Bullet time

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Bullet Time (from English bullet ' projectile ' and time ' time ') describes a photogrammetric special effect in film art , which creates the impression of a tracking shot around an object frozen in time. It makes quick events, such as flying pistol bullets, accurate and visible from different angles . Slowdowns to a standstill and even time running backwards are also possible. In addition to action films, bullet time is also used in video games .

A similar process, but with ultra-short exposure and intermediate image calculation , is Frozen Reality .

The term Bullet Time is a registered trademark of Warner Bros. , the distributor of the motion picture Matrix . Previously it was a trademark of 3D Realms , the producer of the Max Payne games.

history

The foundations of the concept were laid in 1967 in the Japanese animated series Speed ​​Racer , in the opening credits of which the protagonist jumps out of his vehicle while the camera rotates 90 ° to the side. The 1975 film The Pink Panther Returns showed a slow-motion kung fu fight. Probably the first real example of Bullet Time can be found in the South African action film Kill and Kill Again from 1981. The slow-motion shots in the films City Wolf and Hard Boiled by John Woo are also considered to be style- defining .

The effect was subsequently used in advertising as well, and eventually made popular through films such as Blade and Matrix .

In addition to Cubism, the special effects artist Tim MacMillan explicitly names the pioneer of chronophotography Eadweard Muybridge as the forerunner of the bullet-time technique.

technology

A cinematic bullet time effect is not achieved by a real tracking shot. Rather, it is a series of single image recordings of the same scene by several cameras, which creates the optical impression of a tracking shot.

Despite the simple principle, the effect often requires the massive use of CGI techniques in practice. The slightest, unavoidable deviations from the individual positions of the imaginary tracking shot (selected image section) and minimally deviating settings (focus, brightness) must be corrected. In order to stretch the resulting recording, the individual images are blended into one another and non-existent intermediate steps are created in this way ( motion interpolation ).

With almost complete revolutions around the object to be recorded, the cameras opposite can also become visible, which is why, for example, in the film Matrix, the actors were recorded against a green background (green screen technology ) and the surroundings were replaced by computer-generated scenes.

The movie Matrix

In the film Matrix , John Gaeta, who is responsible for special effects , realized Bullet Time by setting up 122 single-image cameras and two moving-image cameras around the scene. In retrospect, a single virtual tracking shot was generated from this in the computer .

In one scene, the character Trinity played by Carrie-Anne Moss jumps into the air, whereupon time seems to stop. The viewer can follow a slow jump step while the camera appears to be moving around the scene at high speed.

The technology was then imitated and satirized in various films , for example in Shrek or Scary Movie , and is now considered the standard in Hollywood .

Computer games

Some computer games also use bullet time modes. Here the speed of the virtual world is greatly slowed down. The character, opponents and projectiles move in slow motion during activated bullet time. This gives the player more time to perform actions such as aiming, evading, or healing. The first game in which bullet time was used is Requiem: Avenging Angel from 1999. Often Max Payne is mentioned as the first game with bullet time; however, it did not appear until two years later.

Input devices such as keyboard or joystick are still queried in real time. After activation, the bullet time is only available for a limited period of time - around five to ten seconds. An exception is the indie sandbox shooter Ravenfield , where the bullet time is unlimited, since most standard weapons in the game have a very high damage and usually knock down the player or opponent with two shots and kill with two more shots, and so on dodging in bullet time becomes an essential element of the game.

Examples are Max Payne , El Matador , Red Dead Revolver , Red Dead Redemption , Jedi Outcast , FEAR , Tomb Raider Legend , Enter the Matrix , The Matrix: Path of Neo , Total Overdose , Timeshift and Stranglehold . Bullet Time is also used in the mods The Specialist ( Half-Life ) and Matto4 ( Far Cry ). Aside from the first-person shooter genre, similar effects were used in some racing games in the Need for Speed series, among others, in order to depict particularly spectacular game scenes such as jumps or accidents from a different perspective.

Earlier computer games such as Unreal allowed the game to be slowed down by entering console commands . In contrast to newer games, the effect is not incorporated into the game mechanics here.

literature

  • Winfried Gerling: The frozen time or the moving, still film image. In: Stefanie Diekmann, Winfried Gerling (Ed.): Freeze Frames. On the relationship between photography and film. Bielefeld: transcript (Metabasis, 4) 2010, pp. 147–170.
  • Bob Rehak: The Migration of Forms. Bullet Time as Micro-Genre. In: Film Criticism 32 (1), 2007, pp. 26-48.
  • Gunnar Schmidt: The simultaneity of looks. In: ders .: visualizations of the event. Media aesthetic considerations on movement and standing still , transcript, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-8376-1076-5 (text)
  • Dayton Taylor: Virtual Camera Movement: The Way of the Future? In: American Cinematographer 77,9, Sept. 1996, pp. 93-100.

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