Swan Lake - Act 3

From Wikipedia:

Swan Lake

 Act 3

"An opulent hall in the palace.

Guests arrive at the palace for a costume ball. Siegfried's mother commands him to dance with six princesses and choose one as a bride. Siegfried complains that he does not love any of them. Von Rothbart arrives in disguise with his daughter Odile. He has transformed Odile so that she appears identical to Odette in all respects except that she wears black rather than white. The prince mistakes her for Odette and dances with her. Odette appears as a vision and vainly tries to warn Siegfried that he is being deceived. But Siegfried remains oblivious and proclaims to the court that he intends to make Odile his wife. Von Rothbart shows Siegfried a magical vision of Odette and he realises his mistake. Grief-stricken, Siegfried hurries back to the lake."

This is the post in which we said we were going to revisit the “shadow trick”.

As we said in our Textusa Corrects Textusa post, we've found out that the “shadow trick” was much a bigger trick than we thought it to be. We then said that what we had said about it in the Bluntly Brunting Things Up post was not "satisfactorily correct".

Today we intend to show it like it is, to your and our full satisfaction.

The investigation we did for this post, I must confess, was one of the most satisfactory to do because our assumptions made us begin to go down a certain path but our findings made us correct our steps.

We began at a stage that we’d figured out that the “shadow trick” together with the “chair stance” one were done with the purpose of creating the illusion that a round table was bigger than it really was and that it was of a different shape, oval, than it really also was.

The problem is that we had a round table apparently bigger than those from the Tapas Bar as pictured by Mr. Amaral.

It was a bigger than these but obviously not big enough to sit 9 people, nor 10 if you're to include Najoua, the Quiz Mistress.

Mr Brunt and his crew made sure that we got that clear.

He doesn’t show the whole table for a reason. He is already sitting at the table and isn’t shown getting up. The camera also doesn’t pan around the room not allowing us to see the table among the rest of the furniture so we could've been able to compare it with others, nor can we make our own judgment about the size and adequateness of the esplanade.

As we’ve said many times, a round table for 9 is not an easy object to find. If Mr Brunt had found such a table, we would have surely seen it in all it’s glory and size and most likely fully garnished with placemats, cutlery, plates and even napkins to make the set complete.

But no, Mr.Brunt never gets to show us the whole table, that place where the T9 last had peace .

So we thought that it could be a table brought in from The Mill, Ocean Club’s real restaurant, or then from some private house in PdL.

Although the table is shiny and highly reflective it’s seems to be darker than the ones from Mr Amarals’ pictures and this seemed to confirm our suspicions that it was table brought from outside on purpose.

We then started to seek evidence to prove this fact.

We started by checking that the square tables were of similar dimensions as the round tables. 

Both are a fold-away type, with X-format legs, typical of this kind of outside furniture. Fragile by nature not meant to be used with frequency to hold the weight of the various objects, food and liquids that are usually involved in a full course meal for 9 people.

Then we set out to compare the props used during the Brunt report and the furniture we see in Mr. Amaral’s pictures and verified that in fact the chairs were the same, and that a table from the Tapas Bar was used as the shadow (in blue) of the table legs’ X-format is clearly visible. This shadow comes from a table that's in the middle of the set of chairs (in yellow) near the beam.

And then… and then I was struck by a fist.

No, not figuratively speaking, literally. Struck really hard by this fist:

This fist hit me just like a cricket ball batted for 6 and that landed right in my teacup!!

Remember the question I asked in our Bluntly Brunting Things Up post about the picture above?

"Where is the table’s shadow?" That was the question I asked.

And when I asked that question that was when the cricket ball should have hit not the teacup but me bonkers on the top of my head to serve me right and show me how stupid I was being.

I even give myself the clue to the right path when, following that embarrassingly stupid question, I went and  wrote that “Mr. Brunt has the left half of his face lit up, while the other side is in shadow, meaning that a light projector from his left was used.”

I should have never have asked where was the shadow, as it’s perfectly visible in the carefully positioned chair on the right of Mr. Brunt, but should have asked the following crucial question: where in the heck is the light?

Where is the light on the table? Where exactly on that side of the table does the light end and the shadow begin? 

In other words, where is the EDGE of the table??

There isn’t one and it should be one there. No, not SHOULD be but HAD to be!

