If you Google “best slo-mo scene ever,” you’ll find the Matrix “lobby scene”
over and over again.
It is actually a 3 minute 13 second tapestry of 74 apparently normal clips and just 35
slow motion ones.
Yet this is what we remember.
Slow motion animates sports, and sells iPhones, and is so powerful in movies it can make you
forget everything else in the scene.
How does it work?
To demonstrate the principles of slow motion, we actually hired a world-class juggler to
show how a lot of the fundamental ideas — OK, you know, it throws me off when you pan up
to my face, it’s not supposed to be in the shot.
So...
Though this juggling is filmed with a digital camera, the fundamental principles are the
same as they were with film.
This 1 second clip is shot and played at about 24 frames a second - 24 pictures — today’s
standard speed for movies.
Now let’s say we film this at 60 pictures a second.
If we play both clips back at a rate of 24 frames a second, the 60 pictures take 2 and
a half times longer to play than just 24 pictures - that is slow motion.
This comes with some technical hurdles — especially when it comes to lighting.
Imagine a door opening and closing to let light in.
If I take 24 pictures a second, the camera door - the shutter — will be open for about
1/50th of a second to let in the right amount of light for a nice amount of blur in the
motion.
Not enough blur, and things look disorientingly sharp.
Too much, and they look fuzzy.
1/50th is just right for what we think of as a cinematic look.
If I take 60 pictures a second, see how everything is darker?
That's because I need to use a higher shutter speed when I'm shooting more frames per second
— the door is slamming open and shut more quickly.
There’s less time for light to hit the camera’s sensor (or the film).
To lighten it, I have to crank the light or use more sensitive film (or in a digital camera,
use a higher ISO setting).
But once all this is done, you can control not just how your picture looks — but how
it moves.
Because these rules are so important to capturing any image, the potential to shape motion was
obvious from the beginning of photography.
And just like the slow mo tennis balls ball, early pioneers took lots of pictures quickly
to slow down time - a process that transitioned to actually filming motion.
See this crank?
Early film was often - though not always - fed through the camera manually to control the
speed of a picture.
Cameramen used this to their cinematic advantage.
They often overcranked — cranked too fast — to put more film frames in front of the
camera in a shorter period of time.
That would record slower motion.
Or they undercranked — crank too slow — to make things look faster.
Movie projectors could be messed with too.
This 1897 film, Charity Ball, looks dreamy and slo mo when played at, say, 22 frames
a second, but realistic when played at 40 frames a second.
Setting rules for movies required the one thing that was missing.
Sound.
If I bounce this ball on a tennis racket, the speed of the audio and video have to be
the same.
Otherwise, it falls out of sync.
This idea became increasingly important in the late 1920s, when films with sound — called
“talkies” — became the norm.
They didn’t work if film recording and playback speeds were all over the place — which they
were.
In 1927, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers noted that the sound recording device “must
be perfectly synchronized with the camera.”
The Jazz Singer, the first talkie, a 1927 movie that centered on a blackface performer,
was made thanks to a company called Vitaphone.
Their technology synced recording speed using a mechanical engine, not a person at a crank.
The Motion Picture Engineers followed Vitaphone’s standard and settled on 24 frames a second.
Confusion about playback and film speed was over.
With a standard established, people were free to experiment.
Slow motion had already been used in science and sports, like newsreel footage of baseball
player Babe Ruth.
Or in filmmaker (and Nazi propogandist) Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympics documentary.
Beyond sports, there was some slow-mo dabbling in Hollywood, like the dreamlike hunting party
photography in this 1932 musical.
In 1938, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced in slow-mo too.
But these slow motion scenes were rare.
French Filmmaker and theorist Jean Epstein played with Slo mo in the Fall of the House
of Usher.
He wrote: “Slow motion really brings a new set of
possibilities to dramaturgy.
Its ability to dismantle feelings, to enhance drama...surpasses all the other known tragic
modes.”
1930’s French film Zero for Conduct featured a slow motion scene after a pillow fight — and
it’s like a Wes Anderson epilogue.
Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus used slow motion to add drama to a dreamy sequence.
Akira Kurosawa, whose groundbreaking hit Seven Samurai featured slow-mo, helped influence
Hollywood to add slow-mo to action and narrative.
No longer just for sports, musicals, or outsider “artistes,” slow motion appeared at more
than 100 frames a second in the final shooting in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde.
By the ‘80s it was suitable for everything from blood rushing from an elevator
to the end of a glorious race.
Slow motion was an established trope by the 1990s - one with rules, and references, and
expectations.
“Ow!”
Even today, some tech obstacles exist.
Film with your iphone in regular motion and slow motion.
Notice that noise?
That’s the phone compensating for less light - by making the sensor more sensitive, raising
the ISO.
But for movies, with speeds at thousands of frames a second possible, and VFX augmentation
common, slow motion has fully become an aesthetic storytelling tool rather than a technological
hurdle.
It was obvious from the beginning of photography — but now slow motion has developed a full
range of meanings and uses.
It can make 3:13 seconds iconic.
A lobby run becomes a study in momentum.
A bus stop becomes a reunion.
Reckless driving becomes flight.
And bad juggling becomes a story of time and light.
So while I was wrapping up this slow motion video, I got to wear these Raycon earbuds
at my computer — and they are the sponsor of this video.
Do you know how long it takes to pick music?
Raycon earbuds last for 6 hours of playtime - which I can definitely use.
“No.”
(Terrible music.)
It’s got the detail I need — they sound just as good as other premium earbuds.
They gave me this pair, but the price actually starts at half the price of other buds.
And because I work from home, it means I can listen without disturbing the napping baby
over there.
ARE YOU ASLEEP?
See?
(Baby cries.)
These Everyday E25 Earbuds are the best yet — it’s Bluetooth, it’s bassy, and the
fit is great.
And it’s pretty discrete too, which is good, since it means nobody can hear the music I’m
listening to when I’m doing Fake Slow Motion around the house.
So click that link and check out buyraycon.com/vox.
You’ll get 15% off.
You’ll have new earbuds that look and sound great, whether you’re trying to finish a
video or listen to a podcast while you’re juggling.
Raycon doesn’t directly impact our editorial, but their support helps make videos like this
possible.