Creature Suit Analysis - Part 3 - The Mime Inside

[Bill]

Dfoot:

I haven't researched anyhting yet specifically about Bob H. or his testimony, and I prefer not to pass judgment based on other people's opinions on the board (some of whom, like you, believe him, and others here who do not), so I won't compare his testimony to any suit information I have from other sources, at this time.

Just wanted to acknowledge your contribution to the thread, and assure you your contribution is read and considered.

Bill

[Guest HarryAbe]

Just a note from someone who has filmed scenes of stuntmen in rubber suits constantly...

We have people pass out all the time. They hang from ceilings under hot lights in awkward positions while performing gymnastics in a harness. They repeat fights and falls down 50 foot rocky embankments while wearing fully enclosed rubber monster suits in 100 degree summer heat. I see it over and over (and have photos and videos from behind the scenes as well). This is the normal thing for stuntmen to endure. It's tough, but not unusual at all.

A cowboy simply walking for 100 yards in a suit and then yelling for someone to get him out of it is just what happened at Bluff Creek. What Bob H. says he did and wore is exactly the truth of the matter. Completely normal and nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I must commend you on your brevity. Anyway, I guess your last two sentences pretty much sum it all up huh. Thanks for all your help in getting to the bottom of this 'fraud'. No, really man. There was a time I wasn't sure you were gonna pull through, but you did it! I think I speak for everyone when I say 'this case is closed'! The PGF is now Patterson's Giant Fraudâ„¢ Thanks again for your help.

There is no Bigfoot...people!

Edited January 16, 2008 by HarryAbe

[Drew]

I must commend you on your brevity. Anyway, I guess your last two sentences pretty much sum it all up huh. Thanks for all your help in getting to the bottom of this 'fraud'. No, really man. There was a time I wasn't sure you were gonna pull through, but you did it! I think I speak for everyone when I say 'this case is closed'! The PGF is now Patterson's Giant Fraudâ„¢ Thanks again for your help.

There is no Bigfoot...people!

Guess I can go back to work then.

[Guest]

I must commend you on your brevity. Anyway, I guess your last two sentences pretty much sum it all up huh. Thanks for all your help in getting to the bottom of this 'fraud'. No, really man. There was a time I wasn't sure you were gonna pull through, but you did it! I think I speak for everyone when I say 'this case is closed'! The PGF is now Patterson's Giant Fraudâ„¢ Thanks again for your help.

There is no Bigfoot...people!

LMAO!!!!!

[Guest soarwing]

And here I was somewhat convinced that some of the sasquatch stories might have some merit.

I just threw up in my mouth a little....

[Bill]

Reviewing the Thread

Repeating portions of my Review introduction from the Part One notes, I feel a review and evaluation of this thread may be of value.

So I decided that I would post an appraisal of each note set, re-reading the original, seeing if I would change anything, based on the comments and discussions, and offering the readers a fresh look at what I feel are the most relevent issues and ideas. Each group of summary notes will be different, but this brief introduction will be repeated first.

Part Three - The Mime Inside

Let me start off with the one clarification I thought was necessary about this third set of notes. I really had not yet grasped how people would take individual phrases and hang on them, instead of taking in the entirety of the notes as a complete discussion. And I was thinking an occasional phrase offered in a more colorful phrasing would be okay, which lead me to say, in the original notes:

"If it's an amateur like BH in the suit, he should have been dead by the time Patterson ran out of film in his camera."

So, in fairness, the above remark was more a colorful expression than a factual remark. I do not know what physical condition Bob H. was in, back in 1967, so I cannot appraise his potential to endure the stress of performing in a suit.

That said, all the more generalized descriptions of stress in a suit stand as reasonable and factual remarks. And the remarks about the need for having someone to assist the person in the suit, both with getting into and out of it, and grooming the fur after a person is suited up, these continue to be issues I believe must be accounted for by anyone advocating that a suit was in fact filmed that day.

