Provenance

Abraham Zapruder was a 58-year-old Ukrainian-born dressmaker who co-owned Jennifer Juniors, Inc., a women's clothing manufacturer headquartered at 501 Elm Street in Dallas — the Dal-Tex Building, directly across from the Texas School Book Depository. On the morning of November 22, 1963, his secretary Lillian Rogers urged him to go home for his camera; the President's motorcade route passed his office window.

Zapruder returned with a Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Model 414 PD, serial number AS13486, loaded with a fresh 25-foot spool of Kodachrome II Type A safety film — an 8mm daylight-balanced reversal stock (ARRB Final Report, ch. 5).

He positioned himself on a four-foot concrete pedestal along the north pergola of Dealey Plaza, roughly 65 feet from Elm Street and elevated above the crowd. His receptionist Marilyn Sitzman stood behind him to steady his balance — Zapruder suffered from vertigo. This location and posture are corroborated by the Willis, Moorman, Betzner, and Nix films, all of which capture Zapruder on the pedestal.

Zapruder began filming as the lead motorcycles turned onto Elm from Houston, stopped briefly, then filmed continuously from before the presidential limousine came into view until it disappeared into the Triple Underpass. The exposed portion of the film comprises 486 frames, conventionally numbered Z-1 through Z-486. Frame Z-313 captures the fatal head shot.

The film was, technically, a home movie: 8mm reversal stock produces a positive image directly on the camera-original, with no negative. There is exactly one first-generation copy of the Zapruder film in existence, and it is the strip that ran through his camera that afternoon.

Within minutes of the shooting, Dallas Morning News reporter Harry McCormick approached Zapruder, who told him he had filmed the entire event. By 6:30 p.m. Zapruder had processed the film at the Kodak Kodachrome Processing Laboratory on Manton Drive and had three contact-printed 8mm copies made at the Jamieson Film Company. The movement of those copies over the next 48 hours is the subject of the next chapter.