How to Fake the Look of ‘Bullet Time’ Using a Single Camera

Here’s a new 3-minute music video by Russian/Ukrainian group 5’Nizza. In it, the band finds themselves in a variety of situations, but as the action is frozen they keep on singing while the camera pans around them. How was it done? It turns out the effect was created with a single moving camera and a green screen.

The “bullet time” effect was popularized by the film The Matrix, in which Neo appears to stop bullets in their tracks while the camera spins around him. For the Hollywood film, they used multiple camera systems, digital compositing, and computer-generated characters to create the famous scenes.

But with a limited budget for this new music video, director Max Ksjonda had a different idea.

Instead of spending a huge amount of money on fancy rigs and editing, he suspended the band members into the air alongside a variety of props. The ropes and supports were then removed in editing, and the background added in thanks to the green screen.

This animated GIF shows the comparison of the video before (right) and after (left) the editing process:

You can see the full music video again, but this time without the post production editing:

Clever.

(via Max Ksjonda via Gizmodo)