DIGITAL AIR TECHNOLOGIES   

Creative by Design

We design and make all of the specialized hardware and software that powers our work.

Our products and services include synchronous still and video camera array rentals, the original Matrix bullet time rig rental, networked cameras and controllers, visual effects supervision services, on set post production, and a white label social media sharing app for public facing events and installations.

Our systems are available world wide as a visual effects production service of Digital Air Technologies.

A History of Innovation

In 1994, five years before The Matrix, Dayton Taylor invented and patented a system for producing time-independent virtual camera movement in motion pictures and other media. In 1995 Dayton incorporated Digital Air, Inc. in New York to commercialize his invention. In 1996 he published "Virtual Camera Movement: The Way of the Future?" in American Cinematographer Magazine. In 1997 Digital Air was contracted to shoot this TV commercial filmed entirely in what would later be called flo-motion or bullet time and announced how it was made in American Cinematographer Magazine. The month of that publication Dayton was contacted by the visual effects team for The Matrix. They were in pre-production trying to figure out how to do the same thing themselves for the specific shots required by the script for The Matrix.

The Matrix team didn't hire Dayton, but with Digital Air established and his invention patented, published and proven by the end of 1997, Digital Air was the principal beneficiary of the global exposure brought by The Matrix upon its release in 1999. In addition to American Cinematographer, Scientific American, Millimeter, Time Magazine and Advertising Age publishing articles about Dayton's invention between 1996 and 1998, he and his invention were featured on ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in December of 1998 and his original 1994 prototype was collected by the Smithsonian Museum of American History a few weeks before the US release of The Matrix in March 1999. Anyone in the world looking to produce visual effects using camera arrays could find Digital Air's sample work, patents and and publications on the internet, and they did. The team that made The Matrix didn't claim to have invented the effect. They did, however, make an outstanding and versatile rig and process for producing it that elevated the world's understanding of what was possible. The bullet time rig wasn't portable or easy to set up. Digital Air's systems were. And it was easy to find Dayton and work with him anywhere in the world.

In 2005 the company that owned the the original bullet time rig was liquidated. The liquidator found Dayton's name on the first page of the development notes that had been packed up with the rig and asked Dayton if he wanted to purchase it. After contacting Kim Libreri, who led the bullet time team on The Matrix, to confirm that the rig might have indeed ended up in a liquidation sale, Dayton did purchase it and Digital Air subsequently used parts of it in the production of Tony Scott's Deja Vu and TV commercials for Uniqlo, BMW, Toyota and Ferrari.

In 2020, to honor the visual effects effects team behind The Matrix: John Gaeta, Kim Libreri, George Borshukov, Dan Piponi, Rodney Iwashina, and the others, Dayton restored the original rig and added an additional interactive digital system developed by Digital Air to it. The resulting interactive installation was intended for a temporary exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, however, that exhibit was cancelled before opening due to COVID-19 lockdown delays.

The Matrix Bullet Time Rig is now available for short term or permanent exhibition. Our hope is to find a permanent home for it by 2030, ideally in the Smithsonian Museum of American History alongside Dayton's original 1994 prototype camera, where both can contribute to a discussion about creativity, invention and popular culture.