For what it's worth, I was also there, in the large session as well as the small session, and I was one chair closer to the screen than John Cartwright (who's a very nice person, by the way).
I only want to discuss the images themselves and what I SAW. I'm a visually-oriented person and a photographer, so I paid close attention to the details of what I observed. I also work in a visual field, and visual material is not something effectively communicated verbally. Visual material can only be absorbed visually, and one must see these images for themselves.
The images from the Noll catalog, and the transparencies were amazingly clear. Remember that with every generation of copying, film loses details and gains contrast. The transparencies were first generation and were made by Roger himself, and provided to MK by Mrs. Patterson. The Noll images were early generation copies made by microscope, but I didn't catch what generation. With one exception (which I'll mention later), the versions of the film we are used to seeing on the Web are several generations removed.
Also, we must remember that the film moves at 18 frames/sec. The BF community has focused its attention on only a select few frames. What MK did was look at sequences of frames and the information revealed by motion that happens too quickly to be seen at normal speed. Most of what he showed us was either slo-mo, or frame by frame.
In the Noll images, you can clearly see the vertabrae of her back, the muscles move beneath her skin/hair and her glutes move as she walked. And after removing the reflective values representing her hair, MK revealed nipples on her breasts. This was no suit.
It is in Roger's original transparencies that Patty's skin is lighter, but her face was still darker than the rest of her. It was in Roger's original transparency that her mouth was open and you could see her teeth. It was in Roger's original transparency that she had NO fingers in the classic view of her looking back at the camera - her hands were more fisted. In the comparison of that image to the later versions of the film, MK did a simple enhancement that exposed the masking done around Patty. As a photographer, I'm familiar with masking and recognized it immediately ... it was at this stage that her skin was darkened and her fingers added. He also compared her face at this stage with Roger's original transparency. Her mouth had been closed, lowered and widened. (And yes, this kind of airbrushing was commonplace as it used to be the only way to adjust images. I still had film airburshed before printing images as late as the mid-90s when graphic software finally started getting good enough for such editing.) MK had no idea who had done this, but an audience member spoke up with the name of the person who did that work, supposedly in preparation for printing/selling individual photos from the film. But the bottom line is that SOMEONE edited Patty. One can speculate about the reason, but we have no way of knowing for sure. But the proof of the editing is in the images themselves.
I saw the ponytail clearly once MK pointed it out. It moved like a ponytail and did appear to be secured in two places. The braid was revealed when he increased contrast on a zoom-in on it, and a herringbone pattern emerged. I've messed with pictures for years and I've never seen a pattern like this emerge in only one spot in a picture, and certainly not in conjunction with where such a pattern would make sense. The braid was at the end of a lock of hair that swung out from her head as she turned it, visible only in slo-mo, which is what caught MK's eye, as he told it. Because it was so thin at the end, it looked weird so that's why he took a closer look. The braid appears even in the blurriest versions of the film as blurry line hanging down across her right cheek in the view of her looking back at the camera. Her saggital crest is only hair. A saggital crest wouldn't move as hers does in slo-mo (MK referred to this as her head changing shape). But I admit I wasn't totally convinced of this until the later, smaller session (mentioned below) because of the visual interference of dark background objects as she passed in front of them. This can account for the optical illusion of movement or a change in shape.
I saw the red stuff on her heel and the large spots of it on the ground from where she had just lifted that foot. This was RED, redder than what was in the pool. Maybe she stepped in some red paint - is that any less absurd than blood? All I know is that it was RED, it was on the ground and on her heel and after the next step, it seemed to have been wiped off her heel or covered up by dirt that might have stuck to it.
I saw when she went down. I have since spoken with a couple of folks who had previously noticed on their own that she went down and wondered why no one else ever said anything about it. But she does go down and her butt is up on the air, just as she disappears behind some logs and stuff. She gets back up quickly. I did not see, but spoke to some who have, the spot at the beginning where she seems to stumble over her own feet, and drag one foot, creating a small trench. MK's presentation was interrupted before he could show us this, but I did see the trench in a later frame, just not when she made it.
