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Timeslice (or time slice, also known as bullet time, frozen time, time freeze, and timetrack) is a visual special effect in which variable speed photography ( slow motion, time-lapse, freeze frame, etc.) is combined with a moving viewpoint to simulate dynamic movement through a slowed or frozen film shot, or to portray normally imperceptible high-speed events, such as flying bullets. [1]
As an optical filming technique, it is accomplished by the use of multiple synchronized still cameras; a single shot from each camera is used in a single frame of a moving picture to create the illusion of a single camera moving through a slowed or stopped landscape. [2]
Timeslice is distinct from regular slow motion, in which camera movement (if any) is also slowed (in proportion to the slowing of the film). It is also distinct from the narrative device of stopped time, in which a character moves through a "frozen" landscape due to time being stopped (or due to the character's movements being sped to the point where other objects stand still, or nearly so). Howver, timeslice effects may be used to simulate stopped time.
As an optical filming technique, timeslice is accomplished by the use of multiple synchronized still cameras surrounding a subject.
was originally achieved photographically by a set of still cameras surrounding the subject. These arrays can be triggered at the same time, or a linear sequence. Single 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.
In The Matrix, the camera path was pre-designed using computer-generated visualizations as a guide. Cameras were arranged, behind a green or blue screen, 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.
An effect equivalent to timeslice can also be rendered directly using 3D computer graphics.
As an optical technique, timeslice was commercialized in 1996 by Dayton Taylor (who called it "timetrack") and used in several television commercials. [3] The technique was popularized under the name "bullet time" by the Wachowski brothers, who used it extensively in The Matrix series of films, starting in 1999. [1]
Long before the emergence of a technology permitting a live-action application, visual sequences similar to the timeslice technique were featured in cel animation. One of the earliest examples is the shot at the end of the title sequence for the late-1960s Japanese anime series Speed Racer: as Speed leaps from the Mach Five, he freezes in mid-jump and the camera does an arc shot from front to side view.
Although the movie Blade, made in 1998, incorporated bullet-dodging scenes similar to the "bullet time" sequences in The Matrix, these scenes did not use timeslice techniques; the bullets were computer-generated and digitally implemented.
Antecedents to timeslice 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 engaged in, as to whether all four of the animal's legs would leave the ground when galloping.) 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 may have been an inspiration for Thomas Edison to explore the idea of motion pictures. ( Hendricks 1961)
Muybridge also took photos of actions from many angles at the same instant in time, to study how the human body went up stairs, for example. This is the effect used in The Matrix, and other movies, and is achieved roughly the same way as Muybridge set up his shots. In effect, however, Muybridge had achieved the aesthetic opposite to The Matrix's bullet-time sequences, since his studies lacked the dimensionality of the later developments. A debt may also be owed to MIT professor Doc Edgerton, who, in the 1940s, captured now-iconic photos of bullets using xenon strobe lights to "freeze" motion.
John Woo is also famous for incorporating slow motion shoot outs in his movies, such as A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled. These films would later influence media such as Max Payne and The Matrix series.
The first music video to use bullet-time was " Army of Me", a 1995 Björk video directed by Michel Gondry. [4] 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 television commercials. [5] 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 BUF Compagnie 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 utilized state-of-the-art image-based computer rendering techniques pioneered in Paul Debevec's 1997 film [6] and custom evolved for the Matrix by George Borshukov, an early collaborator of Debevec.
This section may contain material
not related to the topic of the article. |
This article needs additional citations for
verification. (March 2009) |
Timeslice (or time slice, also known as bullet time, frozen time, time freeze, and timetrack) is a visual special effect in which variable speed photography ( slow motion, time-lapse, freeze frame, etc.) is combined with a moving viewpoint to simulate dynamic movement through a slowed or frozen film shot, or to portray normally imperceptible high-speed events, such as flying bullets. [1]
As an optical filming technique, it is accomplished by the use of multiple synchronized still cameras; a single shot from each camera is used in a single frame of a moving picture to create the illusion of a single camera moving through a slowed or stopped landscape. [2]
Timeslice is distinct from regular slow motion, in which camera movement (if any) is also slowed (in proportion to the slowing of the film). It is also distinct from the narrative device of stopped time, in which a character moves through a "frozen" landscape due to time being stopped (or due to the character's movements being sped to the point where other objects stand still, or nearly so). Howver, timeslice effects may be used to simulate stopped time.
As an optical filming technique, timeslice is accomplished by the use of multiple synchronized still cameras surrounding a subject.
was originally achieved photographically by a set of still cameras surrounding the subject. These arrays can be triggered at the same time, or a linear sequence. Single 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.
In The Matrix, the camera path was pre-designed using computer-generated visualizations as a guide. Cameras were arranged, behind a green or blue screen, 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.
An effect equivalent to timeslice can also be rendered directly using 3D computer graphics.
As an optical technique, timeslice was commercialized in 1996 by Dayton Taylor (who called it "timetrack") and used in several television commercials. [3] The technique was popularized under the name "bullet time" by the Wachowski brothers, who used it extensively in The Matrix series of films, starting in 1999. [1]
Long before the emergence of a technology permitting a live-action application, visual sequences similar to the timeslice technique were featured in cel animation. One of the earliest examples is the shot at the end of the title sequence for the late-1960s Japanese anime series Speed Racer: as Speed leaps from the Mach Five, he freezes in mid-jump and the camera does an arc shot from front to side view.
Although the movie Blade, made in 1998, incorporated bullet-dodging scenes similar to the "bullet time" sequences in The Matrix, these scenes did not use timeslice techniques; the bullets were computer-generated and digitally implemented.
Antecedents to timeslice 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 engaged in, as to whether all four of the animal's legs would leave the ground when galloping.) 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 may have been an inspiration for Thomas Edison to explore the idea of motion pictures. ( Hendricks 1961)
Muybridge also took photos of actions from many angles at the same instant in time, to study how the human body went up stairs, for example. This is the effect used in The Matrix, and other movies, and is achieved roughly the same way as Muybridge set up his shots. In effect, however, Muybridge had achieved the aesthetic opposite to The Matrix's bullet-time sequences, since his studies lacked the dimensionality of the later developments. A debt may also be owed to MIT professor Doc Edgerton, who, in the 1940s, captured now-iconic photos of bullets using xenon strobe lights to "freeze" motion.
John Woo is also famous for incorporating slow motion shoot outs in his movies, such as A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled. These films would later influence media such as Max Payne and The Matrix series.
The first music video to use bullet-time was " Army of Me", a 1995 Björk video directed by Michel Gondry. [4] 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 television commercials. [5] 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 BUF Compagnie 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 utilized state-of-the-art image-based computer rendering techniques pioneered in Paul Debevec's 1997 film [6] and custom evolved for the Matrix by George Borshukov, an early collaborator of Debevec.
This section may contain material
not related to the topic of the article. |