Observe the following on the above picture. One can see light reflected on Mr Brunt’s closed fist and even in what is visible of his forearm, which is quite a bit, when this part of his body is actually at angle that gets no direct light, that being the reason it’s not as bright as the fingers, but still perfectly visible. One can outline distinctly the knuckle line in Mr Brunt's fist.

Mr Brunt’s knuckles form an edge which is clearly visible but right in front of it there's no clearly defined table edge!! Could someone please show me a clearly defined table edge in the white trapezium above? There isn't any!!

And darkness doesn't serve as an excuse because there had to be one by the amount of light that illuminates so well the chair on the right of Mr. Brunt!

We’re either before a most strange phenomenon that defies the expansion of light waves or before some sort of illusion.

I don't know about you but I'm not going against the laws of physics.

And this illusionism might just explain one of the most interesting things there is to be watched on Mr Brunt’s report. Some may call it the “fidgeting edge” but I prefer, to maintain things within the ballet theme, to call it the “ballerina table”.

Like a ballerina that is up on her toes and doesn't go anywhere although we can see her feet in movement so the same happens with the table. With the “ballerina table” if you watch when Mr. Brunt does his "Negligence Pirouette" (from 1:35) you can see that edge move, flickering a couple or more times, and, like the ballerina, goes nowhere.

video link

And you know why the edge moves so?

The edge moving is just a consequence of the fact the image has been digitally manipulated, or I think the correct term is remastered, with the intent to hide in the best possible way the REAL edge of the table on the right side of Mr. Brunt, something that should be clearly discernible but after this is done, no longer was. 

And to further prove what we're saying you only have to enlarge the following area below: 

It doesn't take an expert that there are areas where it seems that some of the colouring seems like it was done with a large paintbrush:

This is not the way pixels spread out when an image is enlarged. You can testify to that by looking at the various images we've enlarged in this and other posts. This is pure image manipulation.

Knowing that we were before a visual HOAX we stopped looking for an external or internal table because we had first to try and determine what table we were looking for!

To solve our problem we got an unexpected help from Mr Brunt when he does his “Negligence Pirouette”:

When he does that so does the camera move, to confirm this you’re now able to see more of the back of the chair on the right of Mr. Brunt than you could before.

It’s an ever so slight movement but enough to alter the “lighting arrangement” and with it may just provide a clue that answers many questions.

We went back to the Tapas Bar round tables. What did we know of them? Not much. Only that they were of the same dimension as the square tables as we’ve said already. And that both types had the same X-format fold away legs.

We noticed that the square tables had a pattern, quadrilateral designs, each made up of 7 wooden slats, within an outer border:

Now it made sense that the furniture, for obvious decorative reasons, were bought in bulk, thus, as example, all the chairs are the exact same type.

If that was so, then the round tables would have the same pattern as the square ones:

Unfortunately, if we have little imagery of the Tapas esplanade, we have less than that on the Tapas Bar round tables. We only have two pictures, and both from Mr. Amaral’s book. And only one shows the top of the table but at a very slanted angle:

Augmented, it tell us nothing about the tabletop. It can have a pattern but it can also be with no pattern at all. So these are the two possibilities for the Tapas Bar round tables' tabletop, with a pattern and without one:

But if we go back to our now familiar “Negligence Pirouette” what do we see?

A pattern.

And similar to the one we find in the square tables:

Also you can also see in this picture what they so desperately tried to hide: the table's edge on the right of Mr Brunt:

The "reflection" that you see in front of Mr Brunt's sleeve is not a reflection at all because it curves the opposite way. That, dear reader, is the illusive edge of the table. 

And now we might understand that the reflection below (area in blue) is also a non-reflection but the inside of Mr Brunt's sleeve. If not that, then it's a reflection of what?

Mr Brunt used nothing but a Tapas Bar round table. Remarkable to say the least.

And, as you know, if you can't see that, you know we know the reason why.

So, in Swan Lake's terms, Von Rothbart (Mr Brunt) had transformed Odile (a Small Round Table (SRT)), so that she appears identical to Odette, (a Big Round Table (BRT), to Siegfrieds’ eyes.

We’ve vainly, for almost 4 years, tried to show Siegfried that he is being deceived. But Siegfried remained oblivious and proclaimed that it was Odette (a BRT), and those saying otherwise were raving mad lunatics.

