Bigfoot - The Patterson-Gimlin Film

[Óðinn]

Shouldn't I do it at 100 feet so that it matches up with the distance in the P/G footage? If you don't mind my asking, how are you calculating this? I'm kind of confused as to why an illusion that supposedly only works from close range now is said to not work at 150 feet away. Surely if it only worked at short distances, it'd stop working at less than 100 feet, right?

In frames 61-72, Patty is at least 30% farther away from the camera (image is 30% smaller) than in frame 352. If we assume that Patty is 120 feet from the camera in frame 352 (which you could dispute), that puts her at 150+ feet for frame 61. Image size is inversely proportional to the distance from the camera.

The illusion doesn't actually stop working at any distance. But the farther away you get from two objects the less they appear to move relative to one another when you change your POV. Parallax increases with the distance between 2 objects from the observer. Since the distance between the head and body in your illusion is small, you need to be pretty close for the parallax to be noticeable.

 

[Óðinn]

If the beast is angling away from the camera, The angle to the beast must change. Which would account for the different view of the finger. Also, I believe a shadow cut's off the tip of the finger which adds to the illusion of fingerbending.

1 step difference, 150+ feet from the camera. This change of angle would be pretty small, wouldn't it?

 

[LTC8K6]

I see the shoulder angle change. I also see a baggy suit leg where Patty's right calf should be. The calf is out to the side, imo. Like a baggy suit leg.

 

[Drewbot]

in one of the frames You can also see orange background through the hand, which may be adding to the illusion of movement

 

[LTC8K6]

The 2 frame animation has convinced me that I am looking at a suit.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

1 step difference, 150+ feet from the camera. This change of angle would be pretty small, wouldn't it?

And ?

Plug in 42 inches and see what you get ...

Whatever the change is, the effect can be clearly seen ..

The cumulative effect of angle, motion and shadow movement creates the perception of finger bending.. ( unbending in this case )

But again, what does it matter?



On what side of the issue ( real or hoax ) does finger bending fall onto ?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

In frames 61-72, Patty is at least 30% farther away from the camera (image is 30% smaller) than in frame 352. If we assume that Patty is 120 feet from the camera in frame 352 (which you could dispute), that puts her at 150+ feet for frame 61. Image size is inversely proportional to the distance from the camera.

Where are you getting these numbers ? It is my understanding Patterson was closest at the beginning.

Most of the images we are seeing are zoomed in crops from the LMS DVD ..

Here are a couple of scaled full frames ..

-

 

[LTC8K6]

In frames 61-72, Patty is at least 30% farther away from the camera (image is 30% smaller) than in frame 352.

Yeah, how can that be?

 

[mangler]

As far as the subjects distance relative to the camera, lets not forget that the stills we are looking at came from a clip that has been through an optical printer at least once, if not twice, they are not from the master per se. Óðinn, you seem to have a good understanding of photography and optics so I’m fairly certain that you understand what an optical printer is capable of.

Titmus would have paced off distance over terrain (IMO), ballpark at best (the value of any Titmus statement (IMO) decreases as I learn more about him). I believe Green would have been the first with a tape when he arrived on scene with McClarin nine months later. I’m not sure when McClarin first arrived on scene but if memory serves me right the pathway/trackway that he showed Green would have been from memory.

It’s my opinion that any judgment in regards to distance, based on anything other than the master has a foundation built on unstable ground.


m

 

[Óðinn]

The change in angle would be just over 1 degree, which is miniscule. I'm not trying to promote the finger bend, but if this is an illusion then it comes from a change in the orientation of the arm & wrist, not the change in the POV between these frames. If a statue was moved 42", you wouldn't notice any difference between the images. It's Patty's motion that is reorienting her body relative to the camera. For me, there's enough apparent bend between these frames to doubt the illusion hypothesis. I don't see how a slight change in hand position could do this. But then, so what, the fingers bend. Hand extensions. I'm moving on to the elbow to see if it matches the actor's arms inside the suit, given hand extensions.

 

[Óðinn]

Yeah, how can that be?

Even though the LMS version of the PG film appears to be cropped, it has the same scale for all frames. So we can compare the image sizes to get a relative distance from the camera. Smaller the image, the farther away from the camera. Here's a few frames.

 

[LTC8K6]

I made a distance error early on and looked rather foolish. I did not realize I had mixed up enlarged and normal frames and I made a point that ended up looking silly. Bigfoot was closer because bigfoot had been enlarged, not because Patterson had gotten closer.

I'd be careful relying on the apparent size of Patty to determine RP's distance from her.

 

[Apology]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_19705472b4706e23e1.jpg[/qimg]

You scalped a Bigfoot! You evil, evil man....Why didn't you let us study it first?!?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Even though the LMS version of the PG film appears to be cropped, it has the same scale for all frames. So we can compare the image sizes to get a relative distance from the camera. Smaller the image, the farther away from the camera. Here's a few frames.

