Natgeotv: JFK the Final Hours - source material, post-production?

[arco1]

(Also posted this question at Creative COW.)​.

I just watched "JFK: The Final Hours" on National Geographic channel and saw some incredible looking images from that era.

According to NatGeo website, there was a White House film crew covering the president's trip to Dallas. But the video looked MUCH better than the usual 16mm newsreel film. Since some of it looks run-and-gun, so I can't imagine they were shooting 35mm at the time. A short example of what I'm talking about can be found at

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/the-san-antonio-speech...

From just a casual look, you'd think they time-traveled a high-end video camera back to 1963.

I haven't found any hints on the natgeo website. Does anyone here have any clues regarding the source material and post-production enhancement tools for this show?


Jim

 

[cyclone]

I saw the doc and thought the exact same thing. Saw lots of 16mm Auricons rolling, but no 35mm.
It's the same thing i thought when I saw POP GEAR, a doc from 1965. It is the only footage of the Beatles live in concert that I've ever seen actually shot in 35mm from that era (Techniscope, I think). Watch the great examples both at the beginning and then again at the end of the film. There are also 2 examples of Eric Burdon & The Animals that are pretty good. (Burdon was listed as 57th in Rolling Stone's List of the greatest singers of all time.) And, from Wikipedia: "Actor Mike Myers has said his Austin Powers character was patterned after Asher's appearance" from the group Peter & Gordon

 

[David W. Richardson]

I would assume they digitally enhanced whatever footage there was. I've seen digitally enhanced versions of the Zapruder film, and the difference is remarkable.