Bullet time

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Bullet time (or bullet-time) is a computer enhanced simulation of variable speed(ie. slow motion, time lapse, other) photography used in recent films, broadcast advertisements and computer games. It is characterized both by its extreme permutation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and un-filmable events, such as flying bullets) and space (by way of the ability of the camera angle--the audience's point-of-view--to move around the scene at a normal speed while events are slowed).

This is almost impossible with conventional slow-motion, as the physical camera would have to move impossibly fast; the concept 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 referred to as time slicing, view morphing, slo mo, temps mort and virtual cinematography.

Technology

File:Matrix neorealvcg smaller.gif
The left image shows the actual actor's photographs, and the right image shows the carefully reconstructed CG version of the actor.

The Bullet Time effect was originally achieved photographically by a set of still cameras surrounding the subject. These arrays 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 suggests the limitless perspectives and variable frame rates possible with a virtual camera. However, if the still array process is done with real cameras, it is often limited to assigned paths.

More recent variations include the application of Universal Capture(multi cam high definition performance capture applying photo- and stereo-grammetric image processing for extracting a subject's form and texture over time), interwoven sports/live event broadcast camera arrays more favorable to "replay" and live orbit presentations, and other techniques utilizing QTVR and Motion VR. 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).

File:Matrix bb5 600.gif
A still from The Matrix Reloaded

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

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 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. Also, debt is owed Doc Edgerton, who, around World War 2, took actual photos of bullets using a short timeframe flash to "freeze" motion.

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 anime 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 first music video to use bullet-time was "Army of Me", a 1995 Björk video directed by Michel Gondry. [1]. 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 with time-slice by Tim Macmillan. In 1994, Dayton Taylor invented a film-based system called TimeTrack that was used in many TV commercials [2]. The effect was also used in 1998's Blade and further developed in Blade II.

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. Virtual elements within the Matrix Trilogy utilize cutting edge image based computer rendering techniques pioneered in Paul Debevec's 1997 film The Campanile Movieand custom evolved for the Matrix by George Borshukov, an early collaborator of Debevec.

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A still from The Matrix Revolutions

Other early applications of the concept:

  • The Return of the Pink Panther, 1975. Inspector Clouseau practices kung-fu with Cato in slow motion.
  • Videoclip for Suede "The Wild Ones", 1994. Dir. Howard Greenhalgh. [3] [4]
  • Videoclip for The Rolling Stones "Like a Rolling Stone", 1995. Dir. Michel Gondry. [5]
  • Videoclip for Sting "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot", 1996. Dir. Emmanual Carlier. [6]
  • Videoclip for Smoke City "Underwater Love", 1996. Dir. Tim MacMillan [7]
  • "Little Bitty" Alan Jackson video 1996.
  • Videoclip for Coolio "C U When I Get There", 1996.
  • Videoclip for Van Halen "Without You", 1998
  • Videoclip for Garbage "Push it", 1998
  • The movie Lost in Space (1998) feature a scene similar to bullet-time; when ship enters hyperspace all the action freezes but camera slightly arcs.
  • The episode "Wink of an Eye" of the original Star Trek TV Series is entirely based on bullet-time; the villains exist exclusively in hyperspeed and attempt to utilize it to take over the Enterprise and its crew.
  • The music video for the song "Guilty Conscience" (from The Slim Shady LP) features Dr. Dre and Eminem speaking as good and evil consciences to three different men frozen in bullet time.
  • 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
  • Videoclip for Korn "Freak On A Leash", 1998.
  • In Super Bowl XXXV, CBS employed a system of cameras that allowed for bullet-time-like effects on its broadcast. This system proved to be the difference in upholding a replay challenge on a Jamal Lewis fourth quarter touchdown by showing that he clearly broke the plane of the end zone. Since the bullet time was accomplished using cameras only, without any computer interpolating, the transition from one perspective to another was choppy, compared to the relatively smooth transitions from 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.