As for the hernia, looking frame by frame, a flap of skin is seen rising up and completely separating from her leg, than flopping back down. Then the hole and concentric circle appears. MK did not call it a bullet wound ... an audience member first said it. In the private session, I asked why she didn't react and MK showed us a sequence where she did come down on that leg differently in the very next step. And I also realized that in relation to her size, it may have felt more like a BB shot to her, but that's my speculation. There was no blood on her leg, and MK never said there was blood on her leg, so I don't know where people have gotten this. But the classic view of the hernia with which we are familiar is simply the middle frame where the skin flap is halfway up. Now, people have said that these images can be interpreted differently, but I've not heard of another explanation. The hunters I spoke with at the conference seemed convinced that it was a bullet wound. So, who knows ...
Another interesting sequence that suggested a second shot was shown to us in the smaller session. Something causes her topknot to suddenly blow upward and forward. The pony tail jerks upward in reaction. The wind was supposed to be less than 10 mph that day, and a breeze like that isn't going to blow your hair up like that - this was too quick and violent of a motion. Roger jerks the camera in the next frame, perhaps in reaction to a noise? So, was there another shot that narrowly missed her head? It looked like a reasonable explanation to me, but it's only speculation. But this sequence eliminated any doubt I had about her saggital crest being only hair. I can't point you to when this happened. Her back was more to the camera and I think it was later in the film, but I don't know for sure. And of course, unless you can advance it frame by frame, it happened too quickly to see at normal speed. I believe it was only four or five frames long.
As for the pool, it appeared to have a square corner, but it's seen from a slight angle so one can't be sure. There were dirt berms on two sides of it. Roger shot a sequence of Patty over the top of the berm on the far side of the pool, and does appear to be standing in the pool as he does so. There are straight, consistenly-spaced vertical marks along the far edge of the pool that look like the teeth of a back-hoe. The pattern was ... wide space - thin vertical line - short space - thin vertical line - wide space ... repeated across the length of the pool several times. There are no heavy machinery tracks in the frame, nor did MK say there were, so I don't know where this came from. He only said that he got it confirmed that logging activity was taking place there so heavy equipment could have been on site. There is no way to judge the size of the pool in this pic, and the berms don't look very tall. But assuming that Roger was average height, the berm he shot over blocked a lot of his view of Patty, so it must have been pretty tall compared to where he was standing ... MK speculated that he was standing in the pool based on a frame by frame examination. But for all we know, he could have recovered his balance on his knees and shot from there after falling. But my point is ... there WERE dirt berms on two sides of this pool, but you can't tell how large anything is. Some people at the larger session couldn't see the right-hand berm but there were rocks on the right-hand side of it that had shadows clearly indicating the slope. Oh, and you cannot tell how deep the pool is.
The pool had whitish things in it that were lighter in color than the dirt and rocks around it. And there was a dark object in the pool. You could see where the red fluid had been splashed up onto the dirt and rocks on the far side of the pool and left a stain or residue. The red color was a tad more brownish -- not as red as the red on Patty's heel and those spots on the ground. Maybe a slightly rust color would describe it better, but the contrast between it and the light-colored soil around it was drastic. The pool exits the edge of the frame at the bottom and lower left, so you only see the far side and the right-hand side. And yes, this is only one frame in the sequence where he falls down, but it's a clear frame. Patty is only visible from the knees down at the top edge of the frame, a bit right of center. (MK said he found this frame after he grew curious about a flash of red that appears in the sequence where Roger falls down.)
There was another sequence showing a light-colored, stick-like object in Patty's left hand. She seems to shake her hand when dropping it at some point, and it can be seen falling behind her left leg. No clue what that is. But it sort of looks like it has a straight end and a curved end. I believe I recall that Patty looked down at her hand when she dropped it, but my memory is fuzzy on that because it wasn't as interesting to me as the other stuff.
Now, I HAVE SEEN a version of the film, within the last year, somewhere on the Web, where I could see Patty open her mouth and show her teeth. I only really got into BF online about a year or so ago, and I saw it at that time. In subsequent viewings of the film, I was puzzled because her mouth was closed. And I found her image itself to be flat in appearance (because of the skin darkening). I have no idea where I saw that other version, but I do believe that SOMEONE out there has an original copy of it and it's floating around somewhere. When I saw the original transparencies at the Ohio conference, I was blown away because I had seen Patty that way before.
THIS IS WHAT I SAW. If anyone wants to ask questions about what I SAW, fine. I understand the negative reaction to the speculation of the day's events, and we may never know what really took place. But I'm only going to discuss what I SAW in the images themselves. And to me, the images are the only important factor because speculation is only that.
I do think it would be interesting to have someone from outside the BF community, and with appropriate film forensic skills, to examine/compare the images for an independent determination.
No comments:
Post a Comment