One issue which I did not put into the original notes, but which came out in the subsequent comments section, was the question of the heat stress imposed on the person inside a suit amplified by humidity. It is reasonably well established that humidity affects the ability of people to endure any given temperature. A day in the 90's in Los Angeles is no big deal, but a eastern or southern city with 90's weather, coupled with their higher humidity, sometimes makes for "killer" heat waves.

How that impacts on the suit, I realized when answering posts by others, was that the suit causes the mime inside to perspire heavily, as I noted. And that persperation soaks into the mime's clothing or the inner suit lining. And the moisture then raises the humitity inside the suit (even if the outside ambient temperature isn't that humid), and so we have essentially a feedback loop of sorts.

The mime starts to sweat and get hot. The sweat makes the suit inside more humid. The humidity inside makes the heat feel more intense. The mime sweats more, and the heat continues to build up because the suit acts as insulation, keeping the heat in. More sweat, more humidity, more intense perception of heat, more sweat, etc. a loop that can esculate to endanger the person in the suit.

So if I were re-writing these notes, I would put the internal suit humidity issue into the primary note set.

The segments of the notes on "Other Considerations", "Stable Footing", "Filming Averagefoot", and "Foot Mechanics", all I still feel are factual and relevent information for understanding the complexity of a suit, but none of those issues directly would prove either side of the Suit vs Real debate.

In retrospect, I feel this information in this thread does have an important position in the suit debate, when a person is advocating a suit was used for the PG Film.

If all you want to say is "well, maybe Patty's a suit. It's possible.", you can say that with no particular proof, because you are raising a mere possibility, an option to consider.

But if a person chooses to go beyond the mere option and advocate that "Patty" is definitely a suit (as if it were factual), then any explanation of this suit does demand that these issues of the stress of the suit and the need for assistants to help manage the endeavor be included in any explanation of proof.

The Comments on this thread by others in the forum include some lively and intriguing views by many people about various suits (mascot suits, industrial suits, etc.) and I believe a lot of interesting comment material is included in this thread.

Comments about suits needing assistants inspired discussion on the issue of any left behind evidence of such assistants. Reasonably, more people walking around any filming site means more footprints. And suffice to say, footprints are a big issue in Bigfoot sightings, so the ground is studied for what footprints are present. If there were multiple crew footprints scattered around, and even one person ( who wasn't a part of any filming conspiracy) later inspects the site and examines evidence for footprints, then hiding those crew footprints becomes an extra complication, more work to hide a hoax.

And the usual "Hollywood" methods of covering footprints don't actually look like true pristine ground. On close inspection, they do look like covered up ground. So the issue of assistants helping the mime does complicate the conspiracy hoax theory in two ways. One is that it makes more people necessary as a part of it, and second, it makes more effort necessary to hide that fact of more people being there and making footprints. My next note set, Part 4, also describes the assistant issue in greater detail, explaining how much equipment and material they usually bring to a filming site to do their job well.

So I would think, in retrospect, that this issue of any proposed suit needing assistants does gain more relevence and places an even heavier burden on anyone advocating a suit was filmed, and offering to explain how the filming was accomplished.

Bill

[wiiawiwb]

Excellent Bill.

We all know the more people that are involved in a scam decreases the odds it can be pulled off. The lure of monetary reward would make if difficult for an assistant to resist cashing in his chips and speaking out.

[Bill]

Wiiawiwb:

One of many reason's I have trouble with the hoax idea.

:oops:

Bill

[Bill]

I have expressed thoughts previously about the option that if the PG Film was hoaxed, I thought some form of support crew beyond Patterson, Gimlin and a suit performer would have been necessary on the filming site in order to accomplish what I see in the film. And I have stated that if such support crew were there, some physical evidence of such a crew, or evidence of an attempt to hide the crew's footprints would have been apparent.

My direct quote from the Reviewing the Thread Posting (of this thread) on this subject (referenced here) was:

"Comments about suits needing assistants inspired discussion on the issue of any left behind evidence of such assistants. Reasonably, more people walking around any filming site means more footprints. And suffice to say, footprints are a big issue in Bigfoot sightings, so the ground is studied for what footprints are present. If there were multiple crew footprints scattered around, and even one person ( who wasn't a part of any filming conspiracy) later inspects the site and examines evidence for footprints, then hiding those crew footprints becomes an extra complication, more work to hide a hoax.

