While slow motion scenes showed up every once in awhile in old TV shows and movies, the invention of super slow motion cameras has taken this filmmaker’s tool to a whole new level. Not only do movies like The Matrix, the new X-Men, and Every Movie Zack Snyder Ever Made feature killer slow motion scenes, but YouTube is full of crazy slow motion camera videos.
Sure, if you look hard enough online, you’ll find tons of researchers and scientists using high speed cameras for high-tech experiments and tests, but wouldn’t you rather watch things explode in slow motion instead? Of course you would, it’s practically the only reason the Internet was invented in the first place.
In fact, it’s fair to say that the slow motion craze has officially taken over YouTube. Just look at The Slow Motion Laboratory team, nicknamed the Slow Mo Guys. These regular Joe’s bought a Phantom Flex camera (a Phantom v2010 to be precise) and started filming YouTube videos. In a few short years they’ve amassed a giant number of subscribers and millions of views. Using their slow motion camera, they film themselves destroying, throwing, exploding, breaking, and lighting things on fire. The gorgeous slow motion footage is hypnotic, and already the Slow Mo Guys have spawned a legion of imitators.
But that’s hardly the only slow motion channel taking over YouTube. There are slow motion YouTube channels that show everyday items getting crushed in hydraulic presses, or again, just lit on fire.
And it’s not just YouTube that’s chock full of high speed camera footage. With Facebook encouraging users to post more video content than ever before, many short slow motion videos have racked up thousands of likes and shares on Facebook. A typical video is just two or three minutes long, and shows something like a dog drinking water in super slow motion.
The popularity of these cameras is thanks in part to Evan Peter’s character Quicksilver in the new X-men franchise, which features hilarious slow motion action sequences. But you don’t need a Hollywood budget to buy slow motion cameras and light stuff on fire in your backyard.
For science.
