[candycab]

Originally Posted by wmbondurant ↗

Why are we not having this conversation about
Buddy Dwyer video ?

Christine Chubbock no grave site , ashes scattered at sea .

"The legend of Christine Chubbock "

I actually saw the Bud Dwyer suicide live on C-SPAN.It was completely on accident while surfing through the whopping 12 cable channels that were available in my area back then.

[Danny H]

I am 95% sure video in original post is authentic. Compelling evidence here...

[Broadjumper]

Originally Posted by Mintberry Crunch ↗

Imagine being the person watching this on tv in san Fransisco in the 70s. Must have fucked up a few peoples trip.

That would have been a neat trick considering that this was a local morning news show out of Sarasota Florida..

[Jeff4221]

Originally Posted by dan-b ↗

Look at the way the lighting falls between the reading rests on the top picture (which we know to truly represent the actual studio) and the suicide footage still. To recreate that so precisely would be very difficult unless reusing the actual studio setup.

Attachment 719164

Attachment 719165

If this is faked, they went through great pains to replicate the original set. The 'S' in 'NEWSWATCH', for example, is slightly lower in both the known picture and in the video. I'm still bothered by the 'H', though.
What would help is if anyone knew the position of her body after she was shot. It's hard to tell but in the video she appears to turn clockwise as she falls, the back of her head hitting the desk. If the known position of her body after the shooting could not have happened based on the video, then we have a fake. But then again, why would anyone go through the trouble of.... Okay, it's time for bed.

[dan-b]

Originally Posted by Danny H ↗

I am 95% sure video in original post is authentic. Compelling evidence here...

Great video. And it looks like one of my posts was paraphrased in the conclusions.

[Ravensnevermore]

It's fake- they already found out someone recreated it.

[KillingJoke]

Thoughts on real or fake:

My credentials: I am a broadcast engineer,McMaster controller operator, and filmmaker, and one of my specialties is degrading footage.

Someone with my knowledge and skill set could have easily created this video. But why? Quite a lot of time/money to match the set. ???

Here are some reasons for/against the authenticity of the video:

FOR:

*The set looks identical to the actual newsset of the time.

*the video degradation is similar to what one might expect from an old ¾" Umatic, or a slow-speed "Aircheck" tape. In particular the noise band at the bottom is common with slow-speed aircheck tapes used in the 80s (but were such devices used in the mid 70s by small stations??)

*the immediate fall seems a credible reaction. We've all seen other examples where the shot/fall are very immediate.

* even though Gordon Galraith says the camera was in much closer, it's important to remember that human memory of traumatic events (and events in general) is often mistaken in such cases. The wide shout could easily be remembered as close in.


AGAINST:

* Gordon Galbraith Says that the camera was zoomed in to a full shot, not a wide shot. (However see above—human memory of traumatic incidents does shift).

* The date/time stamp at the top of the screen appears authentic. However, it does not continue over the "technical difficulties" slate at the end. Such date/time stamps are applied just before the "aircheck recorder", so it would be on ALL Video, not just the news portion.

* I question if the small UHF news station would have a date/time stamp chyron in 1974, when such a device at that time would have been pricey if even available at all. Remember that in 1974 computer technology was very primitive. Most news graphics were done using physical letters shot by a camera.

The "chyron" was in its infancy in the 1970s, and cost prohibitive except for the very biggest stations.

* An apparent edit before the gunshot. In the video it goes to black before she shoots herself. This could be a join of a take where she did a good performance on the dialog, to a different take of her falling. HOWEVER, as above, this may simply be tape damage from people rewinding the tape to this point to view the shooting.

*While the video degradation is similar to that one would experience with ¾" Umatic, there is some lack of dihedral error and instead some bending/skew that seems non-credible and added for "effect", and a lack of a real head switching error.

*if the tape was actually a slow-speed aircheck and not regular ¾", that could account for some of the discrepancies in the degradation of the video. But I haven't found credible sources for such a device that would be used by a small UHF station circa 1974.



MY THOUGHTS:

A generally well made but nevertheless fake reenactment.

The inconsistencies of the date/time stamp and certain non-credible aspects of the video degrading lead me to this conclusion.

[KillingJoke]

one thing I forgot to mention that is AGAINST this being real:

The time stamp says "ABC" and not the CALL LETTERS of the station. If that were a true time stamp for the station's aircheck, it would have the station call letters WXLT, not the network ABC. This was not a network program, but a local one.

And looking again, the severe bending/skew just before the shot looks very digital, and shouldn't be present as it appears. If it was really digitized this way, the right side of the image and the subcarrier column would be visible.

[KillingJoke]

Originally Posted by Danny H ↗

I am 95% sure video in original post is authentic. Compelling evidence here...

Assessment on the time stamp (what you're calling the ticker) is incorrect.

Studio cameras do NOT put that on, or it would broadcast to everyone. That is never done.

Aircheck time stamps, when used, are only applied after the main broadcast output, just before the aircheck records.


HAVING SAID THAT, if there were a dedicated aircheck just for the news, then the "technical difficulties" slate would never have been recorded.


THIS ONE MISTAKE is the biggest one the creators of this hoax made. It destroys any credibility in the recording.

[KillingJoke]

Also, the claim Danny h made about videos as early as the 1969s having "tickers" (sic) is also in error.

The example he shows is of an old news report, but with a MODERN timecode burn displayed.

(The correct term for what was shown as an example is "timecode burn" not "ticker".)

Timecode burn is used commonly on the "offline archive" versions of videos to help in selecting segments and to prevent unauthorized use. It lives this way in many stock libraries.


AS TO the claim that it would be "hard" to replicate the time stamp, this too is false. It is TRIVIAL, and can be done in any modern editing app like Final Cut or Premiere. The fact that it changes only every ten seconds makes it EVEN EASIER.

If the people that made this hoax sent be the raw camera original footage, I could make a credible degraded version in under an hour or two.