Chris Davidson

Chris, I neglected to answer (or theorize, at least) on one of your main questions... There are some limits to the precision with which animated GIFs can achieve framerates for reasons I mentioned below. However, using Adobe ImageReady to produce an Animated Gif, it allows me to set a "delay" of 0.05 seconds. This will result in a framerate around 20fps if the target computer can render the frames fast enough. It did not allow me to add another decimal place of precision to get to 18 (or 18.3) frames per second. When I entered 0.055 (~18fps), the software rounded it back to 0.05... This may vary from application to application. I'd have to look back at the actual GIF spec to see how much precision is allowed. Oh -- and if the browser misinterprets this delay field, your framerate is shot anyway. However, when I'm trying for "close to actual speed" I use a delay of 0.05. Thanks Frank, I use a combination of Photoshop and Image Ready. Here's the movie showing Babushka and the child moving more alike than Brehm and Babushka. Zapruder shows Brehm and Babushka moving together This does not match Zapruder. chris

Bill/Robin, In the Z film, Brehm and Babushka move at the same speed, same direction and angle. In Muchmore, Babushka moves into Brehm, and actually her angle movement is closer to the child's movement. chris P.S. Will post a stabilized gif showing Babushka and child later, got to go.

Frank/John, thank you for the additional information. You might find this next one rather interesting. Watch Brehm/Babushka in sync. They move at the same angle and at the same speed. Brehm's child NEVER STEPS (legs always apart) to the side of Brehm and appears, it's as if he's uncovered, as a (left to right) slanting of the adults occurs. For the most part, Zapruder films from the same angle according to the red lines. chris Updated Forgot frame 284 in gif. Included now.

Thanks John, The gif you posted of the limo rocking back and forth from Groden, how was that done if you have a quick explanation? I took what I thought was the same two frames, stabilized the limo and Newman's and get this. chris

Is there an appropriate/agreed upon speed for creating animated gif's? Should it be related somehow, to the original film's FPS? Any suggestion's appreciated, thanks, chris P.S. David, here is Dr. Costella's frame's 284/285 compared with some I took. I think this is a more reasonable speed, but I'm just a novice. Leftside is with the car's stabilized. Rightside is the people stabilized. Slowed down much more than the MPI's I previously posted.

In other words, if I follow you correctly John, the limo appears to be on one track and the background another. Here is an example from the Z film. The limo, independant of the background. Think of them as 2 movies playing at once. chris P.S. Pay no attention to that man that looks like the governor moving towards the sprocket hole. May

I've been told the Muchmore version on the Discovery DVD is a copy from the original. How can that be when it's been cropped while comparing it to Groden's version. Why would you want to crop a copy of an original? Here is a gif to show some of the cropping that has occured. I'm sure you can figure out what area is being affected due to cropping. And those pesky lines again, along with a discolored wall bottom in Groden's. chris

Frame sequence. Runs upper right to lower left. Following that line through the Newman's. chris

Good catch, and quite interesting. I see the same thing on my NFV/Groden DVD frames. I'm not quite sure what it is... The angled nature of it precludes some interlace artifacting or other NTSC-based stuff. It either has to be on the film, or introduced (somehow) in the telecine process. Frank, my mistake with regards to the aspect ratio. I made an assumption that Groden's would have been enlarged by the same height/width. I am wrong. The width is a 3.5 % increase. The heighth is a 5% increase. Here's a gif of the same frames as previously posted, darkened somewhat and at the correct size I believe. Groden's rotated at 1.5 degrees CW to fit. chris

Groden layered over the Discovery DVD. I'm pretty sure as I stated earlier, those are knife marks throughtout the film. They are also in a step pattern that run horizontal. If damage was to the center of the frame, why not just tape it back together IN REGISTRATION and have the damaged gap there? chris

No, Chris ... he is not. Muchmore is elevated above the scene and looking downward, which causes things to stack upwards in the image. Note than Clint Hill's feet are higher up in the image than Jean's. You might recall my pointing out how the motorcyles stacked up in Moorman's photo which showed her camera to be elevated above the tops of the cycles, which in turn proved that Jack was in error about Mary being in the Street because the cycles standing height was no less than 4" higher than Jack gave for Mary's lens height. The same basic concept led to Jack thinking Toni Foster was 7' tall in the Zapruder film. It is just the perception of how things look when viewed from elevated angles. (see Moorman's photo) Bill Ashton and Bill, The light bulb finally turned on. Feet comparison understood. thank you both, David, would the MPI transparencies be of any help. That is the method they used before scanning them back into the computer for the final product. chris chris

