Honestly, if you've ever fallen down the rabbit hole of 20th-century history, you’ve seen it. That grainy, jittery 8mm sequence. The pink suit. The chaotic scramble of Secret Service agents. It's the most scrutinized 26 seconds of film in human history. But here’s the thing: most people think the assassination footage of jfk starts and ends with Abraham Zapruder.
That isn't exactly the whole story.
While Zapruder’s film is the "holy grail" of Dealey Plaza, there were actually dozens of cameras clicking and whirring on November 22, 1963. Some were professional news crews; others were just dads with home movie cameras trying to catch a glimpse of a celebrity. What happened to all that footage—and why some of it basically vanished—is almost as weird as the event itself.
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The Man on the Concrete Pedestal
Abraham Zapruder didn't even want to bring his camera that day. He was a dressmaker, a guy who ran a clothing company called Jennifer Juniors. His secretary actually had to talk him into going home to grab his Bell & Howell Zoomatic.
He ended up standing on a four-foot-high concrete abutment. If he hadn't, the assassination footage of jfk we all know wouldn't exist. He had a steady hand, which is lucky for historians but was probably a curse for him. Zapruder was so traumatized by what he saw through the viewfinder that he had nightmares about "See the President's head explode!" signs in Times Square.
Because of those nightmares, he made a deal with Life magazine. He sold them the rights for $150,000—a massive sum in 1963—but he had one strict condition.
Frame 313. That specific frame, the one showing the fatal head shot, was to be kept from the public. He didn't want the world to gawk at the gore. For years, if you saw the film, it was usually in still frames in magazines, often with the most violent moments missing. It wasn't until 1975, when Geraldo Rivera aired it on Good Night America, that the average person saw the full, unedited motion picture.
Technical Quirks of the Zapruder Film
The camera Zapruder used was a top-of-the-line model for its time, but it wasn't perfect.
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- The Frame Rate: It was supposed to run at 16 frames per second. After the FBI tested it, they found it actually ran at 18.3 frames per second.
- The Overlap: Because it was a "double 8mm" camera, he had to flip the film halfway through. He’d already used half the roll on shots of his grandkids.
- The Lens: He had the zoom set to maximum telephoto. This is why the footage feels so intimate and terrifyingly close, despite him being about 65 feet away.
The "Other" Films You Haven't Seen (As Much)
While Zapruder had the best angle, he wasn't alone. Orville Nix was standing on the opposite side of the street. His footage is darker and lower quality—he used indoor film outside without a filter—but it shows the "Grassy Knoll" in the background.
For conspiracy theorists, the Nix film is the big one. It captures the back of the plaza from an angle Zapruder couldn't see. Then there's Mary Muchmore. She was standing near the intersection of Main and Houston. Her film is brief but captures the moment the first shots rang out.
What's crazy is the "Babushka Lady." In various photos and films, you can see a woman in a headscarf holding a camera right at the edge of the grass. She was closer to the limousine than almost anyone. After the shots, she just... walked away. No one ever found her, and her assassination footage of jfk has never surfaced. It’s one of the biggest "what-ifs" in forensic history.
The Missing Nix Original
In a strange twist of fate, the original Orville Nix film is actually missing. The family handed it over to United Press International (UPI) in the 60s. By the time they asked for it back in the 90s, UPI basically said, "We don't know where it is." All we have now are copies of copies.
Why We Are Still Talking About Frames and Splicing
The assassination footage of jfk has been the subject of more digital restoration than some Hollywood blockbusters. In the late 90s, a guy named Joseph Barabe did a frame-by-frame digital scan for the Zapruder family. He discovered things previous researchers missed, like "ghost images" between the sprocket holes.
Some people claim the film was forged or edited by the CIA at a place called "Hawkeyeworks" (a Kodak facility). They point to things like the "jump" in the car's movement or the way the background looks. However, most modern forensic experts, like Hany Farid, have used 3D lighting analysis to show the shadows and movements in the film match the physics of Dealey Plaza perfectly.
Basically, the film is real. It’s just messy because it was shot by a terrified man on a shaky pedestal using 1960s consumer tech.
The Legal Battle for 26 Seconds
Who owns the assassination footage of jfk? It's complicated.
- The Physical Film: After the 1992 JFK Act, the government decided the original Zapruder film was an "assassination record." They literally seized it via eminent domain.
- The Price Tag: The government had to pay the Zapruder heirs for it. The price? $16 million. 3. The Copyright: While the National Archives owns the physical strip of celluloid, the Zapruder family donated the copyright to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
So, if you want to use the footage in a movie, you talk to the museum. If you want to see the original film, you go to a high-security vault in College Park, Maryland.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the visual record of that day, don’t just watch the YouTube clips. They are often compressed and lose the detail needed to understand the timing of the shots.
Check out the National Archives JFK Collection online. They’ve digitized over 700,000 pages of documents and thousands of photos. Look for the "Commission Exhibit 885"—it’s the black-and-white frame-by-frame breakdown used by the original investigators.
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Also, if you're ever in Dallas, go to the Sixth Floor Museum. Standing in the spot where the cameras were rolling gives you a perspective on the distances that no lens can truly capture. You realize how small the "Kill Zone" actually was.
The assassination footage of jfk remains the ultimate Rorschach test for Americans. Some see a lone gunman; others see a coup d'état. But regardless of what you believe, the existence of that footage changed how we witness history. It was the birth of the "citizen journalist," 40 years before everyone had a smartphone in their pocket.
To really understand the event, you have to look past the Zapruder film and look at the "interstitial" evidence—the Nix film, the Muchmore film, and the thousands of still photos taken by bystanders like Phillip Willis and Ike Altgens. That's where the real forensic work happens.