Creature in the Giant Sequoias - Shawn Bannon

Shawn Bannon's bigfoot footage: "Creature in the Giant Sequoias" : is another film that continues to generate talk. There are those who cry hoax and those who say it could be real. The sides are about evenly divided.

This piece of film is said to have been originally posted in 2006.  After gaining around 2 million views, it was apparently removed from the internet. It was reposted on June 17, 2013 by Bannon on both YouTube and Vimeo channels.

Bannon posting  June 17, 2013

For those of you who want to concentrate on only the alleged bigfoot in the film footage, Altered Dimensions obliged you. The following link does just that.

Just the bigfoot footage by Altered Dimensions Jan 12, 2014

Some people who are trying to recall this whole episode may remember the photos that remained after the original video was removed. Here are some memory refreshers.

The video has been shared and discussed on many blogs and postings. Opinions are divided about 50/50 on real or fake.

Roger Ramjett: "Well done! That is the best looking bigfoot I have ever seen. How big was the guy in the suit? and how did you make the muscles move like that when he ran?"

Goddy Benzoa : ". . . If this was a hoax, Bannon would be the top creature effects designer in the industry. This was captured in '06, few years before the 70 degree leg lift info was released, something a human can't mimic without looking silly. After stablizing [sic] and viewing large screen slowed down to 1/4, I can see it's very clearly NOT CG. Light aberrations (slight loss of spectrum from lens inability to capture completely) on surroundings matches creature perfectly. Large number of branches in forground[sic] would have made CG creature impossible without either generating the entire scene or spending hundreds of hours masking every branch, twig and leaf without a single mistake. Even a large budget film wouldn't waste time and money on such minute detail that lasts 1 second.

"Look at Bannon's other films. Most of his cast & crew are family & friends. Compare costumes made for "the Boy with the Big Head" with this film. I seriously doubt Bannon had the thousands it would cost to research and create a suit, then train an actor to run in the manner of an extremely heavy and differently muscled creature.

"The thing is running and its arms remain draped except to clear oncoming brush and leap over something. It moves heavily. Watch it on a big screen slowed down and you see way more detail. Absolutely no neck. The fur is a short undercoat with a darker, long overcoat on shoulders, tops of arms and front of legs. There is clear muscle tone that would require an insanely complex armature and gel pads under the skin.

"For a hoax, it would be easier to genetically create a test-tube sasquatch than sew together a monkey suit this real. The only way I can see this as a hoax is if Bannon just edited in someone else's footage of a mutant orangutan on steroids."

Michael Bliss : "a filmmaker that wont[sic] explain this clip = friend in a monkey suit - but a good monkey suit for sure"

Anonymous : ". . . something that can be faked with modern animation and powerful processing? You are obviously some 'entertainer' . . . "

It is either authentic or just a film by a student that went viral.

A hoax because it's out of focus and filmed with a shaky camera.

Some said the hair was too flowing and luxurious. It was not natural enough looking. It didn't look like Patty's hair.

Bannon acted too suspicious.

Bannon is a filmmaker.

The footage was edited even though Bannon said it wasn't. So it's fake.

The animal's appearance was "over the top".

The film just looks messy and obscure, not like the Patty film.

Gus Cast : "The only thing that keeps me interested in this video is the arms of the creature. They are LONG (specially in the picture where he is by the tree). I know that long arms can be made using props, but there's one thing that can not be faked : the position of the elbows. They are way too low for a human. And a human with props couldn't bend the elbows in that position."

One person claimed that the video was airbrushed or altered in some manner [CGI ?]. And that had to be so because Bannon refused to talk to him.

twodogs : "Would have been on world news and be world famous if real."

transientdreams [rebuttal to twodogs] : "He refused CNN and everyone else very BIG money and won't talk about it at all."

And that appears to have been one of the main problems that started as far back as 2005/2006. Bannon apparently refused to talk to anyone about the film footage. He was said to ignore the bigfoot researchers who wanted more details and all their questions answered ["The BFI" as I call them : The Bigfoot Inquisitors" . LOL] It is also rumored that he even refused to talk to Loren Coleman.

