Was the zap film altered?

Mick Purdy runs his ruler over the various claims.

Short answer: Technically possible. Logistically: highly unlikely

additionally, though technically possible - 1963 technology would make it easily detectable.

A Waving Flag on this 4th of July is the final nail.

A much appreciated addition to efforts at clearing the crap,

https://gregrparker.com/essays/

#zapruder

Thanks Greg.

In a sane, properly ordered universe this fantastic piece of work would become mandatory reading.
It puts all the Mary Poppins, ...with an optical printer and a little bit of fairy dust..click the heels of your Ruby slippers together and in under 24 hours you've got yourself a brand new animated film to shame . A faked film with fakery as undetectable today  as it was nearly 60 years ago .....complete with Mannequin Row, 8 foot levitating women, magical vanishing children and 3 legged dwarves doing the Watusi. Next youll be telling me about CIA cutting edge sperm experiments to create identical doppelgangers that started a full 8 fucking years before the CIA was created...
Wait couldn't Frank Wiener and the fake Marguerite have jumped into the H and L gangs time machine and dropped little HARVEY off pre frozen..to be thawed out in a Budapest  laboratory as Admiral Horthy and his secret mistress Vampyra Vary slipped across the River Pest ..
Maybe Vampyra Vary helped defrost little HARVEY..time travel, invest and doppelganging... I'm off to see Kris M..this plot has Trine Day written all over it. Plus it's 100% made up bullshit..no on second thoughts after reading " Inheritance" and " the Three Barons" the Doppelganging Vampire of Budapest is probably WAY too fucking credible for Trine Day
Mick's essay puts all the hustlers and fantasists to shame. Highly recommended.
I tip my tin foil hat to Mr Mick Purdy

In a sane, properly ordered universe this fantastic piece of work would become mandatory reading.

We can now add the Zap Gang to Judyth, the H & L Cult and the WC as finished.

#zapruder

Thanks Greg for putting that up I appreciate it cheers.

Thanks Alex for your kind words as well.

I sincerely hope it helps in understanding how difficult it would have been to apply multiple travelling mattes to a motion picture in 1963 which had been shot on a home movie camera, using double 8 Kodachrome 11 reversal daylight stock. Adding to the complexities of all of this was the fact that Zapruder handheld his camera resulting in a shaky, at times jerky film. Every frame of that film which they wished to alter would have required the most meticulous special effect matte work one can imagine, the very fact that they would have been dealing with a handheld moving picture tells me this.
As the essay alludes to, even the biggest budget moving picture films shot in 1963 with Optical special effects budgets that would have been massive, the mattes or matte lines  in the main are detectable today. I think that is the clue.

Wiegman frame (righthand side) equivalent to extant Zframe 486.
Shadow contrast adjustment.
Who's on the pedestal/connecting wall?
Establish film/s provenance before moving forward.

Chris Davidson,

It's Zapruder on the pedestal, Chris. Who else would it be? Do you really think the assassins would have put someone sinister up there if the whole plan was to make everyone think the shots came from the 6th floor? With a staged nest and throw down shells? And then blow the plot up with someone sinister down there?

----

You may want to read the Zavada report. In it, it was shown that the original Z film was not altered in any way. Despite what other researchers think, it would have been technically impossible to alter a home movie that was 8mm in size.

http://www.jfk-info.com/moot1.htm

----

You may want to view this synced video of Z and Nix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWEXZyMJMtA&feature=emb_title

You have to ask yourself how it'd be possible to alter one film and then have to alter the other film to make them match. It'd be impossible to do technically.

----

Here's a film produced by the SS in 1964:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRiOTr2J9iM&feature=emb_title

So if the film was altered, why wouldn't they include the altered film in this government film they made? Except for the Z film being in B/W it looks exactly like the film we have all seen today. Skip to about 11:38.

----

Here's a Hollywood bonanza from 1956:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqCTq3EeDcY

It's a crystal clear video transfer using the latest effects back then. But even here you can see the matte lines when the folks are standing on the cliff and when the water parts. They shot this on 35mm film. So flash forward to 1963 using a home film camera on frames of film the size of one's thumb. Do you really think they would have or could have performed all manner of alterations to the film?