In games

Bullet time has been used in many computer and video games, particularly since the popularization of the effect by The Matrix, and is technically trivial to implement (as all objects in the scene are generated and controlled by the computer). It is usually implemented as a power-up or "special" meter and when activated allows the player to temporarily slow down the game-world (usually also making individual bullets visible, making it possible to dodge enemies' shots), but retains the ability to look and aim at normal speed. Games such as Max Payne (2001), Viewtiful Joe, Tomb Raider Anniversary and the Half-Life mod The Specialists combine the effect with action movie-style special moves such as somersaults, dives and rolls.

The first computer game to use bullet time was probably the real-time rogue-like Rescue at Rigel published in 1980 by Epyx, which featured a protagonist with a bionic implant system called "A.M.B.L.E."

One of the first modern computer games to feature bullet time was the 1999 game Requiem: Avenging Angel, which featured angels fighting demons in a dystopian future. Conker's Bad Fur Day actually contained the same type of bullet time as Max Payne, which it also predated. Other notable uses of the effect include Max Payne 2 (2003) and F.E.A.R (2005). The videogames in the Matrix franchise (Enter the Matrix (2003), The Matrix Online (2005) and Path of Neo (2005)) have also utilized the effect. Even games where the effect would not logically exist within the setting, often feature it anyway, one such example is the western-themed third person shooter, GUN, where the bullet time mode is called "quick draw."

Bullet time is also featured in Jedi Outcast & Jedi Academy; activated whenever a player kills a Reborn Jedi (both JO & JA) or a cultist (JA only) armed with a lightsaber, or if a lightsabered armed enemy kills a player. Bullet time can also be activated manually by entering "thereisnospoon" (obviously referring to the film The Matrix, demonstrating that film's large impact on modern culture) in the console during the game. Additionally, the player can slow down the environment, while moving at normal speed, by activating the "Force Speed" power. Additionally, since the game is made utilizing the Quake 3 engine, if one were to enter the "timescale" command with an appropriate value, 1 being normal speed, .5 being half speed (i.e. "timescale .25" would make the game run at 1/4 speed) a bullet time effect is achieved.

Another game that uses bullet-time is Sudeki, whenever a player opens up the items menu, the environment including the player slows down, enabling the controller rotate the view and look around. Also, when using certain techniques such as Tal's "Blade Dance" the environment and the enemy slows down significantly. Similar effect is used in the last battle with Talos, when Talos can cut through very quickly but your speed is decreased 5 times.

A sort of bullet time can be activated in the Bloodrayne series of games, called dilated perception; wherein the main character (a half vampire) speeds up the rate at which she processes information, causing everything to seem slower, including the player character. This does however allow the advantage of giving the player themselves more time to think and react, even if their character is slowed down as well. Bloodrayne 2 adds Freeze Time which brings time nearly to a stand-still but allows the player to move at normal speed.

A situation similar to a bullet time can be found in the Grand Theft Auto series from Grand Theft Auto III onwards - when the player picks up an adrenaline pill, the character's and the game's speed is slowed down, while the aiming speed remains normal.

Bullet time features briefly in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty/Substance. Solid Snake has confronted Olga Gurlukovich and has ordered her to unsheath her knife and toss it overboard. She unsheaths it, but instead of throwing it away, she turns around and fires a bullet at Snake out of the end of the handle. The game switches to bullet time as it passes Snake, narrowly missing his head. The trail of the bullet as it passes through the air is visible, in similar style to The Matrix. Snake, with his pistol still raised at Olga, comments on the event by saying, "Scout knife with a surprise. You a Spetznaz?".

Bullet time is featured again in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater/Substance. At the beginning of Operation Snake Eater, when Naked Snake encounters The Boss, The Boss defeats Snake in CQC combat and shoots the drone that he flew in on, causing it to explode. The Boss uses the Patriot submachinegun, which has infinite ammo. The first bullets fired in the scene tumble through the air in a bullet-time like sequence.

