Bullet time
From Freepedia
Bullet time (often hyphenated as bullet-time) is a concept introduced in recent films and computer games whereby the passage of time is displayed as extremely slow or frozen moments in order to allow a viewer to observe imperceptually fast events (such as flying bullets). It is often used to create a dramatic effect, as in the film The Matrix.
The concept also implies that only a "virtual camera," often illustrated within the confines of a computer-generated environment such as a game or virtual reality, would be capable of "filming" bullet-time types of moments. Technical and historical variations of this effect have been refered to as time slicing, view morphing, flo mo, temps mort and virtual cinematography.
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Technology
In past films, the general effect has been achieved by a set of still cameras surrounding the subject. These are usually triggered at once or sequentially. Singular frames taken from each of the still cameras are then arranged and displayed consecutively to produce an orbiting viewpoint of an action frozen in time or as hyper-slow-motion. This technique is an artistic simulation of the limitless perspectives and variable frame rates possible with a virtual camera. However, since the still array process is done with real cameras, it is often limited to assigned paths.
Modern variations include the application of digital stills, motion picture, realtime video and high-definition cameras aligned in special arrays more favorable to immediate playback (such as sports events), as well as spatial configurations favorable to photo- and stereo-grammetric image processing (used for extracting a subject's form as well as its texture). Some new approaches attempt to three-dimensionally capture and simulate real-world events so that a true virtual camera can be used to show this event from limitless or "God's Eye" perspectives (as in a virtual reality simulation).
In The Matrix, the camera path was pre-designed using computer-generated visualizations as a guide. Cameras were arranged on a track and aligned through a laser targeting system, forming a complex curve through space. The cameras were then triggered at extremely close intervals, so the action continued to unfold, in extreme slow-motion, while the viewpoint moved. Additionally, the individual frames were scanned for computer processing. Using sophisticated interpolation software, extra frames could be inserted to slow down the action further and improve the fluidity of the movement (especially the frame rate of the images); frames could also be dropped to speed up the action. This approach provides greater flexibility than a purely photographic one. The same effect can also be produced using pure CGI, motion capture and universal capture.
History
Long before the emergence of a technology permitting a live-action application, bullet-time as a concept was frequently developed in cel animation. One of the earliest examples is the shot at the end of the title sequence for the late-sixties japanese animated series Speed Racer: as Speed leaps from the Mach 5, he freezes in mid-jump, and then the camera does an arc shot from top to sideways. The most renowned anime example can be found in the cult classic Akira. In one scene, the telekinetically inclined antagonist, Tetsuo, dodges bullets as a camera orbits around him.
The first concrete example of bullet time can be found in the obscure 1981 action film Kill and Kill Again. It was also featured in Dario Argento's 1996 horror movie The Stendhal Syndrome (CGI, with a bullet) and the 1998 BBC documentary mini-series Intimate Universe: The Human Body. In 1994, Dayton Taylor invented a film-based system called TimeTrack that was used in many TV commercials [1]. Bullet time became popularized when John Gaeta and team expanded it temporally and into the digital arena through the incorporation of frame interpolation and image based CGI within the film The Matrix (1999) and through view-morphing techniques pioneered by the company BUF in music videos by Michel Gondry and commercials for, among others, The Gap. In 2003, Bullet Time evolved further through The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions with the introduction of high-definition computer-generated approaches like virtual cinematography and universal capture. Bullet time has been used in computer games such as Max Payne (2001), Max Payne 2 (2003) and Enter the Matrix (2003), and is expected to be used in The Path of Neo (2006) where it would allow the player to slow down the game-world, but still allows the ability to look and aim at normal speed. One of the first computer games to feature the bullet time effect however was the ill-received and commercial-flop 'Requiem: Avenging Angel' which featured angels fighting demons in a dystopian future.
Other early applications of the concept:
- Videoclip for Suede "The Wild Ones", 1994. Dir. Howard Greenhalgh. [2] [3]
- Videoclip for The Rolling Stones "Like a Rolling Stone", 1995. Dir. Michel Gondry. [4]
- Videoclip for Sting "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot", 1996. Dir. Emmanual Carlier. [5]
- Videoclip for Smoke City "Underwater Love", 1996. Dir. Tim MacMillan [6]
- The movie Lost in Space feature a scene similar to bullet-time; when ship enters hyperspace all the action freezes but camera slightly arcs.