And one thing you and others who think the Z film was altered is - what exactly was altered or removed from the film? If you believe there was a conspiracy as I do, one of the big tenants about that is the shots could not have been fired within the 6-second time frame. The film actually shows this, including Connally's delayed reaction to any shot hitting him. He swore to the day he died that he was not hit with the first shot and the Z film backs this up.

So why didn't the assassins try to cover this up in the Z film using the latest optical effects? Perhaps open Connally's mouth for a frame or two to show he was hit, bolstering the C399 theory of one bullet hits all?

It's easy to sit around on your computer all day with Photoshop making GIFs and fiddling with the levels controls, or using math to try to prove 67% of the Z film frames were removed without also spelling out *for what specific reason* the film was altered. If not a single person on Earth has seen the unaltered version of the frame, how would you even know this anyway?

I think the film's provenance has been well established. 

Dallas Kodak processing plant employee Phil Chamberlain processed the original film with Zapruder present at the Lab. Harry McCormack from the Dallas Morning news was also in attendance when Zapruder handed his film to Chamberlain. Forrest Sorrel's from the Secret Service observed Zapruder with his film at his office and was handed two first day copies struck from the original. Not more than 60-70 minutes after the assassination Erwin Swartz Zapruders Business partner held the original unprocessed film while Zapruder conducted a televison interview at WFAA TV.

There is clear photographic evidence of Zapruder filming the assassination from the Concrete structure just as he had stated.

We can move forward.

I meant every word Mick. 
I just hope my attempt to perform a little alteration of my own, transforming surrealism into satire, doesn't dilute or detract from the very serious point I was trying to make about your excellent essay
You spent 40 years plus of your life working as a professional cameraman.
A cameraman of some note I hasten to add.
It seems self evident , almost to the point of absurdity in fact that someone with your knowledge and experience should have been consulted right away.
Healy, or so I believe ( correct me if I'm mistaken anyone) was a videographer. His was a curious style; argument by incoherence and attempted patronisation.
To have an opinion Healy insisted, one must first have the requisite technical experience.
Fair enough.
But when asked to provide evidence of his work, even a test reel, he constantly demurred.
His excuses were only salvaged by their utter impenetrability..
It was like listening to someone play an album of faux 1950s hipster jive backwards... searching for backmasked Satanic messages..
" Like, I pledge my most groovy and far out soul to thee Satan baby..but why not try to chill out a little baby?..dig some Theolonius Monk...shudder I've just pictured Satan as a rotund jazz loving hipster...a diabolical Charles Drago...As for an eternity alternating between overwrought critiques of jazz ." Listening to Dave Brubeck is like immersing oneself in the lake of the damned...the cymbal work were the souls screeching out in fiery anguish while the solo was like a tide of hopelessness snaking through my infernal abode ." Or being lectured on the Drago/ Evica conspiracy model .. that sounds pretty hellish to me .
With hordes of impossibly obese pitchfork wielding Fetzer faced imps swarming about...
Like far out baby..
As Agent Laverick put it so eloquently.." if a nonentity like Lamson can tan your arse on a daily basis then it's time to bow out quietly" In fact it was Healys ponderous garbage that convinced me the Z film alteration argument was a waste of time. Let me rephrase that, The Great Zapruder film hoax gang's argument was ( and is) an utter fucking waste of time
Chris, you know where I stand. I respect your obvious skill . There's a difference between satire and being a foul mouthed disrespectful little bastard. I stepped way over the line and you rightly rebuked me.
Does Micks decades of professional experience make him infallible?
Of course it doesn't.
But it gives him a valuable insight into the technical aspects. 
What may seem obvious to a layman may seem less so to the experienced eye 
I hope neither Mick or Greg object to me saying this, but Mick started his essay in response to a question I sent him 
Mick,? Greg? Is that fair?
Chris, I'm not just some loud mouthed yahoo, comfortably ensconced in the sidelines, I genuinely want to understand as much as I can 
Mick's well reasoned, methodical approach, his experience and the sound logic he used to reach his conclusions convinced me.
I also asked , through his grandson who I went to school with, a cameraman/ film editor who worked for the BBC back in the 60s
His response was similar to Mick's.
Chris, maybe I'm too stupid to grasp the complexities of your argument.
But the little I do understand ... unconvincing and almost incomprehensible.
I don't get the point of the interminable, arcane mathematical equations, as I say maybe that's down to my stupidity.
I don't get the point of the endless gifs.
Proving alleged alteration has seemingly devolved into an exercise in futility, in anomaly hunting.
I don't understand the rationale behind it
The Z film is one of the strongest proofs of conspiracy.
Look what happened when it was publicly aired The galvanising effect it had on public opinion. Not once but twice. Prodding the recalcitrant government into action
Why keep it hidden for 15 years? Why alter it and leave the headsnap in?
The problems are manifold and no alterationist has ever come anywhere near providing a cogent, compelling counter argument.
All ive seen is endless regurgitations of what iffery... stickmen, 8 foot women, 2 Zapruder(!) No Zapruder(!!!), Moorman on the street..
Or else the argument ascended into the rarified heights of pure deep politics..
A magical oxygen free stratosphere where anything can mean nothing and something's can mean whatever it is you want.
It was altered to create cognitive dissonance..
Highly unconvincing arguments couched in highly insulting terminology..
Not you personally Chris, imI referring to those August deep political sages ..who speak of mysterious sponsors the way my dear old granny spoke of her old cat who kept shitting all over the garden 
And then there's the " other film"...Dealey Plaza apparently having been positively overflowing with remote control cameras ..
With all the cameras and assassin's supposedly milling about up on the grassy knoll...
James Files, Gordon Arnold, hard hat man..in Armstrong's name!!
I'm surprised some enterprising young exotic film maker hasn't faked a film about what happened up there..
Shaving Miss Grassys Knoll ..or Don Jeffries favourite How to keep your knoll grassy..
As I said before in a sane properly ordered universe this essay would become the standard go to work 
Mick deserves nothing but praise, for providing a perfectly balanced, note perfect antidote to the alterationists non argument.
To much fucking time has been wasted on the gaudy ephemera.
Even if the Z film WAS altered surely that argument belongs in the after battle report.
When the truth has been accepted.
For the truth ever to become accepted, we need more Mick Purdys Greg Parker's and the other core ROKCers..
That's just my opinion.
If the film WAS altered then the conspirators made a huge fucking error.
Instead of using it to blast holes in the official lie, deepening the breach already made by Geraldo and JFK..the past 2 decades have been wasted ..the notion of widespread fakery has been the perfect environment for parasites to breed..
Weeds like Cinque and Fetzer, Butler too..
Even the H and L gang cheerfully joined in the chorus
" Everything is fake, except for what I say is genuine"
Kudos again Mick..

