One-Shot Wonders

Screen Daily

New technology and old fashioned editing smarts are coming together to produce strikingly long single shots with no noticeable cuts.

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A scene in Captain America: Civil War shows the character Tony Stark in flashback with his parents as both a younger man and his older self. The scene is notable not only for the 4000 frames of digital face-lift applied by vfx artists to actor Robert Downey Jnr but for its three minute duration without a noticeable cut.

“Marvel films have a reputation for aggressive cutting and whip-smart action sequences,” explains Jeffrey Ford, ACE the film's editor (whose credits include The Avengers, Iron Man 3). “In this picture we made a conscious effort to expand some scenes and play them without as many cuts in order to create a different pace and dynamic to the narrative.”

It is one of a spate of recent films in which the single shot – or 'one-er' in Hollywood terminology – have been employed. Alejandro Iñárritu and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki won Oscars for Birdman and The Revenant in part for their groundbreaking design of extended sequences blended together in post from shorter shots. Similarly, Spectre opened with an apparently continuous four-minute-long sequence of Bond in Mexico City moving from street level, into, then outside of a building.

“Using a long duration shot as a way of lulling the audience, then completing it with a full action impact, can be very effective,” explains cinematographer John Seale ACS, ASC (Mad Max: Fury Road). “I'd use it to extend an emotion of an actor if a cut would take the audience out of the moment. Others have used it as an explanation of situation or to establish boundaries.”

Seale suggests that The Revenant is a good example of holding onto a close-up for long periods to bring the audience into the scene. “Some thought it was overdone and boring because of the screen time per shot, but the director wanted to get the audience very visually involved to experience 'being there'.”

Long duration shots have been part of the lexicon of cinema for decades. Directors like Orson Welles and the classic three and half minute opening to Touch of Evil (1958) or Alfred Hitchcock's experimental black comedy Rope (1948) composed of several single 10-minute film reels, have always sought to push the boundaries of cinematic time and space. 

The introduction of body-mounted camera rig Steadicam in the 1970s freed the cinematographer to plot ever more complex and fluid compositions. A three-minute shot in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas in which Ray Liotta’s mobster leads his date into a nightclub and Alexander Sokurov's 96 minute-long Steadicam sequence traversing St Petersburg's Winter Palace in Russian Ark(2002) are highlights.

“I can’t say I'm enthralled with one-ers unless they’re both sensible and valuable,” says Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown ASC. “But the freedom to get the lens exactly where it’s wanted, to carry on up steps and over doorways in french curves that would drive a dolly crew berserk, remains completely seductive.”

More recent advances in technology have enabled filmmakers to go even further. All 138 minutes of indie drama Victoria were shot in a single take (on the third attempt) on a Canon EOS C300, a camera small enough to be handheld without Steadicam, allowing cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen DFF to improvise with the actors.

“Being able to shoot HD on a very lightweight camera and light sensitive camera is very helpful technically,” explains Grøvlen. “We were convinced that even if the single take didn't work and we would have to cut, the process of making the film like a one-take would influence the style of the film in a direction that we felt was right for the story.” Although Victoria was conceived as a single shot by director Sebastian Schipper, he planned a version using jump cuts as an insurance for the film's financiers.

The combination of lightweight gear and the ability to stitch shots together in post “substantially helps productions to attain desired shots and makes for an awesome weapon,” says Seale.

Peter Honess, ACE (LA Confidential) suggests that the main purpose of a single shot used for a complete scene and with no other cover [takes] is a means for the director to control this part of the film completely. “Without cover, the only way changes to a single shot sequence can be made is by removing it entirely from the film.”

However, single shots composed from several elements – visual and audio – continue to draw on the editor's craft. Iñárritu dissolved between shots in Birdman and The Revenant in the middle of a pan [the quick horizontal movement of the camera] following editor Stephen Mirrione's (ACE) advice that this is when an audience would least notice a cut. Mirrione was also involved in the meticulous choreography of the scenes' shifting character perspective.

“What looks like a seamless long take can represent a lot of editorial and vfx work,” says editor Tim Squyres, ACE (Life of Pi). “There are often hidden cuts and split screens, pieces of the frame or dialogue taken from alternate takes. Editors bring special insight into pacing and storytelling, and can help in the design of long shots. There's one long, complicated shot in Pi that's actually five separate pieces of footage plus one section of pure CG.”

Ford was heavily involved in the design of the Tony Stark sequence. “The shot was built around [Downey Jnr's] performance. When I edit the elements together I'm still looking for the best take. I had to choose those performances and find the most elegant way to integrate them against each other. I chose the transitions, adjusted some dialogue and sound and input into the pacing and character design – just as I would normally.”

Squyres points out that single shots are rare because of their complexity. “It's much harder to fill a minute of screen time with a single take that works well technically and for performance, and is interesting visually, than it is to get multiple takes of four setups and cut between them.”

Yet with previsualization (modelling a sequence in a computer) and virtual production (mixing CG with live action on set) a director and cinematographer can increasingly work alongside the editing and vfx team to help make the shot practical, affordable and appropriate to the story.

“Filmmakers are becoming more comfortable with digital technology,” says Ford. “Rather than making a film in order of pre-production, production and post these disciplines are happening all at once. Directors can be confident of pulling off longer takes as a stylistic approach because the technology gives them greater flexibility than they've ever had to take the brave choice toward cutting less often.”

While Technocranes can give the shot elevation, as used by Hoyte van Hoytema ASC in Spectre, cameras mounted on gyro-stabilised drones will enable filmmakers to take the long single shot airborne.

Seale, though, warns against making the shot for its own sake. He points out that Mad Max: Fury Road had an average shot length of 2.3 seconds. “I believe that the human mind can analyse a frame very quickly, and if a shot then keeps going and going, an audience can get bored very quickly. If they then use that time to notice the technique or to 'jump ahead' of the story in anticipation, then the film hasn’t worked.”