Posted by
noxon medem
- Interesting jubilee, Roswell 1947, and fascinating material. Thanks for sharing.
- My focus for now have been on the video of the "ET body".
Speaking from a background as photographer over many years, also with experiences from
filming and developing analogue 8 and 16-mm film, like the original footage of this videoclip.
It is hard to conclude, and maybe no point, but I examined the video and made some notes.
The film consist of 6 different cuts of varying length ( jumps in time/space ), giving chance for the scenery
and the body to have been altered in between each of the 6 segments. ( some changes seem to been done )
Here are some boring technical facts:
The videoclip is
37 second 11 frames long ( QuickTime, ntsc-format ) and consist of 1122 frames. ( 30 frames is 1 second film )
The "ET" body can be seen at:
02:29 - 07:21 - Whole body from top, side. ( 30 frames lost to dust, white-out and blocked view )
camera holding still at distance. body seems covered with some sheet.
07:22 - 08:24 - Whole body from top, between two persons.
camera paning left, overexposed.
11:20 - 13:24 - Middle body below head, from side, between two persons.
camera moving left, overexposed. ( someone splashing paint on legs ?)
14:21 - 16:05 - Whole body from bottom. ( 21 frames lost to noise and white-out )
camera moving left, partly overexposed.
21:11 - 22:09 - Upper body from top side, "over shoulders"
camera tilting down, up, right. overexposed.
24:04 - 28:25 - Upper body below head from side, between persons.
camera moving down, right. overexposed.
28:26 - 35:12 - Lower body, mostly feet, from bottom, between persons.
camera moving up, left, right. partly underexposed.
Summed up from a total of:
37 second, 11 frames total length of video
19 second, 09 frames show the "ET body", with different angles, distance and framing.
The visual side of this videoclip is poorly made or badly damaged, and suffer loss of information from overexposure and contrast.
Views of the head / face :
06:03 - 07:21 ( from distant, looks covered with sheet, overexposed )
08:06 - 09:00 ( from top side, partly covered, overexposed )
14:03 - 15:22 ( from bottom, head looks covered by mask or textile.)
20:26 - 22:00 ( from top side, close to body, heavily overexposed )
This last footage of the head has good view and framing, but any detailed
information on features of the "ET" face is whiped out by the overexposure.
From the total of
37 second, 11 frames of video, only
04 second, 25 frames show the head / face from different position and distances.
The camera is allmost constantly moving around, showing more interest in the surrounding spectators than the ET on the ground.
The cameraman is deliberately keeping away from the head, seen clear in the cameramovement on multiple occations.
Why he does that is speculation. Two explanations spring to mind:
- He was told to film the head as little as possible, or did it as a "military reflex".
- He knew it was a dummy (doll) and by his cameraman-instincts avoided both
the head, and giving too much still and clear views of the "body"
The visual quality of the material is so poor that its either a result of imcompetence, large multiple technical disasters,
or deliberate action. It could well be the last.
How they manage to make such bad quality on so important material is puzzling.