Chris, many times when I do detailed checks over height changes, I will place lines over my overlays to watch for minute changes between frames. In doing so with your animation and while not changing their size , I saw what caused Hill to be slightly taller and wider between locations. 1) One is that Hill is seen more from the rear as he is further down the street which would naturally make his width appear to have gotten wider. 2) If you look at the angle of Hill's standing foot between the two images, you should see that one is slightly angled and the other is almost vertical. This change alone will cause Hill to rise a couple of inches. It would be no different IMO than a woman wearing a pair of 4" heels and then putting on a pair of 6" heels ... her height would naturally rise. 3) Jean Hill turned her head and leaned slightly forward which dropped her height down a few inches between film frames. 4) The two men on the steps with Hudson bent their kness which caused their heights to change as well. Bill Miller Bill, at the moment in time of this photo, Is Clint that much taller than Jean, who is up on the curb/slope? thanks chris

Thanks to all for catching the shadow. When I observed this, I was concentrating on individual frames and not watching the movie in it's entirety. chris

Gary, I said in an earlier response this evening to this that I would try over the weekend to get an anim put together. Well, one of my sons came by, and it seems that your children, no matter how old they get, never tire of demonstrating that you couldn't possibly have had the sense necessary to raise them in the first place. And hearing of my little project that I wanted to crowbar somehow into an impossible schedule, he took far too much delight in showing me how to accomplish in mere minutes what would have taken me probably an hour or more with my archaic methods. Below is a Quicktime movie made from the Photoshop enhanced zoomed MPI frames Z:241-Z:286. The person who did the enhancements intentionally brought them up a bit over-bright to bring out details that simply are invisible in the original frames. It's clear to me now that Connally's right elbow does, indeed, go up on the back of the jumpseat. This enhanced version is also making me rethink the location of what I believe is the back shot—moving it a bit later, to just as they are emerging from behind the Stemmons sign—but I want to study this more. For now... Here is the Quicktime movie, Z201-286SMALL Without trying to ride a hobby horse at all—because I have no vested interest at all in what the truth turns out to be—I yet wonder now how much this new view affects the hypothesis of a high-velocity bullet going through Connally's torso and his right wrist area, entering "top" (knuckles) side of arm, exiting palm side. How long do we have to wait for this book of yours? There are many interesting points coming to light in this enhanced set of frames, not only about Connally, about which more later. Ashton Ashton, would this spot work or is it too far recessed. chris

Here is some information that Gary Mack was kind enough to share with me when I discussed this particular Muchmore print ........... http://www.aparchive.com/aparchive/pages/p...news/ln_jfk.htm The work was done on an "Archangel" machine (not a Spirit as I told you) in England, then converted to US broadcast standards. The conversion introduced visual artifacts and it was also transferred at the wrong speed. The "restored" version runs much faster than normal. Slowing down the tape introduces even more confusing visual artifacts. Gary Mack Ashton, hopefully someone with more expertise than I can help on this point. John, that is the Discovery DVD version. I also posted my stabilized version of this and tried to rid it of the garbage frames. Limo is always moving . Bill, here's a condensed version of 3 legs. I find it hard to believe these are artifacts. Left transparent leg in motion. Right leg is solid. What is his cross leg connected to the SS limo? thanks, chris P.S. John, I posted that stabilizied version earlier.In case you missed it. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...8939&st=45#

Not convinced Clint grows taller, perhaps it's his fancy footwork that is deceiving us. Please watch his right leg at the beginning of the animations. His right leg takes 2-3 steps in a row. Then it appears he grows an extra leg that crosses over to the SS limo or is that his leg shadow off the SS car. Next his left leg becomes somewhat transparent. And finally, he is able to catch JFK's limo traveling about 10 MPH after jumping from his limo. Frames are stabilized. LIMO NEVER STOPS IN THESE FRAMES. chris

Is it possible for Clint to grow taller, as he runs farther down the street from Muchmore? thanks, chris P.S. I always thought Jean Hill was fairly tall.

