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FROZEN
MOMENT


LIVE
ACTION


STOP-
START


SLOW
MOTION


TIME
RAMP


SPACE
RAMP


TIME
BLUR


SPACE
BLUR


LONG
EXPOSURE


MULTIPLE
EXPOSURE


OPEN
FLASH


FLASH
TRAIL


LIGHT
PAINTING


MOTION
DISTORTION


MATCH
CUT


UNIVERSAL
CAPTURE



TECHNIQUES - SLOW MOTION


Slow motion (or "Bullet Time" as it was called in the 1999 film The Matrix), like live action, is achieved by internally triggering Digital Air's camera systems sequentially rather than simultaneously (as first described in Dayton Taylor's 1996 American Cinematographer article link).

Because the rate of triggering can be very high all the way up to simultaneous our camera systems can easily record events in super slow motion. For example, using our digital systems we can shoot at any frame rate up to 500,000 frames per second camera-to-camera.

Unlike a motion picture camera the rate of the sequential triggering in our systems can exceed the shutter speed of the camera. This means there is no theoretical limit on how high the frame rate can go (in fact the frame rate can go to infinity - or simultaneity - as it does in the frozen moment).

When using a single high speed camera to shoot slow motion, changes in the frame rate of the camera effect both the motion of the subject and the motion of the camera. With our systems the effect of the high frame rate (across the system) on the speed of the subject is completely independent from the speed of the camera movement. This is because the camera movement is virtual and the speed of the virtual camera movement is dependent only upon the spacing of the cameras.










36 camera HD-1 digital system


EXAMPLE - SLOW MOTION





Project: Opening television graphics for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens

Equipment: 36 camera HD-1 digital system
Client: Athens Olympic Broadcasting
Directors: Daryl Goodrich, Mike Parry, Jan Hallet
Production Company: North One TV (London)
Post Production: Digital Air and Sixfootsix (London)
Producer: Geraldine Geraghty

link to finished spot: https://vfx.digitalair.com/olympics.html








This example of our slow motion effect was recorded by streaming uncompressed frames from every camera in our digital system directly to disk with a time offset. Each camera recorded at just 15 fps, but because of the time offset the effective frame rate when cutting across the image sequence is 120 fps.