Great work Mick. Nothing like a seasoned professional to shed meaningful light upon a topic for which few of those involved posses your practiced experience. The technical impossibility of the necessary steps, the professional and business constraints as you have laid them out, and the very plausible explanation of Dino Brugioni's probable perceptions all combine to make an argument against alteration with which I can find no fault. I'm totally convinced. It simplifies matters immensely to have it removed from the register, making it possible to focus in on those also unaltered films that really matter regarding reopening the Kennedy case namely, Wiegman and Darnell. Thanks for nailing it.

alex_wilson wrote:I meant every word Mick. 
I just hope my attempt to perform a little alteration of my own, transforming surrealism into satire, doesn't dilute or detract from the very serious point I was trying to make about your excellent essay
You spent 40 years plus of your life working as a professional cameraman.
A cameraman of some note I hasten to add.
It seems self evident , almost to the point of absurdity in fact that someone with your knowledge and experience should have been consulted right away.
Healy, or so I believe ( correct me if I'm mistaken anyone) was a videographer. His was a curious style; argument by incoherence and attempted patronisation.
To have an opinion Healy insisted, one must first have the requisite technical experience.
Fair enough.
But when asked to provide evidence of his work, even a test reel, he constantly demurred.
His excuses were only salvaged by their utter impenetrability..
It was like listening to someone play an album of faux 1950s hipster jive backwards... searching for backmasked Satanic messages..
" Like, I pledge my most groovy and far out soul to thee Satan baby..but why not try to chill out a little baby?..dig some Theolonius Monk...shudder I've just pictured Satan as a rotund jazz loving hipster...a diabolical Charles Drago...As for an eternity alternating between overwrought critiques of jazz ." Listening to Dave Brubeck is like immersing oneself in the lake of the damned...the cymbal work were the souls screeching out in fiery anguish while the solo was like a tide of hopelessness snaking through my infernal abode ." Or being lectured on the Drago/ Evica conspiracy model .. that sounds pretty hellish to me .
With hordes of impossibly obese pitchfork wielding Fetzer faced imps swarming about...
Like far out baby..
As Agent Laverick put it so eloquently.." if a nonentity like Lamson can tan your arse on a daily basis then it's time to bow out quietly" In fact it was Healys ponderous garbage that convinced me the Z film alteration argument was a waste of time. Let me rephrase that, The Great Zapruder film hoax gang's argument was ( and is) an utter fucking waste of time
Chris, you know where I stand. I respect your obvious skill . There's a difference between satire and being a foul mouthed disrespectful little bastard. I stepped way over the line and you rightly rebuked me.
Does Micks decades of professional experience make him infallible?
Of course it doesn't.
But it gives him a valuable insight into the technical aspects. 
What may seem obvious to a layman may seem less so to the experienced eye 
I hope neither Mick or Greg object to me saying this, but Mick started his essay in response to a question I sent him 
Mick,? Greg? Is that fair?
Chris, I'm not just some loud mouthed yahoo, comfortably ensconced in the sidelines, I genuinely want to understand as much as I can 
Mick's well reasoned, methodical approach, his experience and the sound logic he used to reach his conclusions convinced me.
I also asked , through his grandson who I went to school with, a cameraman/ film editor who worked for the BBC back in the 60s
His response was similar to Mick's.
Chris, maybe I'm too stupid to grasp the complexities of your argument.
But the little I do understand ... unconvincing and almost incomprehensible.
I don't get the point of the interminable, arcane mathematical equations, as I say maybe that's down to my stupidity.
I don't get the point of the endless gifs.
Proving alleged alteration has seemingly devolved into an exercise in futility, in anomaly hunting.
I don't understand the rationale behind it
The Z film is one of the strongest proofs of conspiracy.
Look what happened when it was publicly aired The galvanising effect it had on public opinion. Not once but twice. Prodding the recalcitrant government into action
Why keep it hidden for 15 years? Why alter it and leave the headsnap in?
The problems are manifold and no alterationist has ever come anywhere near providing a cogent, compelling counter argument.
All ive seen is endless regurgitations of what iffery... stickmen, 8 foot women, 2 Zapruder(!) No Zapruder(!!!), Moorman on the street..
Or else the argument ascended into the rarified heights of pure deep politics..
A magical oxygen free stratosphere where anything can mean nothing and something's can mean whatever it is you want.
It was altered to create cognitive dissonance..
Highly unconvincing arguments couched in highly insulting terminology..
Not you personally Chris, imI referring to those August deep political sages ..who speak of mysterious sponsors the way my dear old granny spoke of her old cat who kept shitting all over the garden 
And then there's the " other film"...Dealey Plaza apparently having been positively overflowing with remote control cameras ..
With all the cameras and assassin's supposedly milling about up on the grassy knoll...
James Files, Gordon Arnold, hard hat man..in Armstrong's name!!
I'm surprised some enterprising young exotic film maker hasn't faked a film about what happened up there..
Shaving Miss Grassys Knoll ..or Don Jeffries favourite How to keep your knoll grassy..
As I said before in a sane properly ordered universe this essay would become the standard go to work 
Mick deserves nothing but praise, for providing a perfectly balanced, note perfect antidote to the alterationists non argument.
To much fucking time has been wasted on the gaudy ephemera.
Even if the Z film WAS altered surely that argument belongs in the after battle report.
When the truth has been accepted.
For the truth ever to become accepted, we need more Mick Purdys Greg Parker's and the other core ROKCers..
That's just my opinion.
If the film WAS altered then the conspirators made a huge fucking error.
Instead of using it to blast holes in the official lie, deepening the breach already made by Geraldo and JFK..the past 2 decades have been wasted ..the notion of widespread fakery has been the perfect environment for parasites to breed..
Weeds like Cinque and Fetzer, Butler too..
Even the H and L gang cheerfully joined in the chorus
" Everything is fake, except for what I say is genuine"
Kudos again Mick..

I agree Alex and reading it now I realize that you have already stated most of what I just wrote to Mick, and more of course.

