Matrix style frozen time shots

[robbyracer]

Hi All,
In a couple of months I’ll be working with some frozen time shots for a production we’re statring now. Has anyone here ever worked on one of these shots? I understand the basics but any additional input would be helpful. I guess I’ll be using Combustion or After Effects to build the frames unless someone has a better suggestion.
Thanks in advance & Happy New Year!!

[Anonymous]

I have done a few of these, in about 6 or 8 separate jobs. What would you like to know?
What rig are you using is it film or digital ?
How many cameras?
Is there a live action lead in or lead out ?
How long is the final clip aiming to be compared to the number of cameras?
Are all cameras firing at once, or offset firing?

Mike
co-founder fxguide

[Anonymous]

So I have done quite a bit of these too (although never in Combustion or After Effects, alway Flame). They usually consist of a couple live action plates with some 3D (elments and backgrounds).
The thing I find most usefull is a plate with a basketball or black and white soccerball on a C-stand at the origin point (fulcrum). You can stabilize this and then use that shot to track the rest of your plates (either by hand or by Spark). If you are using a bluescreen it is important that you put some marks on the wal so that you have something to match between plates.
if you are comping 3D, there are a couple ways to facilitate a 3D track. You can Branch off some ping pong ball off your C-Stand with the Soccer ball. Just make sure you measure some distances first.
The director I work with on these shots perfers to use 1 camera per 1 degree per 1 frame, which means that I am almost always having to slow them down. If you are going to motion estimate your shot, i strongly suggest that you shoot objects on different planes seprately. It is easy to underestimate the amount of paralax involved in these shots. If you cannot shoot them seperately, roto what you can and then comp back together.
The rest of the challenge to these is just getting a workflow going.
HTH
B22

[robbyracer]

Hi guys. Thanks for the replies and happy new year.
Here’s what I know about it so far. We will be using 3 Panasonic SDX-900 video cameras and about 65 still cameras in the rig and the shot will be in a studio on a bluescreen. As far as I can figure I will get a couple tapes and some still images on a drive of some kind. The video I’ll just work with in Final Cut as normal and the images from the still cameras will be strung together and stabilized in Combustion. I’m just making up the workflow as I go along here.
Cheers

[Anonymous]

In direct response to your email – we have done a whole story on the state of the art in time splice / temp mort / frozen time / time slice …

It will be posted today we hope – inlcuding a podcast with one of the photographers who has possibly the best rig in the world at the moment in terms of speed.

thanks again for the question.

Mike
co-founder fxguide.com

[Author]

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