The Gamecube remake of the original Metal Gear Solid dubbed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and added bullet time scenes such as Snake dodging a piece of ceiling cut by Grey Fox or when Snake jumps on a missile and fires a Stinger at Liquid Snake's Hind in midair. But the original also features bullet-time, such as Snake dodging a bullet from Revolver Ocelot, and a tank-shot from Vulcan Raven.

The PS2 platformer Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus also featured some smooth "bullet-time" effects in which you could unlock an ability that allowed you to slow down all of your surroundings, yet move the camera around the character at normal speed. Not only that, but there was a creative feature in which when you move the right analog stick while the game was paused, the menu would disappear and you would be able to move the camera to get a good look at the surroundings. Another PS2 platformer to feature bullet-time was Jak 3 in which Jak is finally able to use Light Eco that allows for plenty of changes with time and Jak's surroundings. Also, the recent PSP title Daxter briefly features a bullet-time moment in the final boss battle where tubes of light eco come crashing down and freezes everything in mid air, except Daxter, who can move around freely.

Prince of Persia also uses a bullet-time variant. In the Sands of Time trilogy, the Prince has a Medallion (Prince of Persia) or Amulet of Time that permits him to alter time in his favor. To use this power, you have to "feed" the medallion with the Sands that were unlocked in the first game of the series. The Amulet has six powers, two of which uses a bullet-time variant. The first is the Eye of the Storm or Power of Delay, which allows the carrier of the medallion to move faster by slowing down his perception of time; and the other is Ravages of Time - the power that allows the carrier to attack much faster than normal.

Tomb Raider: Legend also uses bullet time, if you jump whilst next to an enemy, Lara will jump off the character and go into bullet time, wherein one can shoot the targeted enemy.

For a brief period bullet time became a "development fad" whereby many games had it added in for no apparent reason (the notoriously poor Charlie's Angels licensed game had the words "it also feature that popular bullet time thing" in its press release). This led to a backlash from critics with the Official UK PS2 magazine stating (in the context of the game Devil May Cry 2) "anyone caught cribbling from The Matrix gets a point knocked off [from its review score] now."

In Fable, the Slow Time spell works like bullet-time.

In Sniper Elite, players are treated to the "Bullet Cam" for every well-aimed shot, which shows the bullet in bullet time as it travels toward the target (usually his head) in slow motion and ends when the bullet penetrates the skull as brain matters and blood gushes out gruesomely from the target's head.

The PS2 game 10000 Bullets, focuses on this effect.

An unlockable feature of the game Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal allows the player to enable a feature that makes the camera pan around them when the Quick-Select menu is opened, thereby pausing the game as the camera circles around a frozen Ratchet.

The arcade game Virtual Cop 3 features an "Exceeding Sense" mode which, when activated by the player by stepping on a pedal, slows time down and allows players to shoot enemy bullets.

In Conker's Bad Fur Day: One of the final chapters of the N64 game (and also its remake on the Xbox) is a parody of the lobby scene from The Matrix, right down to the character's attire. This chapter is titled "Enter the Vertex".

The games Need For Speed: Most Wanted and its sequel Need For Speed: Carbon both contain a feature called the Speedbreaker which slows down time to a crawl, giving the player more time to react to dangerous situtations.

In Shadow the Hedgehog: After filling up the 'Hero gauge', Shadow becomes invincible with unlimited ammo. He is also able to use his trademark 'Chaos Control' to manipulate time and space. In regular gameplay, this warps Shadow through the level at an impossible speed. But in boss battles, using Chaos Control slows down time itself, allowing for a huge advantage.

In Sonic and the Secret Rings, one of Sonic's special abilities, Time Break, allows him to slow down time while moving at his (relatively) normal speed and more easily avoid attacks.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil contains an item called The Artifact that (after defeating a certain boss) can grant the player the ability to slow time affecting enemies and enemy projectiles making some fights easier.

