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What do you call this effect and how do you do it?
  • There is a behind the scenes:

    Obviously they use multiple cameras and some kind of sequencing. I figure it's like the "bullet time" matrix stuff, but I need to know what exactly this is called so I can find the software or hardware I need to do this.

    Essentially I have a client who wants this exact effect on part of a music video and I need to figure out how to make it happen.

  • 10 Replies sorted by
  • Just a guess...multiple cameras (setup side by side as shown) shooting video, then cutting back and forth from each camera every frame or couple of frames. I think this can be sequenced in an NLE, no special software necessary - just lots of tedious quick cuts.

  • Maybe it could be a macro in Sony Vegas? Or something feeding off the music waveform, locking on to the beat?

  • thats really cool. your probably after some sort of script to automate the timing between angles.

  • That looks to me to be a novel, fast deployment of the tracking shot known as the "trucking" shot where the camera rotates around the subject. It's seldom used because viewers find it disorienting. Not surprisingly, it also works well to convey a sense of confused disorientation on the part of the character being filmed.

    To do a trucking shot, just clamp a plank to your tripod head and fix the camera to the end away from the head. The operator walks the camera around the tripod, with the talent standing close to the tripod (typically looking confused or panicky).

    In the top video, however, the talent is further away than in a simple truck - yet still stays in centre-frame. I'd say that the operator probably did the framing manually (but it could be perfected using something like a jib, set on its side so that the camera would be able partially lessen its rotation so as to keep the talent in frame at a distance).

    Then there's that sped-up effect, which is a whole other thing but easy enough to do. If that's what you want to reproduce in post, it should be easy enough...

  • If you look at the "bts" vid (second one above) it's clear they had an approximately 6-foot (2m) bar topping a tripod with something like a dozen identical cameras on it, so they'd have been filming either by having them all film the whole set of sequences and then cutting serially to different cams in the post process.

    Or maybe they had some awesome-design/thought-out in-camera timed still-shooting sequence going. In other words, cams set to take a still every so often ... triggered perfectly in sequence cycling through back and forth.

    Then just sorting the still images by time-taken, put them in the NLE, and turn it into footage ...

    Neil

  • @rNeil

    Oops, missed that. Only expensive 3G internet here. We watch You Tubes sparingly, setting the vids to 160..

    There's a cost in others not understanding us. It's called the Digital Divide At least the Rural Residents' Association gets together every 3 months so we get to cry on each others' shoulders :-(

  • mmmm after recording the videos with the different cameras (perhaps you could use a wireless trigger, that way you will record with every camera at the same time),

    1) you could group on a folder per shot the different videos from the different cameras that shooted the same shot,

    2) then export the videos as tiff sequence,

    3) then delete from each sequence the frames where the other videos are going to be placed, and on the other videos you should do the same (on the explorer window you can rearrenge the size of the icons, then you can just select by box the frames you want to delete),

    4) after that, rename everything to have the same name and you will end up with one tiff sequence already mixed

  • You can also do this in post. You need wide enough lense and shoot from center. In post you need plate where you project the footage. Then you need one 3D cam (post program cam), and animate cam to shoot the projected plate from side to side. Sorry my bad explanation, but if you know how 3D cam works in post programs like Fusion, Nuke or AE you probaply get my point. Probaply easyest way to make this effect.

  • Thanks for all the good ideas. I was looking for more info on the timer/sequencer like rNeil was talking about. I've seen some BTS stuff of the "bullet time" filming with a bunch of cameras and they all seem to have some kind of program or timer running them. The problem is that I can't find any program or timer that will do multiple cameras, so I must be searching for the wrong terminology.