How slow motion became cinema’s dominant special effect
About 20 years ago, a neuroscientist named David Eagleman strapped a bunch of students into harnesses, hoisted them to the top of an imposing metal tower, and then, without warning, dropped them 150 feet. Though the students landed safely in nets, the experience was—by design—terrifying. Eagleton wanted to simulate the feeling of plummeting to one’s death. His goal was to figure out why survivors of near-death experiences almost always said the same thing: “It felt like the world was going in sl