I suppose I should direct this to Chris but I too am puzzled by the dependence upon equations and gifs accompanied by anemic commentary that seems to presuppose the reader's cognition of some pre-existing knowledge base that the material presented should somehow serve to substantiate.

I'll just add that Chris seems to have no lack of verbosity when addressing perceived slights and criticisms; then the logic and explanations flow freely and clearly. But when it comes to the really important stuff that he seems to want to communicate about fakery, it just falls flat. As you say, it does instill the feeling that maybe one is just a bit too stupid to understand it, but then again I sometimes wonder if that is intentional, perhaps at a sub-conscious level, and is what gets in the way of actually presenting a clear, lucid argument for fakery. Ce'st la vie, I'm clear on it now, thanks to Mick.

What's pretty amazing to me with the replies on this thread is the soft approach taken with Chris Davidson. I'm not defending Brian Doyle here but you have a whole thread about him on here and much deserved. Yet, amazingly, Chris Davidson is actually the one that got Doyle going by taking a single frame and blowing it up to a totally unrecognizable blob of pixels. So he created that "expert" blob of pixels and just walks away unscathed simply because he's nice and doesn't offer any nasty replies? Believe me he does - http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/22692-swan-song-math-rules/page/16/

Yet, as I read here, it seems like you're giving Davidson a pass. Further, you seem to have forgotten the other thread created on here called Math Sucks or whatever. To think that he offers anything of substance to the Kennedy case is beyond comprehension to me. He's right up there with the other loons like David Josephs and another one mentioned here recently, David Healy.

QUOTE BY ALEX WILSON: 


With all the cameras and assassin's supposedly milling about up on the grassy knoll...
James Files, Gordon Arnold, hard hat man..in Armstrong's name!!
I'm surprised some enterprising young exotic film maker hasn't faked a film about what happened up there..

Hey Alex, someone has already done this. Watch it here. Can you tell which version contains the forged element?

