How do they film scenes where the camera moves around a room, but all of the occupants are seemingly “frozen”?

Question

**The Other Guys** found its way onto Netflix again recently and I rewatched it for the nth time. When Allen goes “drinking with Terry Hoitz”, [this scene catalogues their experience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l80mHMmJzr0). I’ve seen this technique before but I can’t figure out how its accomplished. ELI5?

In: 242

Answer 1

I remember seeing a making-of for that scene in particular. Apparently they didn’t use the original bullet time technique of multiple still cameras. They had one camera on rails that passed through the set multiple times, a bunch of people standing as still as possible, and then a ton of CGI effects to remove the rails and add in the beer splashes, gunshots, flying money, etc. They also used digital compositing to blend together the multiple scenarios, and in some cases they used 3D models to replace actors who couldn’t hold their poses stably enough.