Chris, Telecining adds a duplicate frame (or frames) to compensate for different frame rates. A purely duplicated frame (or frames) would be quite easy to detect -- even when watching a film, and most certainly so when looking at it frame-by-frame. Missing frames are harder to detect, but as we have shown on the "Missing Nix Frames" thread, not impossible. This is why I was theorizing about the clever use of blur to allow the insertion and removal of frames. Just about every DVD will have the issue that you ran in to. In general, extracting purely progressive frames isn't too difficult, especially once you know what to look for and have the right software handy. Most, if not all, software DVD players de-interlace frames using some combination of filters known as "Bob and Weave". This de-interlaces the video before displaying it on your monitor (computers are progressive scan devices). If you have one that allows you to single-step through frames, you'll notice some have the ghost images. These are the result of the bob & weave filters and aren't on the original film. For example, here are two frames from the Hughes film: However, on the DVD (in this case, the discovery channel show) there is a "frame" in between these two "real" frames. This frame is interlaced -- portions from A and B are on alternating lines (see the example below -- left picture). When you play a DVD on your computer, it applies the filter(s) mentioned above so that you don't see the annoying horizontal lines on your monitor. On the right side of the lower picture is the result of such a filter: The "Field Bob" frame is less displeasing to the eye than the horizontal lines when played on a computer. However, neither frame is actually on the Hughes film. Here's Muchmore's movie from the Discovery DVD, I stabilized it, runs at 15 frames per second, shows camera movement. Reduced to 75% for forum limits. Thanks again for the info, Frank. chris P.S. I threw out a couple of blurry frames at the beginning, one of which shows limo movement.

Hi Chris, You posted two animations previously -- one of which had some ghosting effects, the other one was clear. The ghosting effects were almost certainly not on the original film. They are the result of the process necessary to convert them to a format that is playable on Televisions. Film is originally a progressive source -- nothing but a series of complete and sequential pictures one after another. Traditional televisions don't work quite that way, so film sources must be modified (processes to make frame rate corrections and a concept called interlacing) to be viewable. Essentially, duplicate frames (to correct frame rate) and "special" frames (interlaced) frames are added. This process is called "Telecining." The result is a film that is playable on a television, yet runs at the correct frame-rate. When a DVD is ripped (or frames are advanced one-by-one in DVD player software and captured), if the added frames are not removed (a process known as inverse Telecine, or IVTC), they will show up when you frame-advance on a computer (which is a progressive device). That is why one must be careful to work with only the purely progressive frames when making computer animations from DVD frames of a film source (gasp!). To answer your question -- one would not want to, nor would it be necessary to, create ghosting or interlace effects on a film source (unless you were doing something intentionally for special effects, etc). Frank, thank you for the information on Telecining. Give's me a better understanding of the process. The last paragraph of your response is what I'll ask about. What if someone was trying to hide the hack job they did on the film. Wouldn't you want to use a similar method which mirrors the telecining process, but is a reasonable explanation for the film imperfections? The Discovery DVD and Groden's version, have similar (telecining) problems pertaining to the gif's I posted earlier. Coincindental, or does this possibly occur where some of the film slicing and dicing occurs. Groden's version appears to have x-acto knife marks at these frames. The Discovery DVD hides these marks. thanks chris

John/Frank, Would this have been to replicate the interlacing/deinterlacing method/effect? thanks chris

John, thank you. Here are 2 animated gifs. One is 4 consecutive frames. 1,2,3,4. The other is frames (1 and 4) with 2 and 3 droppped out. When I drop out 2/3, there is a nice movie shown. Question any frame that shows Vertical Movement or BLURRING. Also, take a look at Jean Hill in the 4 frame gif. They can't get her feet/legs correct. A few oddities in the 2 frame gif: 1. A shadow in the shape of head /shoulders appears on the grass, in front of the men on the stairs. 2. A ghost image of the motorcycle tire and back rear limo wheel appear. 3. The wall also has a ghosting image. Hope this helps, chris

Hello Chris Thanks for this. Isn't the changing color of face simply due to the spray of blood in the air between the camera and JFK's head? Chris Chris I would tend to agree except for: 1.The color of Jackie's face with that same spray. 2.The spray being the exact covered shape of Jack's face, as outlined in the photo provided. Bill, What comes first: The bullet or the spray? In other words, I see spray appear before any head movement. If someone is shot in the head, doesn't the head move instantly from the force of the bullet? Is it possible to create the effect of movement by changing tonal values in color photographs? thanks chris

Provided is an animated gif and a quicktime movie (better quality) showing the same thing, frames 312-313 with transparent transisition frames in-between. Please watch the (ear and nose) movement of JFK in relation to the back of his head moving. Hint! When do his ear and nose move? Also, notice the shape of his FACE at the beginning of 312. As the movie proceeds, and we finally end with 313, what happens to just his FACE in terms of colorization and shape? chris P.S. Happy New Year to all.

Robin, is there any chance of your making it available in any format other than .wmv? Ashton Here it is in quicktime form. Had to use Apple's H263 codec for conversion/forum size limit, so there is some quality loss. Hope this helps you Robin. chris

I previously posted some frames... However, I realized that I had several more versions of the Z-film to consider. Dr. Costella's combined edit has a Z341 that does not appear to be in the MPI version. Also, the frame you posted above (Jennings version) is Z350 in the Costella combined edit version. The "MPI Z349" that you show, is Z351 in Costella. Thanks Frank, so much for my cross-referencing skills. chris