PLEASE HELP! What technique is this? A dragon Ball Z/bullet time type effect

Question

What technique is this? PLEASE HELP!

Hey guys, we have this film festival coming up and I'm really trying to figure out how these guys did this editing, if anybody could give me any leads, I would appreciate it so much!

The effect is sort of like a dragon, Ball Z/bullet time effect.

Video Dragon ball Z sequence concept:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOmEr5TEQIu/?igsh=aGR5OXd0ejl3amEx

Here's another example https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNY5dGLxp49/?igsh=MTVldXU2cnZiemg4OQ==

did the actors pretty much do the fight sequence and then they slow down, as the camera moves?

are the guys jumping up and flying in the air sort of like a rotoscoping and then key framing?

I'm fairly familiar with Premier, and slightly less so with after effects, but usually I stick to simpler effects.

thank you in advance for all of your help guys!

Rick Gerard · Accepted Answer

If you just want to slow down and speed up the action and camera movement in a shot, shoot at the highest frame rate possible and then fiddle with the frame rates using Time Remapping and Bullet Time in After Effects. Here's a short turotiral on that workflow:

If you want to freeze motion or slow it down, then change the camera angle completely so it appears as if time has frozen and the camera has moved from the right side of your subject to the left side. You need a lot of cameras rolling simultaneously, or taking a bunch of stills. Let us say that you want to slow down the action, then freeze time and move the camera through a 60º arc in 20 frames, then speed up the action again. For a setup like that, you will need at least two video or movie cameras, twenty still cameras, and a device to trigger the still cameras sequentially. You then rehearse the action and roll the video cameras, then fire the still cameras at the right time. I did a few shots like that once for a music video by renting and borrowing a bunch of GoPros. This is the original bullet time workflow:

You can also use a 360 camera (Insta 360) spinning on a rope for something like that kind of effect, but you'll need to kind of match the position of the camera at the start and end of the shot to try and make a match cut if you want to have the subject walk into the shot:

You can even use Camera Tracking + Photoshop's AI-powered tool, and a Stool and a smartphone to kind of fake it. It can look pretty good:

I hope that gives you some ideas.

ShiveringCactus · Answer

I think there was a lot of preparation here.

If I was going to recreate it, I'd lock the camera off on a tripod. Then film each actor jumping into their final position. I'd take a still from the actor in mid air and animate that moving. I'd use the puppet tool to add a little movement back, but it would be a lot less work than the rotobrush and trying to cope with bullet time.

So by this stage, I've got a cutout still of an actor moving through the scene. Next it's a case of editing the start and end points. Having filmed them making the same type of jump at the start and end means it should be a case of using the puppet tool to match up their poses and quickly fade between the jump start and still. The reason I would choose to go with the final position is the initial move to bullet time is not telegraphed, so any inconsistencies in position of the actor starting their jump will not easy to hide.

Once the actor is appearing to jump great distances in bullet time, the next step is to add camera shake. Make a new comp and add the original to it, then scale it up slightly and keyframe the position and rotation for start and end. Then in Window, open the Wiggler to add additional keyframes to woggle the camera. There's lots of other ways of doing camera shake, but I think the wiggler is the most obvious when you're learning.

Final step, once you've got a shot you're happy with, post it back here so we can check it out!

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