Bullet Time vs Slit-Scan
バレットタイム / スリットスキャン
Both sit in Film Technology, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as technique. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Bullet Time
An arc of still cameras fired at once or in sequence: time nearly stops while the viewpoint alone moves. The Matrix popularized the idea of the virtual camera.
Slit-Scan
Long exposure through a slit while the camera or the subject moves, stretching space and time into a single image. The Stargate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey wrote it into film history.
| Bullet Time | Slit-Scan | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1999– | 1968– |
| Family | Film Technology | Film Technology |
| Kind | Technique | Technique |
| Cues | Frozen time / A traveling viewpoint / The arc of cameras / Live action mixed with interpolation | Streaked light / Endless planes / Time turned into space / Machine-controlled exposure |
| Best used for | Circling a decisive instant in a fight or a sports play · Freezing a new product and moving only the viewpoint around all of it | Building the subjectivity of space travel or high speed from photographed light · Title sequences that need the sense of an endless tunnel in seconds |
| Type | Fix the type in space and let the camera arc distort it | Cut letters as apertures and stretch them along the streaks |
| Composition | Subject at the center of the arc, a straight reference line behind it | Vanishing point at center, wrapped on all sides by symmetrical planes |
| Material | Even lighting keeps shadows from jumping and hides interpolation errors | Strong light on black, with exposure time setting color and density |
| Caution | This is not slow motion spectacle. The core is separating time from viewpoint, and repeating the freeze and orbit at moments that are not the peak of the story drains it. | Adding the streak in post with no continuity of exposure behind it, so the bands slide independently of the motion they should describe. |