How much could you alter the film if Abraham Zapruder had shot in slow motion mode?

[Chris Bennett]

The Bell & Howards 414PD Director Series camera will shoot in "slow motion" mode by simply flipping a switch on the camera. In this case, it will shoot at approximately 55 FPS instead of 18.3 FPS.

http://www.copweb.be/viewer/B&H/Bell&Howell-19.htm

Let us suppose for a moment that the "home movie" that was given to Dino Brugioni at NPIC on Saturday was not a 6 foot length of film containing 486 frames, but instead an 18 foot length of film containing approximately 1,458 frames. Based on the footage of Brugioni that I have watched, he noted very clearly that did they not count frames, only timing. He also noted that the head explosion was more than the one frame (Z313) in the extant film.

If this was the case, the approximately 12 hours that the Kodak Hawkeye Works (or other world class photo processing center) had the film should be sufficient to turn the 1,458 frames back into 486 frames by taking out 2 of every three frames. And then creating a new 16mm unslit film that looked like it was shot in "normal" mode. Thereby not altering the 26.6 second running time of the film.

When the film was brought back to NPIC on Sunday to be worked on by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, they did in fact start counting frames. I'm not aware that anyone (Zapruder, Time, the SS, etc.) had noted the length of film involved or the number of frames until that Sunday.

If in fact the Secret Service, CIA or whomever was handling the film operation wanted to hide the most egregious elements of the Zapruder film, being able to cherry pick which set of 486 frames (A, B or C) out of the 1,458 total to use would be of a great help.

This could also help explain some things on the extant film that just don't make sense, like:
-The too-rapid head snap
-People in the limo jerking forward
-Clint Hill's strange timing in running for the limo

Especially if those who were removing frames got a bit too eager with swapping out frames that they didn't like, and thus altering the natural flow of the film. I'm aware that the B&H was spring-wound and did not shoot at a consistent frame rate in the first place.

Note that this technique of alteration would pose no syncing problems with the other extant JFK films.

Thoughts?
Chris

[Drew Phipps]

If you assume that your film editors are removing the same pattern of frames ( o x x, o x x ...) each time, the anomalies would still be anomalous. They would just happen over the course of 3 times the number of frames in the unedited version. If you speculate that the anomalies are caused by film editors alternating the pattern of deletion ( o x x, x x o ...) you could detect that by the motion of the limo against the background.

You could not cause some of the occupants in the limo to stay still while others are thrown forward by deleting frames.

Even though the method you describe (of removing 2/3 of the frames) could be done in the short time frame, it wouldn't produce the anomalies you see, or even the anomalies we never saw (that have been reported to us by Dan Rather). If you add some sort of content judgment into the process, you have a similar time frame problem that the people that claim the whole film was fabricated have.

[Chris Bennett]

If you speculate that the anomalies are caused by film editors alternating the pattern of deletion ( o x x, x x o ...) you could detect that by the motion of the limo against the background.

Thanks for your description, Drew.

If one shifted the pattern of deletion over time
(o x x, o x x, o x x, x o x , x o x, x o x, x x o, x x o...etc) over the course of hundreds of frames rather than the eight I show here, could you smooth out the motion and lower the chance of detection by comparing it to the limo against the background? I know that people have speculated about the actual running speed of the B&H camera as Zapruder was using it over the 26 seconds, how tightly it was wound, etc.

Also, would you discount the slow motion mode out of hand, or is it possible it could have happened as part of a larger alteration scheme?

Not trying to debate whether it happened that way, or even if it was altered at all. More trying to learn if it *could* have happened that way, if someone was trying to alter it.

[Drew Phipps]

of course the detectible anomalies will be harder to detect if spread out over multiple sets of frames, but that also means that more of the stuff you want to edit out will remain in the film. Like the backwards head motion, for example, occupies 3-4 frames of zapruder. The information that you don't want people to see would have to be contained completely within the 2/3 of 1/18.3 seconds that you have removed (.036 seconds).

Also, the problematic zapruder frames don't amount to "hundreds" of frames.

There's plenty of other researchers that have concluded more sophisticated methods were used. google "zapruder alteration" for a small sample. There was a pretty good lecture at a JFK anniversary conference by a guy that seemed to know a lot about photography in a thread here about 6 months ago?

[David Josephs]

If you speculate that the anomalies are caused by film editors alternating the pattern of deletion ( o x x, x x o ...) you could detect that by the motion of the limo against the background.

Thanks for your description, Drew.

If one shifted the pattern of deletion over time
(o x x, o x x, o x x, x o x , x o x, x o x, x x o, x x o...etc) over the course of hundreds of frames rather than the eight I show here, could you smooth out the motion and lower the chance of detection by comparing it to the limo against the background? I know that people have speculated about the actual running speed of the B&H camera as Zapruder was using it over the 26 seconds, how tightly it was wound, etc.

Also, would you discount the slow motion mode out of hand, or is it possible it could have happened as part of a larger alteration scheme?

Not trying to debate whether it happened that way, or even if it was altered at all. More trying to learn if it *could* have happened that way, if someone was trying to alter it.

I happen to agree with you 100% Chris and have written about it extensively.

I disgree with Drew's analysis for the following reason: we know for a fact the limo did not travel at a uniform rate of speed thru the Elm turn and on down to the headshot (all you need do is watch the film backward on the Quicktime version and you can see much more clearly the slowing and constant rates of speed.

There is also the little fact about Hill catching the limo - another subject I've written alot about. It's not possible for Hill to cover the distances necessary in the number of steps he takes if the limo is traveling at 11mph.

In fact, the math resulting from the analysis of the CE884 legend shows the limo traveling at less than 3mph from extant Z150 thru Z180 or so.

