|
Bullet time (also known as adrenaline time, focus time, frozen time, the big freeze, dead time, flow motion, slowing-your-roll or time slice) is a visual effect or visual impression of detaching the time and space of a camera (or viewer) from that of its visible subject. It is a depth enhanced simulation of variable-speed action and performance found in films, broadcast advertisements, and realtime graphics within video games and other special media. It is characterized both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and unfilmable 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 virtual world 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, ''temps mort'', and virtual cinematography. The term "bullet time" is a registered trademark of Warner Bros., formally established in March 2005, in connection with the video game ''The Matrix Online''.〔(USPTO ) (Trademark serial number #78285661 )〕 The term had first been used within the original script of the 1999 film ''The Matrix'',〔 and later in reference to the slow motion effects in the 2001 video game ''Max Payne''.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Max Payne )〕 In the years since the introduction of the term during The Matrix films it has become a vastly applied expression in popular culture. == History == The technique of using a group of still cameras to freeze motion occurred before the invention of cinema itself. It dates back to the 19th-century experiments by Eadweard Muybridge, who analyzed the motion of a galloping horse by using a line of cameras to photograph the animal as it ran past.〔 Eadweard Muybridge used still cameras placed along a racetrack, and 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. The first widely noticed predecessor of bullet time were Leni Riefenstahl's famous diving sequences from her documentary ''Olympia'' of the Olympic Games in 1936. Riefenstahl used a single camera slow motion tracking shot technique to achieve a similar effect. 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. In effect, however, Muybridge had achieved the aesthetic opposite to modern 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. The first application of bullet time was depicted in a scene from the 1962 movie ''Zotz!'' 〔()〕 where Professor Jonathan Jones uses a magical amulet and shouts the word 'Zotz!' to slow down a speeding bullet. 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 1966 Japanese anime series ''Speed Racer'': as Speed leaps from the Mach Five, he freezes in mid-jump, and then the camera does an arc shot from front to sideways. In 1980, Tim Macmillan started producing pioneering video work〔Video of (Tim Macmillan Early Work 1980 - 1994 ) on Vimeo〕 in this field while studying for a BA at the (then named) Bath Academy of Art using 16mm film arranged in a progressing sequence of pinhole cameras. The first music video to use aspects of bullet-time was "Midnight Mover", a 1985 Accept video.〔(ACCEPT Remembered - Discography - Metal Heart )〕 In the 1990s, a morphing-based variation on time-slicing was employed by director Michel Gondry and the visual effects company BUF Compagnie in the music video for The Rolling Stones' "Like A Rolling Stone",〔〔http://www.buf.com/tv.php?id=573&display=movie&year=1995&type=VideoClip〕 and in a 1996 Smirnoff commercial the effect was used to depict slow-motion bullets being dodged.〔http://www.buf.com/tv.php?id=141&display=movie&year=1996&type=Commercial〕 Similar time-slice effects were also featured in commercials for The Gap (which was directed by M.Rolston and again produced by BUF),〔http://www.buf.com/tv.php?id=176&display=gallery&year=1998&type=Commercial〕 and in feature films such as ''Lost in Space'' (1998)〔 and ''Buffalo '66'' (1998).〔 and the television program ''The Human Body'' It is well-established for feature films' action scenes to be depicted using slow-motion footage, for example the gunfights in ''The Wild Bunch'' (directed by Sam Peckinpah) and the heroic bloodshed films of John Woo. Subsequently, the 1998 film ''Blade'' featured a scene that used computer generated bullets and slow-motion footage to illustrate characters' superhuman bullet-dodging reflexes. The 1999 film ''The Matrix'' combined these elements (gunfight action scenes, superhuman bullet-dodging, and time-slice effects), popularizing both the effect and the term "bullet-time". ''The Matrix'' For artistic inspiration for bullet time, I would credit Otomo Katsuhiro, who co-wrote and directed ''Akira'', which definitely blew me away, along with director Michel Gondry. His music videos experimented with a different type of technique called view-morphing and it was just part of the beginning of uncovering the creative approaches toward using still cameras for special effects. Our technique was significantly different because we built it to move around objects that were themselves in motion, and we were also able to create slow-motion events that 'virtual cameras' could move around – rather than the static action in Gondry's music videos with limited camera moves. Following ''The Matrix'', bullet time and other slow-motion effects were featured as key gameplay mechanics in various video games. Cyclone Studios' ''Requiem: Avenging Angel'', released in March 1999, features slow-motion effects.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Requiem: Avenging Angel Review )〕 Remedy Entertainment's 2001 video game ''Max Payne'' contains a slow-motion mechanic that allows players to view the paths of bullets, an effect explicitly referred to as "Bullet Time". Bullet time was used for the first time in a live music environment in October 2009 for Creed's live DVD ''Creed Live''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Creed Announce First Live DVD )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「bullet time」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|