Dallas citizen who filmed the assessination of President J. F. Kennedy.this is life-story: Since 1949, Abraham Zapruder had operated his "Jennifer Juniors, Inc. of Dallas," manufacturing women's and young ladies' clothing. In 1963, the company ran out of the fourth and fifth-floors of the Dal-Tex Building at 501 Elm, across Houston Street from the Depository. With his two children, Henry and Myrna, now grown and with young children of their own, Zapruder purchased a Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series 8-mm camera, Model 414 PD in 1962 in order to record his grandchildren's activities. Aware that the President would be passing by his building, Zapruder decided to leave his camera home when November 22, 1963 dawned overcast with showers. As the morning turned sunny he was coached into returning home for the camera by his secretary Lillian Rodgers. Towards mid-noon, Zapruder chose a foot-foot-high concrete abutment at the west end of the Bryan Colonnade's steps, next to the Grassy Knoll. The elevated perch would turn out to be one of the best vantage points in Dealey Plaza, but it meant a challenge to Zapruder's vertigo. He asked his receptionist to climb up behind him and steady him as he filmed. His camera fully-wound, Zapruder's camera captured events at a steady 18.3 frames-per-second. The first 132 frames (7-seconds) show the lead motorcycle escort headed down Elm.

Realizing the Presidential party was not immediately behind, Zapruder stopped filming to conserve film. His next sequence would begin with the Presidential Lincoln already on Elm and run uninterrupted for 354 frames. Its 19-seconds would capture the most dramatic and horrific single event of the century.

President Kennedy and his wife were cheered enthusiastically as their open car passed through the streets. Suddenly, at 12:30 in the afternoon, an assassin fired several shots, striking the president twice, in the base of the neck and the head (THE WORLD'S FIRST TASTE OF CRUCUFIED GRACE), and seriously wounding John Connally, the governor of Texas, who was riding with the Kennedys. The president was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about a half hour later. Within two hours, Vice President Johnson took the oath as president.

Although the film is silent, jiggles made by Zapruder attest to distractions; some have sought to interpret these as gunfire indications. Zapruder himself screamed "They killed him, they killed him!" as he filmed Mrs. Kennedy climbing out of the gory backseat. Somehow, Zapruder kept the camera to his eye even as other photographers jumped for safety; or, like Altgens, were too shocked to press the shutter.
Zapruder immediately returned to his office and locked the camera in a small safe. He sold the film to the media and millions of people saw Kennedy's assassination at Zapruder's film.

Every still of his amateurish film has been analysed a thousand times to reconstruct the assassination and all sorts of theories of where the bullet came from, how many snipers shot etcetera, were based on the film. Parts of zapruder's film were used in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.

You can see Zapruder's film and al sorts of analyses of his film here.