Early in the game Project Snowblind, the player can receive an augmentation, the "Reflex Boost", which slows down time allowing the player to dodge bullets and make better decisions.

In True Crime: Streets of LA and True Crime: New York City, the player characters, with guns equipped, can utilize slow-motion diving techniques (something very akin to the Max Payne series) causing time to slow, but aiming remains normal. Also, a gun upgrade exists in both games that, when obtained, can slow the action for a few seconds when aiming in first-person mode or in third-person while driving for more precise shooting.

In games using the Half Life 2 source engine, time can be controlled using the console command "host_timescale x", with x values of a fraction of 1 providing slowed down gameplay.

The "Nail The Trick" feature found in Tony Hawk's Project 8 can slows the gameplay down, allowing the player to modify tricks in real time.

Driven, a game based on the movie of the same name, has a mode titled "The Zone", which activated, causes the edges of the screen to blur and the world to slow down while steering remains in real time.

A special ability in Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition/Remix called Zone (for Tuners, Sportbikes and Exotics only) slows down the game's speed, allowing for better split-second turning and handling.

In the video game Made Man killing enough people allows for an extreme slow motion mode, allowing you to line up your firing cursor for more accurate shooting.

In Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku, the player can pause the game while Jack is in mid-air and the camera would automatically pan around him. This same effect can be seen in the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation 2 version of Quake III Arena/Revolution. A minor difference in Quake III is that projectiles and some background and character textures will still animate while everything else is paused.

The videogame Total Overdose features various examples of Bullet Time such as jumping sideways in slow motion or using a special move which causes the main protagonist to spin around in slow motion and fire bullets.

In the Burnout 3: Takedown game, the Aftertouch affect allows the player to move the car in bullet time after crashing.

In Resistance: Fall of Man the player can trigger slow-motion with the alternative fire from the Fareye sniper rifle.

In the Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 video games, Spider-Sense is displayed as having a bullet time-like effect where the player is able to temporarily slow down time, although the technique is known as "Spider-Reflexes".

In popular culture

The popularity of The Matrix has given rise to many examples of bullet time being used in popular culture, quite often in a parodic manner:

