Michel Gondry

Michel is a French film-maker who is noted for his innovative visual style. He began by producing music videos for his band 'Oui Oui', this then caught the attention of the artist Bjork and he was ask to direct many of her videos. This included 'Army of me' which used the techniques which were a predecessor to "bullet time"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyEJxzQM24Q

This technique is called View morphing, where you set a single camera around a static object and then morph the two together. Image morphing techniques can generate compelling 2D transitions between images. This works on the same principles Image Interpolation works on the matrix films by creating more frames between the ones you were able to capture.

Michel also used this view morphing in the 1998 Smirnoff Vodka advert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vj4jppqwkw&feature=PlayList&p=5FE358E3F43BADBC&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=52

This is where it is believed the whole idea for "Bullet time" came from. In the advert there are many instances where the technique is used. the most notable is at the beginning where the man jumps through the air and time appears to stop.

By the this time I believe Michel had moved on to using more than one camera in his set up, though still using the technique of View Morphing.