Is that ... (Gasp) ... Billy Lovelady Talking With Gloria Calvery on the Steps?

[Sandy Larsen]

26 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Alistair,

All frames were extracted from "JFK" the movie, Blu-Ray version by Robin Unger.

He then uploaded them at some point for a limited time, so others could copy/acquire them.

Here are a few:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrExtVD005OTnVnS3l3ZWtjLTQ/view?usp=sharing

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrExtVD005OWXFfdzZOaXlNTWs/view?usp=sharing

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrExtVD005OeWVyVmVKMkVyaUk/view?usp=sharing

 

 

Tommy,

The middle link has the frame that shows Lovelady Man's eyes and mouth.

The bottom link has the frame that shows Lovelady Man turning his head and showing his hair. Not so much his eyes or mouth.

 

 

[Thomas Graves]

14 minutes ago, Alistair Briggs said:

Righteo...

... this is all I've done.

I saved the gif to my computer. Opened it as layers with the programme G.I.M.P, which puts it in the individual frames. Saved the individual frames. (There was only 8 frames in that gif)

Some of the frames are more 'blurry' than others, and I don't know how good the rest of them are for what you are seeing...

I put them up for you to view here let me know which numbers are best for you.

Regards.

Dear Alistair,

Haven't looked at them yet ...

I've already told you that I'm technically-challenged, so I can't give you any feedback other than to ask the question, "How can there be only eight frames in that GIF?"

What kind of camera was Couch (or Darnell?) using?  How many frames per second was it filming at?

Only EIGHT FRAMES in the whole blown-up GIF I posted?

Okay.  If you say so.

After all, I'm technically "technically-challenged."

--  Tommy

PS  Why don't you chose one or two for me?  Hmmm?

 

Edited February 22, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

2 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

Dear Alistair,

Haven't looked at them yet ...

I've already told you that I'm technically-challenged, so I can't give you any feedback other than to ask the question, "How can there be only eight frames in that GIF?"

What kind of camera was Couch (or Darnell?) using?  How many frames per second was it filming at?

Only EIGHT FRAMES in the whole blown-up GIF I posted?

Okay.  If you say so.

After all, I'm technically "technically-challenged."

--  Tommy

PS  Why don't you chose one or two for me?  Hmmm?

 

Dear Alistair,

OK, I've looked at them.  Thanks for doing that, btw.  Good work.

I can see "Lovelady's" hair on the side of his head in all of them, but #4 and #5 are the best.

Unless, of course, you don't think it's his hair at all, but a "shadow" or "PP's elbow," instead.  LOL

--  Tommy

[Sandy Larsen]

26 minutes ago, Alistair Briggs said:

Righteo...

... this is all I've done.

I saved the gif to my computer. Opened it as layers with the programme G.I.M.P, which puts it in the individual frames. Saved the individual frames. (There was only 8 frames in that gif)

Some of the frames are more 'blurry' than others, and I don't know how good the rest of them are for what you are seeing...

I put them up for you to view here let me know which numbers are best for you.

Regards.

Tommy,

For the face forward shot (Lovelady NOT turning his head), Alistair has the better frame because it is easier to see the hair.

For the turning-head shot, Unger (in Chris's post) has the better frame because Alistair's loses eyes and mouth. You see a tiny bit in Unger's. (Though really, not good.)

Note the color of gray differs between the two groups. Also, Unger's are NOT cropped and enlarged, Alistair's are.

Therefore, I would choose from Alistair's group if I were you.

(All IMO.)

EDIT: #4 and #5 are my picks too.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Alistair Briggs]

17 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

Only EIGHT FRAMES in the whole blown-up GIF I posted?

In that one, yep, just the 8. Which did actually surprise me a bit tbh. Other gifs have more frames, of course.

I don't know who originally created that gif so I can make no contentions on how enlarged they were or whether they were brightened or not or whatever I just don't know.

13 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

EDIT: #4 and #5 are my picks too.
 

Frame 4

Frame 5

[Bill Miller]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I've studied the shirt very carefully and I have to agree with Ray on this point.

Still, I do find Bill's observation intriguing. I wonder if it possible for film to experience some kind of "blooming distortion." Blooming is an old CRT (cathode ray tube, or TV tube) term used for a phenomenon where an overly bright area gets larger than it really is. In the case of CRTs it occurs because a strong electron beam loses focus.