https://youtu.be/SFYBgJEE9jo

I don't think it's a matter of giving Chris an " easy pass"
I don't think amateurish, unintelligible, unconvincing really constitutes praise.
I disagree with Chris Davidson profoundly.
I firmly believe Z film alteration is a non starter. A distraction, yet another dead end.
Another example of the debilitating, retrogressive influence of the White/ Fetzer clique. Their manta:
"The everything is fake that I need to be fake but ImI not under any obligation to prove who faked it , when it was faked, for what purpose and most importantly of all what techniques were used" pretty much decimated research as a serious academic discipline.
It encouraged all manner of touts, hustlers, fantasists and fakers to crawl out the woodwork.
Its no longer a case of " here is my claim and here is my proof" it's now " here is my claim YOU try to disprove it"
Normally accompanied by a belligerent chorus of true believers crying out " Disinformation agent ..CIA plant.. COINTELPRO etc etc etc ad infinitium"
It's one of the main reasons any serious historical research into this subject is generally mocked and dismissed. Although the vast majority of  the general public accept there was a conspiracy they assume all researchers are fucking cranks.
They're more suspicion of the so called " citizen researchers" than of the government itself.
An ever increasing minority , worryingly the very people we should be connecting with, smart, urbane, skeptical, highly educated; in short the opinion makers of tomorrow, are quicker to accept the Warren Report than any alternative.
That's a fucking terrifyingly damning incitement.
The true legacy of the post JFK research generation.
They've turned off the  subsequent generations with their increasingly preposterous claims.
To be brutally honest if I hadn't found this forum, and the small number of brave insightful writers/ researchers who struggle to subsist in the desert I would have been amongst those who tuned out, turned off and turned away.
To answer your specific question, personally I apologized to Chris for attacking him personally.
I've nothing against him. 
I can also respect his mathematical talent. I think he's mistaken, to put it politely and he's wasting his time and his ability chasing a succession of wild geese up a succession of dark alleys. Each one a dead end
Chris has made it perfectly clear what he thinks of Doyle missappropriating his work.
I thought the gif itself was laughable. An overpixallated barely anthropoid blob.
Chris thought it looked like a woman. Fair enough. There's a blob on my bedroom wall at home I think looks like Dolly Parton's tits.
Like beauty pareiodelia is in the eye of the beholder.
You should be able to criticize the gif without criticising the guy who made it.
The difference between a Chris Davidson and a Brian Doyle is like the difference between a talented musician and the guy who tries to make money selling bootleg CDs and DVDs of his work.
Chris said he THOUGHT it looked like a woman
Doyle said it PROVED it was a woman.
Chris treats most o of those who disagree with him with respect.
Doyle showers abuse on them. Every last one . There's a reason he's been banned from everywhere..
Doyle epitomises the post Fetzer/ White generation of researchers.
( I use researcher in the generic term)
He has no interest in learning because according to him he already knows.
Everything.
Absolutely no self awareness, tone deaf to even the most basic forms of social interaction.
Rude . His arrogance only matched by his ignorance.
Just read his posts . Read that FB page of his. He's right and everyone else is at best an uncredible liar or at worst part of a nefarious cabal headed by James Gordon and Jim DiE to silence him.
The self proclaimed greatest researcher of all time. 
I feel sorry for Brian. On a human level it's a tragic waste of life. He's quite obviously got serious mental health issues. 