And we know that if you provoke the "Community", the accusations follow, whether founded or not.

It has been alleged that Bannon did speak with radio host George Noory on "Coast to Coast". It is not known if a podcast of that interview exists anywhere or on the internet. If someone has it, can share it, or tell me where that interview can be found, either podcast or transcript, I would certainly add it to the post.

Several breakdowns and/analyses have been done on the film. Thinker Thunker put one out but it has since been removed from his YouTube channel. Phil Poling of ParaBreakdown also did one. He and Thinker Thunker were at odds it seems on the validity of the footage. If you wish, take a look at the link below for ParaBreakdown.

Parabreakdown - Phil Poling

Although I cannot resurrect TT's breakdown, I was lucky enough to find in a couple of places comments comparing the two different sides.

ParaBreakdown:

Poling had problems with Bannon never coming forward and saying if the bigfoot was real and he also never denied it being real. It seemed suspicious to him that Bannon got 45 seconds of almost continuous footage. That type of filming is unheard of in the bigfoot community because the creatures disappear into their surroundings so quickly. He also claimed that he could count 5 different edits in the film although Bannon said there was no editing done.

PP also decided that the long hair was created by extensions to the costume and that the musculature shown in the video was caused by the underside of the costume being filled with a lot of padding. Final thing was PP said the creature did not  jump over a stump; it just "hopped" over a small fallen tree, so that doesn't prove any kind of "agility" of the figure.

On to Thinker Thunker : He stated that the creature looked like a cross between an orangutan and a transformer. He was impressed when the bigfoot grabbed at a tree while it was running. When it ran, it kept its arms down by its sides like a bigfoot would run. TT liked the jump over the stump. If it was a costume, it was most likely heavy and it is hard to run in a heavy costume. The hair appeared matted in places to him and he remarked on the musculature of the figure, especially the hamstrings and quads.

When it was claimed that students had come forward and said the film was a school project, TT allegedly debunked that story and claimed the photos were real.

Thinker Thunker stated that it was definitely not CGI.

Altered Dimensions stated January 12, 2014 that  filming involved a funding grant from National Geographic in Sequoia National Park.

There is no doubt that Shawn Bannon is a filmmaker. His first listed film was made in 2000. So by 2005/2006 he certainly had some knowledge of what to do with a camera. He currently has listed 24 projects : 8 films, 9 documentaries, 1 commercial, 2 music videos, 2 fashion, and 3 lens and cameras.

Bannon lists himself as an award-winning California filmmaker and conservationist; a graduate of Cal Arts and Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School. His films have screened at Sundance Film Festival, AFI FEST, Oak Cliff Film Festival, British Short Film Festival, SciFi Film Festival, Edinburgh Short Film Festival, Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, La Femme Film Festival, Columbus International Film and Video Festival, Rooftop films and on IFC.

His documentary "Creature in the Giant Sequoias" was an Official Selection for the Oakland Underground Film Festival in 2014. It brings up the question : is what we are being shown now on the internet what he first shared in 2007? Is that the unedited version Bannon referred to the few times he did make comment? And is the 2013 version a re-edited, cropped, "fixed" one that was polished for public release? If Mr. Bannon were talking to the "Bigfoot Community", that is one of the questions I would ask.

As for me, I myself am 50/50 on this footage. There are parts without a doubt that look a little hokey, a little fake. And then there are the other parts that open my eyes a little wider. There is some resemblance to the Myakka photos. There is the muscles, the arm length and elbow, the shoulders and back to name a few things unexplained.

I don't know. It will go into my "Maybe, Baby" file for now.

Thanks for reading,

Nancy

"I'll spark the thought; what you do with it is up to you."

This Post By TCC Team Member Nancy Marietta. Nancy has had a lifelong interest in the paranormal and cryptids. Nancy is also a published author and her book, The Price of war, has been met with great reviews.

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