To see that the black lines are at least two times thicker than the read lines in the latter day stair photo is a no-brainer in my view. I had put enlargements of those stripes into Photoshop and measured them against each other using the ruler tool. The black line is just over 2.5X that of the white pen stripe.

All that is needed now is a fairly good print of the lines on the 11/22/63 shirt and do the same. I personally believe that the black and white stripes in the 11/22/63 shirt are so close to the same width and the difference so vast that there will be no more argument. And if I am wrong, then it won't be the first time. I am intrigued because like a carpenter can eyeball a measurement within a small degree of error .... I am curious to see how close I am on this one.

[Bill Miller]

2 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Agreed about the width of the stripes .

Maybe, but what are the chances tat the plaid would match exactly?

If they are one in the same shirt, then matching the lines through overlay will confirm this. When talking about just the width of the stripes - its a pretty simple comparison to make. If the different is great, then it is not the same shirt.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Bill Miller

[Bill Miller]

6 hours ago, Thomas Graves said:

Dear William,

It seems you're obsessing on the t-shirt and what Lovelady's buttoning habits were.

What about the bald forehead with hair on the side?  (Just like Lovelady's.)

--  Tommy

Let me put it to you this way that most sensible people will understand .... There is Oswald - Lovelady - a man a few steps away from Lovelady in the Hughes film - and yet another guy who looked close enough to Oswald that members here was having to take a hard look at it. While none of those images are great - they are a darn sight better than the distant image of washout man. There is so much distortion and constant blurring going on with that person that telling someone that we can see accurate details about his hair like is wishing in one hand and defecating in the other as the saying goes.

Those who were seeing a disjointing arm is a perfect example of how unreliable the sunlit washed out image really is. When light and contrast is bumped up - it will expand borders and alter shapes. This is why I asked to be shown the white t-shirt and/or the vertical white pen stripe claimed to have been seen on washout man. Has anyone done this yet?

Here is an enlargement of the image that has been claimed to show hair patterns and white pen stripes. If one looks the image over closely they will see white lines on the wall - on people - and etc .... none of which has anything to do with Lovelady's shirt. These are artifacts on the film. Bump up the contrast and shadows become people standing on the steps - light colored calves suddenly appear - and a sunlit shoulder and back of a woman's clothing becomes a disjointed arm.

The one thing that can be done is to look at the color tone of the man's clothing to see if his shirt is open so to allow a white t-shirt to be seen. The straight on view should have produced a white t-shirt if it is indeed Billy Lovelady - but there is no white t-shirt to be seen. So how does the shirt buttoning fetish prescribed to Lovelady play out ....

Altgen's 6 shows Lovelady standing with his shirt open on what turned out to be a warm sunny day.

JFK's limo is now racing out of the Plaza. Wiegman's camera spots Lovelady on the landing with his shirt still open and his t-shirt exposed. Shelley may be just a step or two down from Lovelady.

The camera pans away to film Patrolman Baker's run to the TSBD, so when the camera pans back - Lovelady is not on the landing and Shelley is nowhere to be seen. At the same time it is washout man standing on the west side of the stairs. Someone theorizes that this is Lovelady and that Billy (possibly got a chill?) decided to button up his shirt in all that mayhem and confusion. At the same time there is yet another man who has the same type of hairline as Lovelady who is walking on the Elm Street extension. He is in the company of a man in a dark suit who coincidentally Bill Shelley was also wearing. The man in the dark suit also has the same thick hair wave on the front of his head that photos of Bill Shelley portray him as having. 

Next footage from the scene shows Lovelady on the west side of the stairs with his shirt open and his t-shirt only partly visible. The second insert shows that Lovelady has shifted and much of his white t-shirt is visible.. (see inserts below)

 

And then in just a few steps to the center hand rail - it is suggested that Lovelady buttoned-up again. (see below)

The Lovelady button up / unbutton fetish theory doesn't make an ounce of sense to me. I want to chose to not waste more time on what I see as a ridiculous self-serving theory. I will follow through with the width of the stripes between the two shirts.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Bill Miller

[Chris Davidson]

11 hours ago, Alistair Briggs said:

Cheers Chris, much appreciated.

Quick question for you, what kind of 'loss' in quality would result in say just opening a gif to extract a frame from it?

Regards

 

Alistair,

In this instance, I'll let you be the judge of that. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrExtVD005ONDdiOU5PQUVUa1E/view?usp=sharing

The original gif had the angled side (red arrow) created by the stabilization process via Photoshop.

chris

Edited February 23, 2017 by Chris Davidson

[Chris Davidson]

11 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Thanks Chris. Awesome work!

