It didn't. For The Matrix in 1999, about 120 still cameras stood in a curve around the actors. Each fired a fraction of a second after the last, so playing the stills in order moves the view while time barely creeps. A movie camera at each end of the row caught the action at normal speed, before and after. Computers smoothed the gaps and painted out the cameras on the far side. John Gaeta, who came up with the process, called it a hack.

In 2025, 28 Years Later put 20 iPhones on one board. They all record video at the same moment, so the edit can jump around a hit from camera to camera at full speed. Danny Boyle called it "basically a poor man's bullet time."

One rig slows time to move the view. The other keeps time and jumps the view. The loft, the stand-ins and both rigs here are our own models, built and lit in code.

Which one would you build?

Sources: American Cinematographer (Probst, 1999); The Guardian (Green, 1999); Softimage case study with Manex (1999); befores & afters (Failes, 2019); IGN (Collura, 2025); IndieWire (O'Falt, 2025); The Credits, MPA (Hart, 2025).
Music: made with ElevenLabs Music. Sounds: made by us.