Over the past two decades, more and more films have taken advantage of and used the technology known as slow motion, aka bullet time.  The act of slowing down a scene so that the audience gets an even more accurate picture of what is actually happening during a high intensity action scene makes action movies all the better.  Sometimes, action scenes and fight scenes go so fast that it can leave an audience frustrated, wondering what is actually happening, why it’s happening, and how it’s happening.  Slowing the scene down and accentuating the hits and different parts of the actual fight, however, make it much clearer, giving the audience the best possible seat to amazing fights and special effects.  Two great examples of bullet time and slow motion are the Transformers trilogy and The Matrix.  Also, animated films such as Shrek and Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children use similar technology.
	Slow motion itself can be achieved in multiple ways.  These processes are known by different names, such as overcranking, time stretching, and speed ramping.  Normal speed in movies is 24 frames per second.  Overcranking, which is rare, slows it down to 10 frames per second.  Time stretching is achieved post production.  To achieve this effect, new frames are inserted between frames.  These new frames were not actually filmed so they have to be fabricated.  These fabricated frames are either repeats of the previous frame or interpolation between the frames.  In the world of action films, the process of slowing down scenes is called speed ramping.  This effect is achieved by changing the frame rate during a scene, such as transitioning from 60 frames per second back to the normal speed of 24 frames per second.  This is the process that occurs in The Matrix.  Another example of slow motion filming is called bullet time.  This process is known for its transformation of time, which is slow enough to show scenes that could usually never be filmed, such as bullets flying through the air, and also its transformation of space, which is achieved by the normal speed of a camera moving around the scene while the scene itself is in slow motion.  This is usually achieved by a virtual camera, since it would require a real camera to move unrealistically fast.  
	Regardless of negative reviews of the Transformers movie franchise, they do utilize slow motion technology quite well.  Many of the fight scenes are so fast and extravagant, with all the digital robots and explosions happening all around during any given scene.  From the definitions of techniques already explained, it seems clear that the technique used is speed ramping.  The speed of the scene goes from normal to slow and then back to normal.  Many scenes come to mind from the three different movies that utilize this technology.  In the first film, there’s a chase scene on the highway where one of the Decepticons cuts his way through cars on the highway.  The speed of the scene slows down as he cuts through a bus, causing it to explode.  Another similar scene happens towards the end, as Sam is trying to avoid Megatron.  Megatron’s attack knocks Sam off the building in slow motion and as he falls, Optimus runs to jump and catch him, all in slow motion.  In the second movie, there’s a fight scene where Optimus Prime is fighting to defend Sam from a horde of Decepticons and many of the strikes and attacks are shown in slow motion, including different deaths, to show the great detail that is involved in the fight.  In fact, all three movies do this.  When a Decepticon is fully killed, the killing blow from the Autobot is usually in slow motion, such as when Bumblebee kills the panther Decepticon by ripping out its spine.  The third movie has the most examples of slow motion technology, as many of the fight scenes throughout the entire movie are in slow motion, including the scene where Optimus comes to save the day as he flies in beneath the tentacles of Shockwave and blows them apart.  
