How do the special effects guys do that “freeze action, circular pan” (as best as I can describe it – if you can describe better, I would appreciate it) that I’ve been seeing recently in some tv commercials and movies? In some of the commercials on tv, people will be doing some activity, then the action will ‘freeze’, but then the camera will continue to pan around the ‘frozen’ action. IIRC, I think they used it some in The Matrix.
The Washington Post had an article about the Gap ads that helped popularize that technique. Apparently it’s done by taking multiple still photographs at different angles. These stills are then strung together to create the effect.
I saw how they do this on a TV program once. Basically they have a huge semicircular hoop to which they fix loads of still cameras pointing at the middle of the hoop. They put the subject in the middle, take the still shots all at one, then they use a computer to fill in the gaps between shots.
(I assume the hoop isn’t a complete semicircle 'cos then you’d see the opposite cameras at each end, but I think that’s the principle)
IIRC the hoop can be a complete circle, but it isn’t all on the same plane. That is, it spirals up (or down, if you’re a pessimist) so that the camera directly across isn’t necessarily in the field of view. They can also mask / hide the camera with a blue screen, or whatever.
The Matrix DVD has a fairly good segment on what they did to create the effect. The particular name of the director escapes me at the moment, but its invention is usually credited to one of the Hong Kong style filmmakers.
They can be all on the same plane if you want, you just have to edit out the cameras from each shot; hardly a difficult thing to do with some blue paint and a blue screen. IIRC, the first time this effect was used in a film was the unbelievably awful movie Wing Commander.
the matrix really pissed me off. Not because it was bad (which it wasn’t; I loved the hell out of it), but because I had thought of something like this in high school.
I wanted to half-circle around a guy as he fired a gun, but have the firing be frozen the whole time, finally coming underneath the muzzle and having the bullet then slowly come out of the gun.
Laying in bed, I thought to myself “Hey wait. If I were to film a guy firing a gun (and not have it be frozen), I would have a bunch of pictures documenting movement through time. If I had each frame taken by a different camera, I could freeze time and move through space.”
But of course, I had no money, let alone cameras, so it wasn’t done. The MAtrix may have taken my idea, but at least it did it badassedly.
jb
Actually, the device used to do it was patented by Dayton Taylor, an American cinematographer.
I recommend checking out the site of Timetrack, the company he formed to market this techique. It’s got loads of info on these cameras and some pictures of them in use on-set.
I saw one go in at LEAST a half circle…
In the video for Creed’s “Higher”… right at the end.