  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - The main character throws marshmallows at his father as he catches them in his mouth. It is a near-perfect recreation of Neo's famous drop to evade incoming bullets in The Matrix, down to the light-distorting wake of radiating rings coming from the path of the projectiles.
  • Angel - In the Season 3 episode "A New World", Angel's son Connor comes out of a portal from Quor-Toth and attempts to kill his father in a surprisingly Matrix-esque bullet-time sequence featuring flying axes and stakes. Season 4 also includes lots of slow-motion fight scenes.
  • Austin Stevens: Snakemaster - In episode 7, "In Search of The Giant Anaconda", Austin Stevens finds a 14-foot Green Anaconda and when he grabs the Anaconda out of the water the camera zooms in slightly, pauses still, and "rotates" around at the same time, and then plays. The same happens when Stevens finds a King Cobra in episode 8, "In Search of the King Cobra" and when he finds a Rinkhals Spitting cobra in episode 9, "Seven Deadly Strikes".
  • Buffalo 66 - near the end of the movie Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) imagines shooting the owner of a strip club to whom he owns money. Subsequently he turns the gun on himself - at the point of impact the movie shifts to a bullet time effect to the climax of Yes's "Heart of the Sunrise".
  • Excel Saga - A crudely rendered 3D model shown in episode 9 is shot multiple times while the camera rotates.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends - During Bloo's high budget film, Wilt is suspended in the air as the camera rotates (it is actually running around in circles) around him while he hands a sandwich to Coco while on a pirate ship.
  • FLCL - The camera performs a dramatic flyby as the main character is administered CPR in episode 1; after the scene the characters are shown in a production trailer complaining about how difficult it was to move so slowly. 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.
  • Futurama - In the episode "Three Hundred Big Boys", Earth President Richard Nixon issues a tax rebate of $300 to the entire population of Earth, which Fry chooses to spend all on coffee. On his 100th cup, he becomes able to save his friends and other party guests from a fire (and put it out) in bullet time. In the episode "A Clone of My Own" toward the end of the episode when the spaceship is escaping from the "Near-Death Star," as the ship powers up there is a brief momoent when the scene halts and the aspect rotates around the ship.
  • 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.
  • Jatt and Bond - In this Pakistani sitcom, the character Jatt dogdes slippers being thrown at him much like Neo in the original Matrix film.
  • Kamen Rider Kabuto - In Kamen Rider Kabuto riders in Rider form almost always use a Clock-Up, a function which slows everything around them. Bullets are being slow in that mode.
  • Matrix ping pong - A live-action Ping Pong game spoofing the bullet time style featured on a Japanese game show.
  • Over the Hedge - Bullet time is used in the scene where Hammy the Squirrel drinks a highly caffienated soda, causing a severely exaggerated bullet time effect that lasts for a couple minutes, everyone and everything appearing nearly completely frozen in time, giving Hammy time enough to casually turn on a laser trap, retrieve and eat a cookie from the roof of a house, and reposition another trap to snag one of the villains' legs before time returns to normal.
  • The Perfect Score - There is a flashback sequence for one of the characters that is an exact recreation of the first scene of The Matrix, featuring Trinity's famous bullet time kick move.
  • RuneScape - One of the traps in the agility arena involves 3 darts being fired at the character. If the character succeeds in negotiating the trap, then the darts are shown flying towards the character in slow motion as he/she bends over backwards to evade them, while the camera is moving around the character. This is another almost perfect recreation of a scene from The Matrix in which Neo performs his first bullet-dodging maneuver, in 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.
  • School Rumble - This anime features two different parodies of bullet-time. The first is a scene in episode 3 in which Harima Kenji dodges a volley of arrows; the second takes place during a computer-animated sequence at the end of episode 17, and involves Takano Akira dodging bullets fired at her by members of the Italian Mafia.
  • Shrek - During a bullet-time freeze in the middle of a fight scene, Fiona primps her hair while suspended in mid-drop-kick. (An additional joke is that bullet time, while a complex task for a live-action film, is comparatively simple to create in computer animation, and that most films that employ bullet time use computer animation to accomplish the task.)
  • The Simpsons - The couch gag of the "Insane Clown Poppy" episode involves the family running towards and jumping at the couch. The screen freezes as the camera rotates. As the screen unfreezes, the family lands on the couch while Homer falls onto the ground. The episode "New Kids on the Blecch", featuring 'N Sync, also includes a reference to bullet time. The group is improvising a dance routine as one member calls out the names of the moves. As he says "...And close with a matrix," all the members of the group rise into the air in martial-arts inspired poses, while the camera arcs around them. After, four of them land gracefully while the fifth falls flat on his face.
  • Slayers Premium - Gourry dodges a group of attacking octopi before slicing them with his sword.
  • Superman Returns - In an early rooftop scene, Superman intercepts machine gun bullets shot at two security guards. To illustrate Superman's speed, much of the scene is in bullet time except for Superman, who even in bullet time is moving faster than a normal human would in real time. In the same scene a bullet is fired into Superman's eye, as the camera rotates around the bullet. The bullet is crushed as it hits Superman's eye.
  • 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.
  • Without a Paddle - Dan (Seth Green) is so stoned (albeit unintentionally) that he hallucinates that he is dodging bullets, like in The Matrix, ending with a truth in parody moment "Oh my back."
  • Xiao Xiao series - The protagonist stick figure uses bullet time to great effect.

The easy recognition and arguably heavy use of bullet time has led some to point out that bullet time scenes are becoming film cliché.

External links

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