Bullet time
Bullet Time is also the name of a novel in the Past Doctor Adventures range
Bullet time (or bullet-time) is a computer-enhanced variation of slow-motion special effects used in some recent films 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 by 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 all-but 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, flo mo, mort temps and virtual cinematography.
Technology
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 QTVR and Motion VR, Universal Capture, 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.
While independent artists had been experimenting for years, the first concrete example of bullet time in the commercial domain can be found in the obscure 1981 action film Kill and Kill Again. An extended bullet time sequence occurs in Terry Gilliam's 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in which one of the protagonists actually runs down and intercepts a bullet intended for the titular character, the Baron von Munchausen (John Neville). In this scene, the character Berthold (Eric Idle), the world's fastest runner, pursues the bullet, eventually catching up to it mid-flight. He attempts to grab it several times, but fails each time due to burns suffered when touching the bullet, which is superheated due to the friction of high-speed flight. Eventually, Berhold manages to deflect at the last minute, saving the Baron's life.
The first music video to use bullet-time was Army of Me, released by Björk in 1995 [citation needed]. 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 [1]. 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.
Other early applications of the concept:
- The Return of the Pink Panther, 1975. Inspector Clouseau practices kung-fu with Cato in bullet-time.
- 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]
- Videoclip for Coolio "C U When I Get There", 1996.
- "Little Bitty" Alan Jackson video 1996.
- 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 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 relativley smooth transitions from The Matrix.
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.
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.
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, 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" (an obvious reference 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 diluted 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.
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 the Patriots. 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 has yet to make a re-apperance in the Metal Gear Solid series.
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.
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.
Parodies
The popularity of The Matrix has given rise to several parodies of bullet time:
- The Simpsons - One of the "Couch Gags" 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.
- Futurama - In one episode, 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 perform an action in bullet time, saving his friends and party guests from a fire.
- 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: Enter the Fist - 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.
- FLCL - 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 in a virtual reality game.
- Without a Paddle - Dan (Seth Green) is so stoned, unintentionally, that he hallucinates that he is dodging bullets, like in The Matrix, ending with a truth in parody moment "Oh my back."
- 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".
- 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.
- Slayers Premium - Gourry dodges a group of attacking octopuses before slicing them with his sword.
- 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.
- The City of Lost Souls - two CG chickens have a cock fight directly copied from The Matrix
- 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.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - the main character throws marshmallows at his father and catches them in his mouth.
- Matrix ping pong - Live-action Ping Pong game, spoofing the Bullet Time style, on Japanese game show.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film version) - The Knight Bus segment when Harry is being taken to The Leaky Cauldron takes advantage of bullet time when it has to squeeze between two non-magical double-decker buses. This segment takes humorous advantage of the magic quality of the Harry Potter world by having the Muggle world go into bullet time slow motion, while inside the Knight Bus Harry, Stan Shunpike, and the driver (and the talking shrunken head) keep moving in real time.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - In one scene, Jack Sparrow fires at a barrel full of gunpowder, and bullet time effects are used.
- Alien vs. Predator - In the first scene featuring the facehugger, bullet time is used as the creature leaps out of its egg to impregnate its victim with a chestburster embryo.
- 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 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)
- Bullet Time Fighting Game - A parody game of the slow gun-fighting battles found in the Matrix.