The RELICT HOMINOID INQUIRY 2:41-80 (2013) Research Article ANALYSIS INTEGRITY OF THE PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM IMAGE Bill Munns1*, Jeff Meldrum2 1Blue Jay, CA 92317 2Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave, Pocatello, ID 83209 ABSTRACT. The Patterson-Gimlin Film (PGF), which depicts a walking figure suggestive of a cryptid hominoid species known as sasquatch (or Bigfoot), has been studied and debated since its filming in 1967. One issue not analyzed conclusively is the suspicion that the film itself has been somehow tampered with or otherwise edited to hide data that may point to a hoax. The integrity and quality of the film image have also been challenged and characterized as unreliable. A comprehensive study of these issues of contention has determined that the film was not altered or otherwise tampered with for deceptive intent, and that the image quality is sufficient for factual analysis of the nature of the subject as depicted. KEY WORDS: Bigfoot, sasquatch, Bluff Creek, cinematography, photogrammetry INTRODUCTION 2. What is the resolution of the camera original film stock and what level of image Null Hypothesis: The original Patterson- detail can be relied upon? Gimlin Film (PGF) has either been altered, or 3. If copies are studied in the absence of the its image quality is insufficient for analysis, or camera original, how were the copies both, invalidating its evidentiary reliability for made and how does the copy process alter conclusively determining whether it depicts a the film image data? real and novel biological entity. 4. Is the film in focus? 5. Is there motion blur, from either motions Alternate Hypothesis: The original PGF film of the camera or motions of the subject was not edited or tampered with prior to being filmed? copying, and its image quality is sufficient for 6. Are there sufficient varying camera angles reliable analysis and determination of the to allow an accurate and reliable three- nature of the subject. dimensional reconstruction of the filmed A number of points of contention have event? arisen in ascertaining the integrity of the PGF 7. Can the camera positions be determined as evidence. The following questions must be with factual certainty in relation to the addressed and determinations made before landscape? proceeding with further analysis of the film 8. Can the walk path of the filmed subject be and its subject: determined with factual certainty in 1. Has the film been edited? relation to the landscape? *Correspondence to: Bill Munns, email: [email protected] © RHI BILL MUNNS & JEFF MELDRUM 42 9. Can the position of the filmed subject be Optical Print - Made on a device called an determined in relationship to the camera Optical Printer, the device is a projector position? coupled to a camera, and this device allows 10. Can copy artifacts and physical impacts for various ways for a printing to occur, and alterations of the film material (such because the lens on the projector can as scratches, water stains, and dust or lint project the source image to the camera at a particles on the film) be accounted for? 1:1 size ratio, or zoom in and magnify the 11. Are there any other ways the film image copy image to larger than the source, the data could be tampered with? projector and camera can operate at different frame rates, to produce copies in DEFINITIONS slow motion or fast speeds, and other optical effects combining multiple source A glossary of terms used in this document is film segments onto the copy (crossfades, provided: image composites, etc.) Splice - To join two pieces of motion picture Leader - Film stock which may be clear, film together by use of a clear adhesive opaque white or opaque black, and is tape or glue. generally used at the head and tail of a film Edit - To add, delete, or re-arrange the order roll or sequence. It allows for setup on a lab of motion picture film segments. film processing machine, projector or Perforation (aka Sprocket Hole) - the printer before any actual picture segments rectangular holes along one or both sides of are in the film gate for viewing, as well as a motion picture film stock to allow the for physical writings or markings to projection and printing mechanisms to identify the film without marking the control the movement of the film stock picture area. through the mechanism. Single Perf - A film stock with perforations on RESULTS AND DISCUSSION only one side of the film stock, usually to allow an audio track to occupy the opposite The responses to the foregoing points of side outside the central picture area. contention, based on extensive examination of Double Perf - A film stock with perforations archived scans of all available copies of the on both sides of a film stock and thus no PGF, are hereafter provided, discussed, and allowance for an audio track. the contended issues conclusively resolved. Camera original - The actual film stock run through a camera and capturing some type 1. Has the film been edited? of filmed images. Printing Original - The film stock with image This question is one that goes to the heart of data on it supplied to be copied. This is not the issue of evidence integrity. Is what we see necessarily a camera original. It is whatever what actually occurred? On a camera original, film is supplied for copying. evidence of editing is obvious because the Copy Stock - the raw (unexposed) film to be physical cuts and reassembling of film copied onto. segments cannot be hidden from inspection. Copy - A duplicate of a printing original film. However, with Roger Patterson’s death in Contact Print - A 1:1 copy process where the January, 1972 (less than 5 years after the copy has the same number of image frames event), and the camera original at that time in and the same image size as the source film the possession of a film production company, (printing original). American National Enterprises (ANE) the PATTERSON-GIMLIN FILM INTEGRITY 43 family trauma of his passing took all attention segment or before the end). away from the question of reclaiming the 2. Cut the start point of the second segment camera original film. The ANE maintained of film (cut at the point in this segment the possession of the camera original. The editor chooses to begin, and not subsequent bankruptcy of ANE caused the necessarily the first frame of the segment). film to be inadvertently acquired by another 3. Join the two together by either adhesive party in a bankruptcy liquidation sale of the splicing tape or glue. assets of ANE. The new owner placed the film with a film storage service in Los Angeles, but The way the film is physically cut has several in 1980, researcher Rene Dahinden convinced options. The most common is a straight the film storage staff that he had rights to the horizontal cut between frames, so the cut does film and thus had authority to check it out for not appear in picture area (Fig. 1). further examination. There is no record of the A second type of cut is usually done in film film being returned, and so it is classified as labs, and it is a tab cut where the line is not missing, whereabouts unknown, at this time. straight but rather has a curved notch (the tab), However, before the original was lost, many which goes into the picture area of one of the copies were made and a systematic analysis of adjacent frames, This tends to be reserved for these varied copies and the processes used splicing leader or other film stock which allows us to determine the condition of the doesn’t have critical frame image data, or no original. image at all. Head leader, tail leader, and To understand how a question of splicing timing countdown footage may be spliced of the camera original can be analyzed from with this tab configuration, but rarely any copies, it is incumbent to first understand the usable image segments. splicing process. What is commonly referred A third type of cut is an overlap cut, so one to as “splicing” is physically joining two piece of film overlaps the previous piece, and separate pieces of film so they will run provides a surface for gluing the two pieces continuously through a projector or laboratory together, or hot splicing them. printer. “Editing” is the general practice of A fourth option is a diagonal cut, but this is making physical cuts in a film, to separate the uncommon for segments with pictures because desired footage from unwanted footage (called the cut goes through the picture of both “outtakes”), and then assembling the desired segments being joined and may show on footage in a chosen sequence, by a given projection and viewing. The diagonal cut is splicing technique. One may splice without actually intended to cut audio magnetic film or editing, as in the example of using 50‘ tape stock1 because a true horizontal cut tends magazine loads of film, and once they are to produce an audible “pop” at the edit, while processed, the lab may splice several such 50‘ a diagonal cut does not. (Appendix 1. cites segments together onto a larger reel so they multiple sources for this phenomenon). So a may be projected and viewed continuously, as 16mm film splicer device with a diagonal if being one longer segment. But editing does blade was likely made to cut 16mm magnetic require splicing to assemble the edited coated film stock used for an audio segments. soundtrack, not photographic imagery. In The common editing process is a rather examining archival film, the authors have simple mechanical process requiring the found examples of this diagonal cut used on following steps: 1.