Do you actually have to manually move each frame?

 

Sandy,

Sometimes.

If I feel Photoshop didn't do a good enough job, I will re-align some/all of the frames/layers manually.

chris

[Ray Mitcham]

11 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

If they are one in the same shirt, then matching the lines through overlay will confirm this. When talking about just the width of the stripes - its a pretty simple comparison to make. If the different is great, then it is not the same shirt.

If you can provide  a photo of Lovelady  taken on 22nd, at exactly the same angle as the groden photo, I shall try it.

[Bill Miller]

1 hour ago, Ray Mitcham said:

If you can provide  a photo of Lovelady  taken on 22nd, at exactly the same angle as the groden photo, I shall try it.

Ray ... just so you understand and I know that we are on the same page -

I am talking about the width of a black stripe on a shirt compared to the white stripe attached to it. These stripes are not three dimensional to one another where when seen at a slight angle that one would hide a portion of the other. So what I am saying is that their proportion to one another whether they are equal or whether one is 33%, 50%, or 66% of the other will remain the same.

The nice thing about the Lovelady shirt is there are both vertical and horizontal stripes to compare. Here below is an example of a pallet leaning against a wall. Whether the vertical board is leaning back against the wall or nailed flush to it - the vertical width is unchanged.

So whether the vertical stripes were photographed with Lovelady standing or sitting .... the  angle at which they are seen does not effect their width to one another. I think you can understand where I am going here and can agree that if the stripes are photographed from a straight-on view that the degree of error between the two images will be so minimal as to be non-existent if one white stripe against the black stripe its connected to is quite noticeable in width difference.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Bill Miller

[Bill Miller]

3 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

Sandy,

Sometimes.

If I feel Photoshop didn't do a good enough job, I will re-align some/all of the frames/layers manually.

chris

Chris,

Why have you not just come right out and told these guys that there can be no more definition found in Washout Man than what there is on the film itself. That when one manipulates the image through lightening and contrast that it alters borders. You have been playing with this stuff long enough to know these things to be true.

Below is your Washout Man taken directly from the images you provided. The sun shining off this person's clothing gives the false impression that something white is being seen, but in the third image there is nothing there. When you fail to explain these things to those who are not familiar with them, then you allow false tales of clothing adjustments to be born. In the first image - the right shoulder of Washout Man is not sunlit and seems semi-rounded like a natural shoulder shout me. Yet in the third image - the sunlit shoulder seems flat or square. The sunlit face and head is no different.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Bill Miller

[Ray Mitcham]

1 hour ago, Bill Miller said:

Ray ... just so you understand and I know that we are on the same page -

I am talking about the width of a black stripe on a shirt compared to the white stripe attached to it. These stripes are not three dimensional to one another where when seen at a slight angle that one would hide a portion of the other. So what I am saying is that their proportion to one another whether they are equal or whether one is 33%, 50%, or 66% of the other will remain the same.

The nice thing about the Lovelady shirt is there are both vertical and horizontal stripes to compare. Here below is an example of a pallet leaning against a wall. Whether the vertical board is leaning back against the wall or nailed flush to it - the vertical width is unchanged.

So whether the vertical stripes were photographed with Lovelady standing or sitting .... the  angle at which they are seen does not effect their width to one another. I think you can understand where I am going here and can agree that if the stripes are photographed from a straight-on view that the degree of error between the two images will be so minimal as to be non-existent if one white stripe against the black stripe its connected to is quite noticeable in width difference.

You are trying to judge the width of the stripes on the frame taken of Lovely in the DPD. Perhaps you will explain your method of measuring accurately. Do you agree that it is Lovelady in the DPD frame,  or do you think it somebody else?

[Bill Miller]

If you are talking about the images I posted previously (TSBD steps and DPD) - then they are of Billy Lovelady.beyond question.

There are a couple of ways to check and cross check what I am looking for. One is by way of doing a transparency overly of the stripes in question. For instance - I can take the black stripe from each shirt and scale the width of that stripe to match in both image sources. I can do the same for an entire plaid square. I then compare the two white stripes to see how much variance, if any is present. Below is an example ... ignore the colors I used as they are irrelevant and were changed for another method of illustrating the test.

 

As long as the view is basically the same from one surface to the other, then both the black and white stripes should match from both views. If they do not match by as far as I am thinking they didn't by merely looking  at them, then they cannot be from the same shirt. example below ....

 

 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Bill Miller