How do they make those pictures where the subject is in suspended animation but the camera pans around it?

Question

I imagine you need hundreds of cameras all going off at the same time. But it looks more complicated than that.

Answer 1

It's called "bullet time," and you're right. It needs lots of cameras arranged in the right pattern and going off in the right sequence.

There's a good article about the techniques, history, and future of bullet time at Wikipedia that you might want to check out. I also saw a feature about it on one of "The Matrix" DVD special features recently. (I think it was the "Matrix Revolutions" DVD.)

JMB

Answer 2

There is actually a very, very simple way to pull that off.

It involves just one camera also.

Mount a camera on a rotating floor. Across from the camera covering about 1/4 of the outside diameter of the floor place a green screen. This set it so that whenever the camera rotates around the central point of the floor, the green screen rotates with it. Just suspend your subject in the center, rotate the floor and then just import your scene over the green screen. Voila...

Actually, bullet time refers to the process of shooting two subjects at two different film speeds producing a slow motion video over a normal speed video.

Answer 3

Do you ever try panning the camera with slow speed (longer time) say 1 second and trying to keep the subjet it the center of frame?

I other words, you press the shutter, and since it remains 1 sec open, you follow your subject trying to keep in the same place, until it closes; I did this many times with excelent results.

Answer 4

Actually,you have guessed right.Many high quality camera are kept along side each other and they take the picture which is later put together.