Gizmodo
Head to Instructables for a tutorial about how to do your own spectacular Matrix-like ghetto Bullet Time videos for those lovely OMG-grandma's-is-frozen-in-time-and-space moments. Using nothing more than wood, tubes, a whole lot of digital point-n-shots, one external shutter trigger and a box full of relays, you will be able to play Neo in the hood, but without red pills, white rabbits and black shiny latex. Or maybe with all that too.
Head to Instructables for a tutorial about how to do your own spectacular Matrix-like ghetto Bullet Time videos for those lovely OMG-grandma's-is-frozen-in-time-and-space moments. Using nothing more than wood, tubes, a whole lot of digital point-n-shots, one external shutter trigger and a box full of relays, you will be able to play Neo in the hood, but without red pills, white rabbits and black shiny latex. Or maybe with all that too.Although Bullet Time is a patented process, nothing stops you from making such a device for your own use. It doesn't have to be as complete as the one in the tutorial and since old digital cameras are a buck-a-piece on eBay, it won't break the bank.
The Bullet Time trick is easy: you line your cameras on a wood arch, connect them to your trigger box and fire them in quick succession. The cameras will grab a series of frames which, put together in a video editing program, will give the illusion of frozen time while the camera travels through the scene. This rig was developed by "Graffiti Research Lab and director Dan the Man to use in a hip-hop music video for underground rappers Styles P, AZ and the legendary Large Professor," who is the guy in the loop above. [Instructables]
(Music in the loop by Bret and Jemaine)
Comments
At Home? Who has 20 identical digital camera's lying around anyways...
You are supposed to morph the individual frames to get a smoother effect.
The more Flight of the Concords I have in my day, the better. Thanks giz!
The top video sounds like Lyrics Born
?They call me the hiphopotamus my lyrics are bottomless......." I'm reading this post solely because i love FoTC.
@impendingdoom: did steve tell you that, per chance?
Steve.
Oh is THAT all it takes...
FoTC FTW!
How does the first video have anything do with this?
@bms74: Didn't you listen???He's like a rinoceros because the birds are on his back and he's horny.
Geez. Some people.
@DustyButt: My bad. Had to listen to it again. Now it makes sense.
"He's a psycho killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est?"
FotC is brilliant.
Very cool idea. I thought about doing something like this, but the whole idea of hooking up electronic or mechanical triggers to a bunch of cheap cameras, creating adjustable stands, setting them to pre-focus, etc. etc. seemed pretty daunting.
I do have a nitpick about that video they used though... If that first video was done using the bullet time process, it was kind of silly.
A circular pan around a person standing still with their hands up? Doesn't exactly demonstrate "bullet time"? It looks exactly the same as if we took a videocam, and walked around a guy standing still :P
C'mon... lol... that video is like demo-ing the world's first movie camera... by taking a movie of an stationary apple sitting on table. Next time, he should JUMP and be in the air or something... spill a glass of water... then we'd see its "bullet time".
@jesusdiaz: What kind of a rap name is "Steve"?
@OftenNot: Precisely.
A better way to control the cameras:
[breezesys.com]
--Bill
Uh, sorry but these FoTC guys suck. Its all been done before. The video looks like a cheap rip off of Beastie Boys, 0 for originality. Who wrote their lyrics, Tom Green?
[youtube.com]
@impendingdoom:
"They call me the hiphopotamus my lyrics are bottomless......."
hiphopotamus was mildly amusing when Rob Schneider said it in Big Daddy a long time ago...the rest of the line is an iambic disaster
If you want to freeze time you should fire off all those cameras at the same time rather than "in quick succession." The latter will give you a impressively drastic slow-mo look but the moment won't actually be "frozen."
I think Schneider said "Hip Hop Anonymous"
@dcartist: A circular pan around a person standing still with their hands up? Doesn't exactly demonstrate "bullet time"?
There is, of course, the matter of those light trails all 'round him, though...
@exigent: Get a sense of humor. It's a pisstake.
@Pixelologist:
I see... my bad. I thought the light trails were just badly animated in.
@jesusdiaz:
Obviously, but that alone does not make it funny IMO. A little originality and at least a smidge of talent is necessary. Both are absent. Is Tom Green funny? Andy Milanokis? No cuz they tried to hard to be too random and have no talent. Random randomness is boring. MY apologies if I only credit humor where it's properly due.
@exigent:
My guess is that you don't think Andy Kaufman was funny either...just a wild guess.
Andy Kaufman was before my time. I remember him on SNL when I was a kid doin the might mouse thing on the record. That was brilliant because it was fresh and original. His shock and awe acts were groundbreaking, he was obviously intelligent, so I would have been a big fan.
BTW comparing apples to rotten cabbage never works, Oasis once said that they are bigger than the beatles just because they sold more records. Why is that claim false?
I can't believe the Giz is finally starting to catch up with FOTC. Great show. Anyone seen the 2nd season?
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