- The film Wing Commander (1999), which did poorly at the box office, though the trailer gained some notice for its inclusion of the film's bullet-time scene, showing people, and a spilling cup of liquid, captured in mid-air.
- Videoclip for Meat Beat Manifesto and title sequence for Howard_Stern's televised radio program, both directed by Ben Stokes of the influential film/video/design consortium H-Gun
Antecedents to bullet time occurred before the invention of cinema itself. Eadweard Muybridge used still cameras placed along a racetrack to take pictures of a galloping horse. Each camera was actuated by a taut string stretched across the track; as the horse galloped past, the camera shutters snapped, taking one frame at a time. (The original intent was to settle a debate the governor of California had started, as to whether or not all four of the animal's legs would leave the ground.) Muybridge later assembled the pictures into a rudimentary animation, by placing them on a glass disk which he spun in front of a light source. His zoopraxiscope was the direct inspiration for Thomas Edison's moving pictures. In effect, Muybridge had achieved the aesthetic opposite to The Matrix's bullet-time sequences; it may be a historical accident that no nineteenth-century bullet-time animations were made.
In addition to the multiple-cameras effect which captures the actors, the surrounding scenery in The Matrix's bullet-time shots is a computer-generated rendering. These scenes use the photogrammetric modeling and projective texture-mapping techniques pioneered in Paul Debevec's 1997 film The Campanile Movie. George Borshukov, a collaborator of Debevec, was on the team at Manex Visual Effects that created the bullet-time shots for The Matrix.
The phrase "Bullet Time," is a registered trademark of Warner Bros., the distributor of The Matrix. It was formerly a trademark of 3D Realms, producer of the Max Payne games.
Parodies
The popularity of The Matrix has given rise to several parodies of bullet time:
- Scary Movie - The protagonist dodges attacks and deals a flying kick to the masked killer. The masked killer also hurts his back when imitating Neo's dodges on the rooftop in The Matrix.
- Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo - The protagonist dodges several bladed weapons.
- Kung Pow - The protagonist dodges milk from a cow's udders.
- The Upright Citizens Brigade - The camera is physically moved while two actors stand still during a fight.
- The Killer Bean - Bullet-time effects are used liberally.
- Excel Saga - A crudely rendered 3D model shown in episode 9 is shot multiple times while the camera rotates.
- Shrek - during a bullet-time freeze in the middle of a fight scene, Fiona primps her hair while suspended in mid-drop-kick. (Note the additional joke in that bullet time, while a complex task for live-action film, is comparatively simple to create in computer animation).
- Xiao Xiao #3 - the protagonist stick figure uses bullet time to great effect.
- Team America: World Police - two fighting characters jump into the air, dangle there, they rotate and the camera remains still, and fall to the ground again.
- Furi Kuri - the camera performs a dramatic flyby as the main character is administered CPR in episode 1. A similar effect is seen in episode 3 as the protagonist is run over by a motorcycle and flies lips first into the face of a girl he was talking to. The close-up near the end of this "bullet time" suggests that it will end in a kiss, but it ends with a head-on collision instead. In the director's commentary, the director explains that he wanted to execute this rather costly and time-consuming effect for a very trivial event.
- Fairly Oddparents - the main character dodges carrots thrown by ninja rabbits.
- Without a Paddle - Dan (Seth Green) is so stoned, unintentionally, that he hallucinates that he is dodging bullets, like in The Matrix.
- "Conker's Bad Fur Day" - One of the final chapters of this N64 game is a parody of the lobby scene from The Matrix, right down to the character's attire.
- "Main Hoon Na" - Ram (Sharukh Khan) dodges the spittle of a dribbling teacher who shouts at him.
- "G.O.R.A." - Arif (Cem Yilmaz) dodges a shot from a laser gun and finds time to light his cigarette on the passing beam as he does so.
The easy recognition and arguably heavy use of such parodies has led some to point out that bullet-time scenes are becoming a film cliché.
External links
- http://escience.anu.edu.au/lecture/cg/CGIntroduction/Data/matrix_bullettimewalkthru1.mov
- TimeFreezeWiki (German)
