Interview With JFK Assassination Witness Mary Lea Williams In Dealey Plaza

[Tom Graves]

The Zapruder film is the only film capturing the JFK limo from the north side of Elm Street. No other film comes close to having the perspective of the Zapruder film. It's pointless listing all these other assassination films with respect to the JFK limo's turning onto Elm Street.

Dear Royell,

News flash:

Zapruder didn't film the limo as it was turning onto Elm Street.

He didn't resume filming -- after a 17-second pause -- until a few seconds after it had completed its turn.

-- Tom

[Robin Unger]

The Zapruder camera used a "Double 8mm" film format:

The film spools would be loaded and the camera would film on one side for 25ft

Then the spools had to be swaped over and the camera would film on the other side for 25ft.

When processed the film would be split and the two 8mm strips would be spliced together.

[John Mytton]

This is such a silly argument and I don't know why it needs explaining.
Zapruder had about two minutes of film to play with and obviously the main event that he wanted to capture was JFK's Limo driving past him because at the time who knows what he may have filmed, the Limo may have stopped and JFK could have shaken hands with the crowd who knows? So when Zapruder saw the motorbikes turning into Elm he started filming but when there was no Limo, he instinctively stopped filming to conserve the limited precious film, then when he was certain that the Limo was in sight, Zapruder started filming again. The critics must think that Zapruder had unlimited film but the reality is that Zapruder was well aware of his limited resources and wanted every frame to count!!

JohnM

[Robin Unger]

This is such a silly argument and I don't know why it needs explaining.
Zapruder had about two minutes of film to play with and obviously the main event that he wanted to capture was JFK's Limo driving past him because at the time who knows what he may have filmed, the Limo may have stopped and JFK could have shaken hands with the crowd who knows? So when Zapruder saw the motorbikes turning into Elm he started filming but when there was no Limo, he instinctively stopped filming to conserve the limited precious film, then when he was certain that the Limo was in sight, Zapruder started filming again. The critics must think that Zapruder had unlimited film but the reality is that Zapruder was well aware of his limited resources and wanted every frame to count!!

JohnM

Exactly John.

He had approx 50ft of film (2x25ft) and was trying to preserve it for when the limo arrived.