Glossary

• Camera-original
• Kodachrome II
• Bell & Howell Zoomatic
• Intersprocket imagery
• ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board)
• HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations)
• Warren Commission
• Single bullet theory
• Stemmons Freeway sign
• Frame 313
• Dal-Tex Building
• Grassy knoll
• NPIC (National Photographic Interpretation Center)
• JFK Records Act
• Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
• NARA (National Archives and Records Administration)
• Life magazine transparencies
• MPI Home Video release (1998)
• Muchmore film
• Nix film
• Zavada Report (1998)
• Z-frame numbering

The physical strip of 8mm Kodachrome II film that ran through Abraham Zapruder's Bell & Howell Zoomatic on November 22, 1963. Because Kodachrome is a reversal stock, the camera-original is a positive image — there is no negative, and it is the only first-generation copy of the film in existence. Held today at the U.S. National Archives.

The daylight-balanced 8mm color reversal film stock Zapruder had loaded that day (Type A, ASA 40 with the 85 filter). Introduced in 1961, Kodachrome II required Kodak's proprietary K-12 process; the film was developed at the Kodak Kodachrome Processing Laboratory on Manton Drive in Dallas on the afternoon of the assassination — see chain of custody.

Bell & Howell's Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 PD, a spring-driven 8mm home movie camera with a Varamat 9–27mm f/1.8 zoom lens. Zapruder's specific unit, serial number AS13486, was measured by the FBI in 1964 and by Kodak's Roland Zavada in 1998 at 18.3 frames per second at its top speed — the value used to time every frame of the assassination sequence. See provenance.

The image area exposed between and around the sprocket holes of an 8mm film strip. On Zapruder's camera, this narrow strip carries continuous imagery of Elm Street outside the main frame. Its unbroken pattern across all 486 frames is one of the technical fingerprints used by the ARRB's Roland Zavada to conclude the camera-original had not been re-created optically — a central argument on the Was the film altered? page.

The independent federal agency created by the JFK Records Act of 1992 to identify, secure, and release records related to the assassination. Between 1994 and 1998 it seized the Zapruder camera-original into public ownership, commissioned Kodak's Roland Zavada to review the film's authenticity, and issued its Final Report in September 1998 — detailed in investigations.

The U.S. House committee that re-investigated the Kennedy and King assassinations from 1976 to 1979. Its Photographic Evidence Panel — chaired by Robert Selzer of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — conducted the first systematic technical examination of the Zapruder film and concluded the camera-original showed no evidence of alteration. See investigations.

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which reported in September 1964. It heard Abraham Zapruder's testimony on July 22, 1964, and adopted Life magazine's frame-by-frame numbering of the film that is still in universal use — background on investigations.

The Warren Commission's finding that a single bullet passed through President Kennedy's neck and inflicted all of Governor Connally's non-fatal wounds. The theory is anchored to the Zapruder film's timing between roughly frames 210 and 225, when both men are behind the Stemmons Freeway sign and their reactions cannot be directly observed — the timing evidence is discussed in analyses and the shot itself in frame-by-frame.

A steel highway sign on the north side of Elm Street that briefly obscured the presidential limousine from Zapruder's view between roughly frames 205 and 225. Kennedy is not visible during those frames, which is why his exact moment of reaction to the first hit is inferred rather than seen. The sign was removed by Texas highway crews within days of the assassination — see frame-by-frame.

The single frame of the Zapruder film, at approximately 18.3 frames per second placing it 17.1 seconds into the exposed sequence, that captures the fatal head shot. Life magazine withheld it from its initial November 1963 issue; it was first published in Life on October 2, 1964, and has since become the most studied still image in American photojournalism. Full page: frame 313.

The office building at 501 Elm Street on Dealey Plaza that housed Zapruder's dress-manufacturing firm, Jennifer Juniors, Inc., on the fourth floor. It stands directly across Houston Street from the Texas School Book Depository and was itself a subject of witness and photographic evidence in later investigations — background on provenance.

The sloped landscaped area on the north side of Elm Street west of the Texas School Book Depository, behind and to the right of Zapruder's own filming position. It is the location most often cited by proponents of a second-shooter hypothesis and is directly opposite the presidential limousine at frame 313 — geometry on original location.

A CIA facility in the Washington Navy Yard specializing in analysis of aerial and satellite imagery. Two Zapruder-film briefing boards were prepared there on the weekend of November 23–24, 1963, from a Life magazine print. Doug Horne's 2009 alteration hypothesis places the alleged re-creation of the camera-original at NPIC that same weekend; the ARRB's technical staff dispute the claim — see Was the film altered?

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which established the ARRB and gave the U.S. government authority to designate assassination records — including the Zapruder camera-original — as public property. The 1998 seizure of the film was carried out under this statute; a federal arbitration panel valued the taking at $16 million in 1999 — details on ownership.

The museum on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. The Zapruder family transferred the copyright to the film's images to the museum in 2000 as a gift; the museum now licenses reproduction of the film and holds the Zapruder family collection of prints, transparencies, and correspondence — see ownership.

The U.S. federal agency that has held physical custody of the Zapruder camera-original since the 1998 ARRB seizure. The film is stored in cold vault conditions at NARA's College Park, Maryland, facility (Archives II) and is accessible only for authorized preservation and research handling — see original location.

The set of 35mm color transparencies made from the Zapruder film for Life magazine in late November 1963. Many published sequences of the film, including the frame numbering itself, derive from this set rather than from the camera-original. Life returned the film's rights to the Zapruder family in 1975 for one dollar — see chain of custody.

The commercial video release Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film, produced by MPI Home Video in 1998 under license from the Zapruder family. It was the first mass-market release struck from a new high-resolution scan of the camera-original, and is the source of most digital copies in circulation today.

The 8mm home movie shot by Marie Muchmore from the south side of Elm Street. It captures the head shot at frame 313 from the opposite side of the limousine and is one of the two principal companion films to the Zapruder record — cross-referenced in analyses.

The 8mm home movie shot by Orville Nix from the south side of Elm Street, roughly opposite the grassy knoll. Because Nix stood facing the knoll, his film is central to acoustic and photographic debates about the second-shooter hypothesis — see investigations.

The technical study of the Zapruder film commissioned by the ARRB and authored by Roland J. Zavada, retired standards director for 8mm imaging systems at Eastman Kodak. Zavada examined edge print, perforation geometry, intersprocket imagery, and camera characteristics and concluded the NARA camera-original is authentic and unaltered — central to the discussion on Was the film altered?

The convention of prefixing Zapruder-film frame numbers with the letter Z (Z-1 through Z-486), established by Life magazine's photo editors in 1963 and formally adopted by the Warren Commission the following year. All subsequent forensic, medical, and historical literature cites frames by this scheme — walk the sequence in frame-by-frame.