Freeze Frame Camera changes a la Matrix

[Mind Warp]

I know the basics of this camera trick:
Get a bunch of cameras aranged in a semi-(or quarter) circle filming. in the edit suite you somehow morph the different camera angles together.
Is there anyone who can explain in more detail exactly how i could do this?

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- MW!

[nol]

In the Matrix, they used a computer to create frames between those they shot. This was done to make the effect a lot smoother.
So, infact alot of the shot isn't Keanu at all, but a computer generated blur.
If you don't have access to the kind of facilities they used, then you may find it a bit tricky.
nol

[mattias]

get a morphing program (search at download.com), grab a frame from each camera that corresponds to the same moment in time, and make a few in-between frames by morphing nearby angles to each other. it's actually that simple. to avoid parallax artifacts in the morphing process, either matte the background out in photoshop (or remove the foreground to morph the background), or go the green screen way (and make a new background in 3d-studio).

and by the way: you don't really need that many cameras if you're working at video resolution. one per 10-20 degrees should be enough. try it -- i did and was pleased with the results, even though it was harder to get it right than i thought it would be...

[Mr_Koffee]

In the matrix they used a camera(s) which looks like a big curved beam with 40 or something mini camera along it.
When used they all either take a shot at once or in quick succession.

There is NO morphing of the image, you just go from one camera image to the next.

This sort of camera has also been used in a documentry on the human body. (Was filmed in the UK if I remember correctly)

0 = camera

|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
Looks like this but curved.

[tim_elliott]

koffee boy you are wrong! there are computer generated frames between the ones actually used with the static cameras. this is described on the "bullet time" making of section on the video of the Matrix. Think about it, film runs ar 24 or 24 frames per second. in the rig there are no where near 24 cameras for every second of resulting footage so they had to"flesh it out" a bit with computer effects. this is why it looks so much smoother than when the technique was used previously on things like natural history programs (anyone in UK remmber the shots of dolphins leaping etc. in that documentary? it was really jerky because it only used the frames from the cameras. the people who spoke about cg inbetween footage were right!

[mattias]

yes, there is morphing of the frames. they used motion tracking software to do it automatically, but they still had to do a lot of rotoscoping and manual specifying of morphing paths to clean up the computer generated stuff.

besides, i wouldn't call the canon eos 1 a "mini camera". :-)

[This message has been edited by mattias (edited January 24, 2000).]

[binxalot]

There is a program called "photomorph" that does exacty that. You can take a bunch of pictures and it will make the in-between frames of animation into an Avi.

[director666]

That technology that you saw in 'The Matrix' is called 'Flo-Mo' or 'Bullet-Time Photgraphy' as the Wachowski brothers refer to it.

[hitcher]

This seems to cause confusion and argument quite often.

The answer:

The Matrix does 'tween' between frames by adding computer generated frames which lie between each camera shot frame. The producers of this film dubbed the techniques 'Bullet Time'

The confusion of 'Mr_Koffee' and others is with a technique called 'time sliceing' which uses a number of still camera lens built into an arc and triggered simultaneously (or near as makes no difference) which each expose an area of 'long' film stock. This length of film can then be scanned along to produce a moving circuit (or part thereof) of an apparantly still image. By adding a movie/video camera at each end of the still lens arc you can put a moving sequence together where an object moves towards the camera, the camera then apparantly swings round the object faster than the object can move and then the obkect moves again, now viewed from a new angle.

This first time I remember seeing the technique was on a wildlife documentary about dolphins, where the techniques was used to arc round a dolphin in mid leap.

Since then the technology has become commonplace. A gap advert, bork video are a couple of instances I remember seeing it.


For a full explaination of 'Bullet time' get a copy of the Matrix widescreen (may be on standard release too - but I don't know 'cos I don't have it) version on video or DVD which has a short program included all about it.

Hitcher