The Bullet Time effect, known from the Matrix trilogy, keeps time standing still as the camera moves through the room. With the Stop Motion technique, you can rebuild this spectacular effect relatively easily.
In this short example video you can see the effect in action!
As you can see in the video, the figure “stays in the air” while the camera moves in a circle around the scene. So you can give the viewers a good and spectacular overview of an action scene.
But how does it work? For the effect to work, you have to move the camera around the set. In practice, it is easier if you do not move the camera but the set itself. As you can see in this photo, the camera is fixed on a tripod and the set is placed on a turntable. The background also hangs down from above so that it is always exactly opposite the camera lens.
Since the camera is not moved, you can achieve a smooth and jitter-free movement by turning the set. You only have to move the turntable a little bit after each picture. Start with small movements and increase the distances to the middle, until they become smaller towards the end of the scene. So you make a smooth transition between the rotation of the Bullet Time sequence and the rest of the scene.
If the character is in the air during the Bullet Time spin, as in my example scene, you’ll need to support them with LEGO® bricks while shooting. In this case, I put it on a transparent stone. You then have to remove this support later on the computer, image by image, with an image processing software, for example with Adobe Photoshop or GIMP.