----------------

More importantly is the process... with 486 frames at 18.3 fps we have 26.557 seconds of film... now at 48fps we'd have 1275 frames.
The camera did not have an 18fps speed but 16 and 48 - even the men at NPIC that weekend could not understand the 18fps speed used.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 is the 48fps sequence

48/18.3 = 2.62 ratio. So we need to remove 30 to 31 frames per 48 frame sequence or divide by 4 and it's 7-8 frames per every 12.

If I only took out the 2nd and 3rd frame of each 3 frame set we'd have frames:

1 - 4 - 7 - 10 at 16fps which produces a normal looking movie (I've had friends take a 48fps film and do just that - it look amazingly like the Zfilm)

Now take these 4 frames and film them in sequence on the B&H camera at 16fps and we have 1/4 of a second of film, without breaks or splices and an intact sproket area which shows exactly what's needed in that area
(I believe this is from one of the Zavada studies but again I may be wrong - so credit out to who it's due)













Cutting 1275 frames to 486 is what gave us 18.3fps and then they worked backward.

The areas of the film which do not have sprocket images are explained by breaks and missing frames replaced by one fo the copies which did not copy over the sprocket images - hence the black in that area.

These are some incredibly coincidental location to have breaks in the film Drew and would explain some of the larger removals of film.

The first "break" is within frame 157 and is NOT suppose to represent missing frames yet if we look at JFK from frame to frame he has turned his head from looking one direction completely around the other.
You can use 154 to see him more clearly looking to his left



Then 207 thru 212 - at a place many believe he was hit with a shot and the sign just happens to be in the perfectly wrong place. (see last image at bottom of post)

The next is not on this collage since there is not blackout of the sprocket area - it is simply Greer turning faster than humanly possible


Noel Twyman performed experiments with young healthy prepared men and they could not turn in the 1/9th of a second which is represented by these 2 frames

It is alos at a point where both the foreground and background are in focus suggesting to many the stopping of the limo

The next is similar in that there are no bars but frames are obviously missing as the limo goes from Stopped to going - this is 315-317





And finally just after extant 340 and 349. The "Original" film is in 9 pieces adding to more than 45 feet of film on a side which only holds 30 feet of film with leaders.
There is also no 0183 found on the "original"...

It was claimed that 19feet of film was run off after the assassiantion footage to end the reel. I don't think that happened and am working on a paper to prove it.

Stand by your guns Chris. Here is the film of a 48fps cut down to 16... looking a lot like the extant zfilm without the stabilization and color correction... (This is not my gif yet I canot remember if it was Gerda or someone else - all the other images are mine)

[Steve Thompson]

This video seems to say that there is a version of the Zapruder film with an additional frame between 312 and 313 - he calls it 312a.
What do you guys think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWpLgInT7w

[David Josephs]

This video seems to say that there is a version of the Zapruder film with an additional frame between 312 and 313 - he calls it 312a.
What do you guys think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWpLgInT7w

I think a "tween" frame was created between the actual 312 and a turned and lowered 312.

And for some reason the entire frame is not shown... even when they start with more of the limo in the photo, and when they do show Greer, it is covered with text.

As a novice with Photoshop I know I can create a gif that does what we see...

Let's start with a photograph of the actual "french" version frames at 312-313-314
3 frames, all the same size.

Since this is a gif of frame images and not the frames themselves, the 312a frame would need to have been in the frame sequence of the film being digitized.

I'm pretty sure this is a fraud Steve... I don't have time now to recreate it... but it wouldn't take too much.

[David Healy]

This video seems to say that there is a version of the Zapruder film with an additional frame between 312 and 313 - he calls it 312a.
What do you guys think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWpLgInT7w

where did these frames originate, the source for this is?

Here's how that can happen. In analog video, interlaced video, 2 fields constitute 1 frame i.e., z-312. Extract both fields of that one frame (save as tif,png, jpeg, psd files), de-interlace those fields in Photoshop (which rids each field of odd/even scan lines) select field a or b, resize that individual field by 1-1.5% (whatever size works best for your need), shift left/right-up/down copy and paste to add to add the newly corrected field sized to the z-film frame sequence on display... and there you have 312a (now a frame).

[David Josephs]

This video seems to say that there is a version of the Zapruder film with an additional frame between 312 and 313 - he calls it 312a.
What do you guys think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWpLgInT7w

where did these frames originate, the source for this is?

Here's how that can happen. In analog video, interlaced video, 2 fields constitute 1 frame i.e., z-312. Extract both fields of that one frame (save as tif,png, jpeg, psd files), de-interlace those fields in Photoshop (which rids each field of odd/even scan lines) select field a or b, resize that individual field by 1-1.5% (whatever size works best for your need), shift left/right-up/down copy and paste to add to add the newly corrected field sized to the z-film frame sequence on display... and there you have 312a (now a frame).

Or you could do it that way....


Thanks Dave ::::

[David Healy]

This video seems to say that there is a version of the Zapruder film with an additional frame between 312 and 313 - he calls it 312a.
What do you guys think ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNWpLgInT7w

where did these frames originate, the source for this is?

Here's how that can happen. In analog video, interlaced video, 2 fields constitute 1 frame i.e., z-312. Extract both fields of that one frame (save as tif,png, jpeg, psd files), de-interlace those fields in Photoshop (which rids each field of odd/even scan lines) select field a or b, resize that individual field by 1-1.5% (whatever size works best for your need), shift left/right-up/down copy and paste to add to add the newly corrected field sized to the z-film frame sequence on display... and there you have 312a (now a frame).

Or you could do it that way....


Thanks Dave ::::

I forgot to add, the new frame will be slightly 'softer' than the others, we know what will fix that...
Take care, Dave.... hope all is well!