Library of Congress digitized assassination films?

[Jake Maxwell]

Just wondering if anyone knows how to access the Library of Congress digitized assassination films?
I recall some source saying they scanned four of the films...
Any knowledge of how to access?

[Jerry Organ]

The Library of Congress has no digitized assassination films. For "JFK The Lost Bullet", the Library loaned its 35 mm copy of the Zapruder film to a Washington DC company who made a direct frame-for-frame copy (no interpolation frames). I suppose the Library didn't want its copy to leave the DC area. Max Holland took the new copy to Image Trends in Austin, Texas where it was transferred into digital form. The company also did the same to other assassination films using copies from sources other than the Library of Congress.

Image Trends examined each digital frame, removing blemishes and so forth. They made sequences of the various films for the "Lost Bullet" program. This is where the interpolation frames were introduced; the original home-movie films ran roughly at 16 or 18 frames-per-second, while modern TV runs at more frames-per-second. For those slow-motion tightly-cropped sequences that wowed viewers, the interpolation frames generated new interpolation frames, causing pixels in some places to be fluid, and scenes to be morphed.

[Jake Maxwell]

     This is not at all what the documentary claims about the films... which show better copy than any other I’ve seen.
     Here is the exact wordage in quotes from the documentary explaining how the films were scanned... and yes, by the Library of Congress...

     The narrator in The Lost Bullet documentary says (17:17) –
“Before the films of the Grassy Knoll can be closely examined, they, along with three other home movies from Dealey Plaza, will undergo cutting edge digital scanning at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation.” (also called The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center)

     Ken Weissman, with the Library of Congress, says in The Lost Bullet documentary that they purchased a device specifically to scan 8mm films (17:32)… and “in the case of the scanning process, the resolution of the scan is actually higher than the native resolution of the film itself.”

     The narrator then says (17:52):
“The high-resolution digital scans reveal more than projected images ever would – including the tiny areas of exposed film between the sprocket holes that held the film in place…
If there are hidden secrets in these films, this process could uncover them for the first time.”

     Once the films go through this digital scanning process, Max Holland then examines them.

     Perhaps there are some frames and footage from other sources... like Image Trends... but if the documentary is correct, the Library of Congress has scanned and digitized several assassination films.

[Jake Maxwell]

Anyone know how to access the Library of Congress digitized copies of the assassination films?

[Jerry Organ]

Anyone know how to access the Library of Congress digitized copies of the assassination films?

I guess the films were all scanned in a HD digital format in the Washington DC area. It would seem National Geographic or the show's producers obtained licensing rights for the films from the copyright holders, most likely the Sixth Floor Museum. The non-Zapruder home movies were scanned at the Library of Congress, while the Zapruder film was scanned by Henninger Media Services using the 35mm print from the National Archives. I assume the non-Zapruder home movies are stored at the National Archives.

Holland took the raw-scan un-enhanced licensed digital copies to Image Trends in Austin, Texas. There the film received "restoration and defect correction".

The Library of Congress, which administers the Copyright Office, is probably not going to make available without a license anything from the digitized "master" films they created. The LoC Moving Image Research Center"s "Obtaining Copies of Moving Image Materials" ( Link ) and "Guidelines for Viewing Films, Videos and Digital Files" ( Link ). There may come a day when the LoC places the digitized prints of the assassination film on its website; the Sixth Floor Museum has medium-quality copies for viewing on-line.

If the LoC scanned the films to the 1080-dpi HD standard, then you basically get to see what they have in the "JFK The Lost Bullet" program but with brighter colors, removal of certain defects and the addition of interpolated frames. One word of caution: some of the closeup slow-motion scenes may have a morphing dissolve that shows artifacts not seen in the original film.

[Jake Maxwell]

Just to be clear... According to this documentary, there are assassination films that have been scanned and digitized by the Library of Congress... and not in the DC area... but in Culpepper, Virginia... at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation.

These scanned high-resolution digitized images appear to be at a much higher quality than most any other rendition... and as the documentary says, “The high-resolution digital scans reveal more than projected images ever would.”
Each viewer will have to decide... but after years of close examination of the films, that is my opinion as well...

It does seem like one of the slo-mo techniques produces an odd rendering - especially in one of the Towner sequences...

However, I do think there is another caution for all to consider,... and this is more or less challenging... for some more than others, I think...

It is possible to see something in these “high-resolution digital scans” that reveal more than the original projected images have shown us before...
If what we see doesn’t fit with a pre-conceived theory, we might be tempted to simply dismiss the image as a morph or an artifact...

Also, it is possible that some “artifacts” are not actually artifacts... but purposeful distortions and additions to the film... to cover-up features the original film captures, perhaps... or to confuse the viewer...

The Lost Bullet likely shows the best view of these films that we have access to at the present...

I would like to see what the Library of Congress has scanned and archived...
Actually, making digital images available to the public would not diminish the quality of the digital images that remain archived...

Seeing these scans might not be possible for various reasons...
But if anyone has information on how to access them, I would appreciate the information...

I don’t know about the Henninger Media Services you mention in regards to the Zapruder Film that is digitized and shown in The Lost Bullet... But if that is the source of this digitized film, I would like information on how to access that as well, if possible...

Thanks... 

(And thanks for the link... I will see what is possible through that route...