Everything I've written about him, Sandy the Swinging is purely for satirical purposes. Aiming to caricature what they themselves have said  Parody the impression theyve made. It's done with a wink and a nod. Theres a huge fucking difference between making a joke, and stating openly that someone is paid to lie about the assassination. Or stating " disbelievers" should be stomped like vermin or rabid dogs..Or threatening people with legal action because they disagree with you on a JFK research forum (!!!) Read what Doyle has written about everyone here. Especially Greg and Barto. There's real hatred oozing from every word. Along with jealousy and other less categorisable substances...
Satire, including the carefully deployed and hominem, is a  devastatingly effective method to expose frauds and buffoons.
Unfortunately Brian, like the H and L gang makes us all look like fools.
Chris makes himself look like a fool. Just as he probably thnks imI making a fool of myself.. That's his perogative. And who knows maybe he'll make us all look like fools.
Chris has an opinion. Doyle tries to twist these opinions into facts.
If you can stomach it read his stuff about Sarah Stanton.
It makes H and L look like the product of a mysterious and beautiful union between Alan Turing and William of fucking Ockham..
Sarah's own WORDS and the words of her relations, not to mention the photograph DOYLE HIMSELF found categorically rules her out..
But no instead we're treated to get another rendition of the old chestnut" everything's fake that I need to be fake" Sarah's FBI statement was faked but Billy Loveladys was genuine
"And everything I need to be genuine is genuine" Try that argument on folk outside the JFK sandbox..cos if this case is going to go anywhere thats who we're going to have to convince. Not people who listen to Dark Journalist..who think Doug Caddy played putting with Nixon, E Howard Hunt and an 8 foot Nordic alien on the White House lawn
Doyle with metadata is like Jimbo Baggins with the Stripling newspaper reports..mindless repetition.
I won't blame Chris for what Doyles doing.
After the gif we get chubby forearms, wigs in professional situations or my all time favourite the sun magically making white hair appear dark .
The same applies to Doyle's other " work"...the zaniest wackiest conspiracy nonsense...H and L they weren't unrelated boys who miraculously grew up to look like identical twins...no that's far too fucking credible for Brian..they were the product of a cutting edge CIA sperm experiment... cutting edge all right .the experiments took place at least 8 years before the CIA was created by 1947s National Security Act.
Also I admit more than a little of it is personal..
If not a fully fledged holocaust denier then Doyle's at least a sympathiser.
As someone whose studied WW2 very closely it's obvious he knows absolutely fuck all about it.
Hes clearly parroting the worst most objectionable " revisionist" trash
Mick wrote a fantastic essay. He deserves all our thanks..
Apologies to all for taking the thread off topic.
Especially to Mick as this thread should be dedicated to his essay.
In my opinion, however misguided and unconvincing his work is Chris is at least trying to be  part of the solution.
Doyle epitomises the problem. The embodiment of the wild eyed conspiracy theorist... Bottom line for Doyle the assassination is all about Doyle. " His" evidence.." his" theories .. he's the greatest researcher ever who's going to solve this case singlehandedly....

Jake_Sykes wrote:Great work Mick. Nothing like a seasoned professional to shed meaningful light upon a topic for which few of those involved posses your practiced experience. The technical impossibility of the necessary steps, the professional and business constraints as you have laid them out, and the very plausible explanation of Dino Brugioni's probable perceptions all combine to make an argument against alteration with which I can find no fault. I'm totally convinced. It simplifies matters immensely to have it removed from the register, making it possible to focus in on those also unaltered films that really matter regarding reopening the Kennedy case namely, Wiegman and Darnell. Thanks for nailing it.

