Tuesday, August 24, 2010

P/G Film Raises Questions For Some



This video on YouTube posits that the famed Patterson/Gimlin film of a "Bigfoot" photographed in Northern California in the late 1960's isn't one continuous roll of film, but rather spliced (?) together for some nefarious (but unexplained) reason.

However, I have to point out a few things.

1) This person doesn't understand motion film cameras of the period. They did not auto-adjust for exposure, hue/saturation, or focus. What he thinks are sudden scene changes are not. If you look closely at the individual frames, you'll see the same features. However, the camera is moving and each frame is on a slightly different axis. Furthermore, the frames in question are overexposed, but if you look closely, you can still see the the same trees and logs.

2) The author of this presentation points to a "bloody" hole, which seems a more literal description than a figurative one. What I think he's calling "blood" is actually a color shift in the film. Consumer grade film stock during this period was often uneven in its quality. This combined with inexperience on the part of the operator could explain this color shift toward red. There could also be problems during process, with age as the film sat around for years, etc... That the whole film tends towards exhibiting dominant hues of reds and yellows isn't surprising. It is a hallmark of photography of the late 60's through the 70's that films often shifted to those warmer tones as they aged, in much the same fashion as films from previous decades would lean toward the cooler end of the spectrum. Manufacturers such as Kodak were continually refining the process of color film.

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