Von Rothbart (Mr Brunt) had showed Siegfried a magical vision of Odette (a BRT) and we now hope that Siegfried now realises his mistake.

The SRT was never a BRT. The T9BRT never existed. “Odile” was just a Tapas Bar round table.

This is how we think this illusion was created:

For you to compare and make up your own judgment:

 In trying to fool us, Mr Brunt only confirms the obvious: a Tapas bar round table could never, ever, sit 9 people.

We know that the Swan Lake has alternative endings, so we’ll patiently wait to see which fate will be chosen for the Final Act of this Maddie Affair. However, in none of the possibilities things end up well for Von Rothbart or Odille…

Mr Brunt, you can say that you set up the table as a prop in the way described for dramatic effect alleging that you believed that the story of the table was true.

But then, with each trick you saw yourself "forced" to use to make the story "true" shouldn't you have rapidly become a disbeliever?

The fact the piece was aired means that that didn't happen. And you're very clear in your words that that was THE table: 

“I’m sitting at the table where the McCanns and their friends were eating on the night that Madeleine disappeared. This place is shut now for the winter.

The apartment is some distance away, it’s beyond the swimming pool, there’s a wall and a hedge, and behind that there’s a path.

It would be very difficult, from here, to see anybody going in and out of the apartment.

Going to check on the kids wasn’t easy.

Well, 80 paces as far as the gate, the distance between the Tapas Bar and the apartment, not quite as Gerry McCann described it.”

If we add to all this his  unexpected “intimacy” with Jennifer and Robert Murat,  we have to question Mr Brunt's role in PdL.

The picture above shows a man walking off with the emptiness of one who has just been shown where he has left his soul.

We’ll not go the easy route to condemn your actions Mr Brunt.

Many have sold their souls for much less and we understand your predicament under the circumstances.

This does not minimize an ounce of the severity of your actions, it just states that in the current state of affairs of modern societies the soulless survival is taken as a regular lifestyle.

We refuse to accept that.

At least without putting up a fight.

We hope that by exposing this deed of yours Mr Brunt we will allow your peers some “elbow room” in the real Big Round Table that life will never cease to be and they may act more independently than your generation of journalists or “journalists” was able to.

Finally, a word to our readers. We hope that you understand the importance of this post. 




Post Scriptum:

First, to our reader Guerra, who submitted the video such a long time ago, we hope that now you understand the reasons for taking so long. The clues, as you can see, are all there to be seen immediately but the process of proving what we saw had to be a painstakingly meticulous one and this takes time, a resource none of us have that much to spare from our personal lives.

Second, we’d like to inform our readers that, for personal reasons, we’re taking another break until the end of the month. We’ll continue to publish your comments, which, as you well know, are posts by themselves and the reason many come to visit the blog.




Post-Post Scriptum: 

A reader has placed 2 comments (Anon at Nov 11, 2012 9:00:00 AM and Nov 11, 2012 1:05:00 PM) raising the possibility that Mr Brunt might be using a different chair from the ones seen in the report. The only way to clarify this is through images. I think this is what Anon is referring to:

As you can see, by enlarging the picture below, is that there's a transparency between this arc and the back of the chair that is sideways behind Mr Brunt. This clearly proves that its a shadow. Of what, I don't know nor I think is relevant:

Mr Brunt when talking to us before his "Negligence Pirouette" covers completely his chair, only when he turns his body is there a little bit of the chair visible, in all similar with the other chairs as shown circled:

Hopes this clarifies your question.



Post-Post-Post Scriptum: 

Hi Textusa,
It is nice and easy to have the comments listed by numbers but since then I can't see the comments made after 200. There is anyone experiencing the same problem with a clue, or is only my computer that decide to rest?
Thanks

Dear Reader, another reader, Su, requested that we adopt the numbering in the comments which we've applied. However Blogger only allows 200 per page, so all you have to do is click on the "newer" link at the end of the comments.



Post-Post-Post-Post-Scriptum:

As of today, November 30th, 2012, this post "Swan Lake - Act 3" is the blog's first post to have passed the 3,000 pageviews mark:

This post now holds the following records:

- Most number of page views;

- Most number of comments (what a pleasant surprise);

- Most number of Post-Scriptums!