Bullet time

Bullet time (also known as frozen moment, the big freeze, dead time, flow motion or time slice) is a visual effect or visual impression of detaching the time and space of a camera (or viewer) from that of its visible subject. It is a depth enhanced simulation of variable-speed action and performance found in films, broadcast advertisements, and realtime graphics within video games and other special media. It is characterized both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and unfilmable events, such as flying bullets) and space (by way of the ability of the camera angle—the audience's point-of-view—to move around the scene at a normal speed while events are slowed). This is almost impossible with conventional slow motion, as the physical camera would have to move impossibly fast; the concept implies that only a "virtual camera", often illustrated within the confines of a computer-generated environment such as a virtual world or virtual reality, would be capable of "filming" bullet-time types of moments. Technical and historical variations of this effect have been referred to as time slicing, view morphing, temps mort (French: "dead time") and virtual cinematography.

The term "bullet time" is a registered trademark of Warner Bros., formally established in March 2005, in connection with the video game The Matrix Online. The term had first been used within the original script of the 1999 film The Matrix, and later in reference to the slow motion effects in the 2001 video game Max Payne. In the years since the introduction of the term during The Matrix films it has become a commonly applied expression in popular culture.

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