Thanks Jake,

I hope I've helped in understanding how difficult it would have been to have altered the film in any significant way.

Thanks for that article, Mick. It's good to have a professional opinion about the practicalities of faking 8mm home movies. Plenty of people go on about the bad guys faking this or that film or photo, but very rarely do they acknowledge the difficulties involved. They seem to think you can just snap your fingers and - hey presto - there's your faked film!

This is exactly right. I mentioned on another forum to the true believers that even Hollywood couldn't make perfect optical effects back in the day. Even when some of the films back then were filmed on 35mm film or larger, you can see matte lines showing up, the green screens or blue screens not matching perfectly with the actors in the foreground footage, and so on. A pretty good example of this is the Ten Commandments when Heston parts the sea.

So I always asked them - if Hollywood couldn't make effects look perfect, how on Earth could we expect government agents to take an 8mm home movie and do seamless effects? And I'd ask the follow up question of - what exactly did they alter?

Mick, I'm late to the party here, but let me say well done. Outstanding analysis.

You alluded to the Devil being in the details. I would agree and add, "but so is salvation."

Mick_Purdy wrote:I think the film's provenance has been well established. 

Dallas Kodak processing plant employee Phil Chamberlain processed the original film with Zapruder present at the Lab. Harry McCormack from the Dallas Morning news was also in attendance when Zapruder handed his film to Chamberlain. Forrest Sorrel's from the Secret Service observed Zapruder with his film at his office and was handed two first day copies struck from the original. Not more than 60-70 minutes after the assassination Erwin Swartz Zapruders Business partner held the original unprocessed film while Zapruder conducted a televison interview at WFAA TV.

There is clear photographic evidence of Zapruder filming the assassination from the Concrete structure just as he had stated.

We can move forward.

"I took the agent and the roll of film into the processing room. There the single roll of
film was fed into the #2 processing machine by B. Davis (deceased). Davis, the agent and
myself stayed in the darkroom until the film entered the dry cabinet. The agent and I then went
to the dry alley. The lights in the drying cabinet were turned off so we could not view the film.
When the roll of film reached take off, I removed it and gave it to the agent."

This is not Phil Chamberlain's quote.
Sorrels departed Kodak before the film was finished processing.

JFK_Case wrote:This is exactly right. I mentioned on another forum to the true believers that even Hollywood couldn't make perfect optical effects back in the day. Even when some of the films back then were filmed on 35mm film or larger, you can see matte lines showing up, the green screens or blue screens not matching perfectly with the actors in the foreground footage, and so on. A pretty good example of this is the Ten Commandments when Heston parts the sea.

So I always asked them - if Hollywood couldn't make effects look perfect, how on Earth could we expect government agents to take an 8mm home movie and do seamless effects? And I'd ask the follow up question of - what exactly did they alter?

12 years before the Oxberry in 1957 and 18 before the assassination.
Was it capable of removing frames?

Not saying the equipment didn't exist, Chris. It obviously did, whether it was operated by Hollywood special effects departmens or government personnel. What I am saying is no equipment back then could have created magical special effects to fool the viewer when the Z film is shown.

And tell us, Chris - what exactly was removed from the Z film? You claim that shots happened further down after Z313. Then the government agents removed 67% of those frames that would have shown these shots down there. Altgens himself - who was actually there - said he was roughly 15 away when the head shots hit. He further said no more shots happened afterward. He was basically right on top of the action. So according to your logic, what did these excised frames show? And how do you know this if you or no one else has seen these frames from the Z film?

And then there's this:

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

So I guess 67% of the frames were removed from the Nix film too so they match up?

Hmm, hmm. Sure, Chris, sure.