And the usual "Hollywood" methods of covering footprints don't actually look like true pristine ground. On close inspection, they do look like covered up ground. So the issue of assistants helping the mime does complicate the conspiracy hoax theory in two ways. One is that it makes more people necessary as a part of it, and second, it makes more effort necessary to hide that fact of more people being there and making footprints."

Other people interested in this subject brought issues to my attention, so I looked into the matter further, and discussed the matter as well with others who have researched the filming circumstances. With all that in consideration, I wanted to add the following remarks to this topic and thread.

The reported rainfall after the proported filming day would reasonably be expected to degrade evidence on the ground of human filming activity. And the arrival of Mr. Laverty and a crew of workers on the scene after those rains, seeing the "Patty" footprints and investigating them, would have contaminated the site with additional evidence of human activity. Finally, no actual evidence investigation specifically documenting the complete evidence of human activity on site was apparently conducted. Aparently the Bob Timus investigation many days after the fact focused on documenting positions and tracks for "Patty", Roger, Bob.G. etc. but did not give equal attention to other human footprints and activity indicators.

So I would conclude that evidence from the actual filming site simply does not exist to make any determination of how many humans were present on the day of the filming, or what their activities may have been, in relation to the subject being filmed.

So in the matter of my previously stated opinion that some evidence at the filming site of a support crew might be expected, the reality is that the issues of the site, the rain, and the contamination in the days after, all create a condition where no human activity, arguing for or against the number of people involved in filming a hoax, can be determined by the ground area where the film was made.

If a hoax is argued, it remains my belief that some filming support/suit support crew would have needed to be on site to accomplish what is shown in the film (beyond the people generally accepted as being there), but prospects of proving or disproving this specific issue (support crews) now seems unlikely and may dwell forever in the "inconclusive" section of PG Film studies.

This does not preclude discussions of the "patty" footprints (real of fake), as they have completely different evidentiary circumstances.

Bill

[Roger Knights]

But as Roger Knights pointed out, and I'll paraphrase, "Patty looks like a guy in a suit until you COMPARE her to a known guy in a suit."

Actually all I did was quote bipto, who said it better:

Patty looks like a guy in a suit until you see a real guy in a suit.

Edited May 20, 2008 by RogerKni

[Guest Sasquatcher]

Not in 1967.

[Guest nyc_big]

question, if Roger Patterson did hire an actor or mime other than Bob H, would there be a record of it? If the mime was a AFTRA or SAG union actor and had to be paid scale wouldnt there be some kind of employment record out there that can traced back to Roger or his company.

Edited July 29, 2010 by nyc_big

[Bill]

nyc big:

In the 60's there were a lot of low budget non-union films being done, and they used both non-union crews and non SAG actors.

So finding a non-SAG or non AFTRA performer, paying cash, and no paper trail, would not have been unusual.

I personally worked on a few such films, as did just about every college film student trying to break into the business in the 60's.

Before Roger (or anybody) could hire a SAG union artist to create a paper trail, the producer or employer wuld need to become a SAG union signatory employer, which itself would likely require a contract with the union.

For anyone following this and wondering what SAG and AFTRA are, SAG is Screen Actor's Guild, and handles film and filmed TV. AFTRA handles live (electronic video-recoeded TV and radio performers).

Bill

[Guest nyc_big]

thx Bill, I have been on a few of those non unions myself.

Since Roger showed his film as entertainment in movie theatres would he have had to declare that no union actors or crew were involved? Would he have to sign something at least declaring it news footage and not acting footage? That would just add another layer of realness or hoaxing depending on how one looks at it. Doesnt prove anything but would be interesting to know.

[Guest nyc_big]

Also --It would seem to me if Bob H was in that suit and Roger showed it on TV and Movies then he would have qualified to get into the AFTRA union, maybe not SAG, but I think AFTRA is less stringent. And by that would he not have had some legal recourse to pursue Roger for promised pay?