (a) copyright on all works created and published before 1923 have expired under United States copyright law and (b) This film was created/published in 1907 according to the Library of Congress/American Memory website (and, indeed, displays 2007 prominantly as the copyright year in the opening credit). Nevertheless, I'm not a lawyer, and none of the foregoing shall be considered legal advice. If you require legal advice, please consult a qualified attorney :)