You keep referring to the Nix/Z sync video.
Please read Nix's grand-daughters book pertaining to the film's provenance.
Two camera's running at the same frame rate. Filming the same event.(I'm quite familiar with Muchmore/Bronson too.)
Step them through the optical printer, remove the same desired frames in a mostly uniform fashion(removing/smoothing out an instantaneous limo stop) while the end result is speeding up the limo back to its pre-altered speed.
Does it require more or less frames generated to cover the limo traversing the same distance when the limo has slowed down?
A second headshot was removed.
It occurred after the extant 313 headshot.
Actually, in specifically designated frame spans, 70% frame removal was achieved.
The only special effects I see in the extant Zfilm are frame specific and there are very few of them. imo    
67% was based on 48 slo-mo.
70% is based on 18.3fps
Breneman did the initial survey work along with Robert West.

Chris_Davidson wrote:

Mick_Purdy wrote:I think the film's provenance has been well established. 

Dallas Kodak processing plant employee Phil Chamberlain processed the original film with Zapruder present at the Lab. Harry McCormack from the Dallas Morning news was also in attendance when Zapruder handed his film to Chamberlain. Forrest Sorrel's from the Secret Service observed Zapruder with his film at his office and was handed two first day copies struck from the original. Not more than 60-70 minutes after the assassination Erwin Swartz Zapruders Business partner held the original unprocessed film while Zapruder conducted a televison interview at WFAA TV.

There is clear photographic evidence of Zapruder filming the assassination from the Concrete structure just as he had stated.

We can move forward.

"I took the agent and the roll of film into the processing room. There the single roll of
film was fed into the #2 processing machine by B. Davis (deceased). Davis, the agent and
myself stayed in the darkroom until the film entered the dry cabinet. The agent and I then went
to the dry alley. The lights in the drying cabinet were turned off so we could not view the film.
When the roll of film reached take off, I removed it and gave it to the agent."

This is not Phil Chamberlain's quote.
Sorrels departed Kodak before the film was finished processing.

Chris,

with all due respect, it may not be Chamberlains quote but it makes no difference to the scenario I've outlined. If the above is not Chamberlains quote then who does it belong to and why is it important to my original post?

Sorrels observed the film in Zapruder's possession at his office.

One of things that always bothered me about Zapruder Film alterationist argument is the way that it behaves strategically to undermine criticism of the WC-- in the battle of conspiracy vs. lone nut it actually hurts the conspiracy camp worse. Because it kicks the stool out from under them by invalidating not only the Zap-Film-as-clock idea as well as the "back and to left" mantra that emerged from Oliver Stone's JFK. The entire film becomes devoid of evidence. The baby then can be thrown out with the bathwater.

The irony is that it does not matter, looking at it this way, if the film was actually altered in some way-- maybe much more simply or bluntly than the whole elaborate traveling matte thing, which Mick Purdy is right to question the likelihood of. All the better (from the government's perspective) if it was altered, then they have a better argument in introducing Zap Film alteration to their opponents as propaganda ca. 1998-- what they're pushing is literally true. That makes it better propaganda than something false.

It's a messaging/propaganda tug-of-war. It's about repetition, resources, and the ability to influence opinion-makers and historians. The lone nut crowd has always had those things on its side. If they could take all the video evidence that existed of 11/22/63 and wreck it by injecting into their loyal opposition the desire to forever mistrust and ignore it, think of what a coup that would be for them. What a clever ruse.

Chris_Davidson wrote:

JFK_Case wrote:This is exactly right. I mentioned on another forum to the true believers that even Hollywood couldn't make perfect optical effects back in the day. Even when some of the films back then were filmed on 35mm film or larger, you can see matte lines showing up, the green screens or blue screens not matching perfectly with the actors in the foreground footage, and so on. A pretty good example of this is the Ten Commandments when Heston parts the sea.

So I always asked them - if Hollywood couldn't make effects look perfect, how on Earth could we expect government agents to take an 8mm home movie and do seamless effects? And I'd ask the follow up question of - what exactly did they alter?

12 years before the Oxberry in 1957 and 18 before the assassination.
Was it capable of removing frames?

Chris,

There were copies of the original film made. At least three that we know of possibly more. I'd say almost certainly more by the next Monday or Tuesday. How do we account for alteration of the film with all the copies of the original film floating about the place? 

I agree that the Optical printer you've shown here was apparently the gold standard for the industry for a long while and achieved reasonably complex special effects for its time and most certainly could have achieved seamless edits on film. It's interesting to note that the Zapruder film we see today has at least two very obvious splice/edit points. They are obvious even to the lay person. It would be my belief that whoever caused these splice points went to no trouble to cover up the fact that it had  occurred.