View attachment 9038

Who says it has the same scale for all frames?

352 is obviously cropped more than 72 ( in LMS )

It appears the makers of LMS tried to scale the size of the subject between the beginning and the ' turn and look ' ..

-

P.S

I now see that the full frame 72 I used is cropped.. I'm pretty sure I have more of that frame somewhere ..


Again, I believe we have been told the creature was closer to the camera at the beginning ..

 

[LTC8K6]

It's very confusing. The different versions of the film have frames cropped and enlarged and enhanced in different ways and in different amounts.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1363&d=1141926689

I thought that was a full frame when I was studying it. You can see the whole frame, right?

It's not, of course. It's just a frame from a version that was enlarged and adjusted when they made a film to film copy.

For whatever reason, they only left Patty's legs in...

The actual full frame shows the full Patty and much more around her.

 

[Óðinn]

Who says it has the same scale for all frames?

352 is obviously cropped more than 72 ( in LMS )

It appears the makers of LMS tried to scale the size of the subject between the beginning and the ' turn and look ' ..

[qimg]http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Bigfoot/72scale.bmp[/qimg]-[qimg]http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Bigfoot/352scale.bmp[/qimg]

[qimg]http://www.gatzstuff.com/images/Bigfoot/cropped.gif[/qimg]



P.S

I now see that the full frame 72 I used is cropped.. I'm pretty sure I have more of that frame somewhere ..


Again, I believe we have been told the creature was closer to the camera at the beginning ..

The optical printer that Mangler mentioned was used to make copies from the original reel (and copies of the copies). In the case of Green's copy, it appears the printer was set to crop the frames to half size. Optical printers can rescale images but not usually for individual frames.

The camera distances I gave were just ballpark. The image size can be used to determine the distance to the camera quite accurately if the actual size of the object is known.

It seems when RP first encountered Patty she was quite close. By the time he got his camera out she must have moved over one hundred feet. I think RP would have needed about 15 secs to start filming if Patty retreated at 5mph. How does this match up with the timeline?

 

[LTC8K6]

There are too many different versions of the beginning of the encounter told by RP and BG to say anything for sure.

In one version, Patterson's horse fell on him, and flattened a stirrup, trapping and injuring his foot, for example. In another version, Patterson didn't get trapped under his horse at all.

In this version, Patty apparently waits for Roger to start filming her...

"About 1:30 in the afternoon, as we rounded a bend in the road, we saw the creature. My horse reared, and then fell as I tried to control it. But I got the camera out and yelled to Bob to cover me with his rifle while I tried for pictures. The thing was across the creek beside the road, about 50 yards away. I ran down to the creek and got on a high sandbar to film it. It was obviously a female, for although it was covered with hair you could see it had large breasts. It stood about six feet tall, maybe more, and was very broad. We figured the weight at somewhere between 350 and 400 pounds. She stood there for maybe half a minute and then started walking away, still upright. She crossed the creek, got back on the logging road up ahead and moved out of sight."

 

[LTC8K6]

In this version, Patty is on Roger's left when he encounters her.

They scouted the area on horseback for a week and a half. Early in the afternoon of October 20, they came to a bend in the creek where a gigantic stump, overturned by a flood, obscured the view ahead. Patterson's horse stopped and snorted, then reared and fell on its side. Moments later, Patterson saw what had startled his mount. "This creature was on my left, about ~ 95 feet across the creek," he recalls. "Its head was very human, though considerably more slanted, and with a large forehead and wide nostrils. Its arms hung almost to its knees when it walked. Its hair was two to four inches long, brown underneath, lighter at the top, and covering the entire body except for the face. And it was a female; it had big, pendulous breasts."

Patterson reached into his saddlebag and grabbed his movie camera. The creature, meanwhile, was walking across a sandbar toward the hillside. Patterson began trotting after it, shooting pictures. At one point, the creature turned and stared curiously at the camera. Then it went into the woods and out of sight. Gimlin began to give chase, but Patterson, who had used up all his film, told him to stop. "I didn't want to be there alone, without a weapon," he says.

 

[LTC8K6]

In this version, Bob actually gets in front of Roger and closer to Patty when she has her back to them.

W: How close did you come, at the closest?

R: Well, I think we were closer when we first seen it than at any other time, don't you, Bob?

B: No, I disagree with you there, I believe just immediately after we got across the creek we were probably closer to her at that time than we were when we first sighted her, because she had her back to us at that time and . or at least I was closer, because I ran a little further up on the horse, I was moving pretty fast and I got him finally across the creek, so I believe at that time when I crossed the creek I was the closest I ever was to her and I believe it was about ninety feet at that time.