One-shot film
A one-shot cinema, one-take film, single-take film, continuous shot feature film, or a "oner", is a full-length movie filmed in one long take by a single camera, or manufactured to give the impression it was.[1]
Use and theory
In a 2019 article, discussing the award-winning film 1917 (2019), Eric Grode of The New York Times wrote that very long takes were becoming popular in more mainstream films "as a sobering reminder of temporality, a virtuosic calling card, a self-issued challenge or all of the above", also citing the Academy Award-winner from several years prior, Birdman (2014).[2]
History
Grode notes that before such films as 1917 and Birdman, the one-shot had a history of over 70 years, from 1948's Rope, which was shot in 10-minute continuous takes (the physical limit of film at the time) that appear as a one-shot. Reportedly, James Stewart, star of Rope, did not like the long takes and apparently muttered on set that the cameras were more important than the actors.[2] The director, Alfred Hitchcock, intended to shoot the film as if it were a play, and perfectly timed each 10-minute segment to allow for hidden edits behind furniture; elaborate camera and actor choreography was used. He wrote Rope this way because he felt "if time passed between cuts, the suspense of whether the body was still in the trunk would be lost".[3]
Grode also examines the 1958 film Touch of Evil as an example, though only its 3-minute opening sequence is shot in real time. However, the use of a real time ticking bomb through the single shot is seen as a standard.[2]
Notable examples
Actual "one shot"
Year | Title | Length | Director | Nationality | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1976 | C'était un rendez-vous | 8 min. | Claude Lelouch | France | |
1982 | Macbeth | 57 min. (longest shot)† | Béla Tarr | Hungary | [4] |
1998 | Big Monday | 74 min. | Michael Rehfield | United States | [5] |
2000 | Timecode | 97 min. | Mike Figgis | [6] | |
2002 | Russian Ark | 96 min. | Alexander Sokurov | Russia | [7] |
2003 | Sábado, una película en tiempo real | 65 min. | Matías Bize | Chile | |
2005 | The Magicians | 96 min. | Song Il-gon | South Korea | |
2007 | PVC-1 | 85 min. | Spiros Stathoulopoulos | Colombia | [8] |
2008 | Still Orangutans' | 81 min. | Gustavo Spolidero | Brazil | [9] |
2013 | Rati Chakravyuh | 102 min. | Ashish Avikunthak | India | [10] |
Fish & Cat | 134 min. | Shahram Mokri | Iran | [11] | |
El triste olor de la carne | 87 min. | Cristóbal Arteaga | Spain | [12] | |
Ana Arabia | 85 min. | Amos Gitai | Israel | [13] | |
2013 | Somebody Marry Me | 98 min. | John Asher | United States | [14] |
Daikuko | Mitani Koki | Japan | [15] | ||
2014 | Agadam | 123 min. | Mohamad Issack | India | [16] |
2015 | Victoria | 140 min. | Sebastian Schipper | Germany | [17] |
Anino sa likod ng buwan | 120 min. | Jun Lana | Philippines | [18] | |
Daksha | 142 min. | S. Narayan | India | [19] | |
"Tom Lennon Wears Black Slacks and a Black Skinny Tie" (Comedy Bang! Bang!) | 22 min. | Stoney Sharp | United States | [20] | |
2016 | Eight | 81 min. | Peter Blackburn | Australia | [21] |
Immortality | 145 min. | Mehdi Fard Ghaderi | Iran | [22] | |
King Dave | 99 min. | Podz | Canada | [23] | |
2017 | Fourplay | 77 min. | Dean Ronalds | United States | [24] |
The Wedding Party | 119 min. | Thane Economou | [25] | ||
Lost in London | 100 min. | Woody Harrelson | |||
One Shot-Fear Without Cut | 140 min. | Haroon Rashid | India | [26] | |
Invasion | 90 min. | Shahram Mokri | Iran | ||
One Cut of the Dead | 37 min. | Shin'ichirō Ueda | Japan | [27] | |
Watch The Sunset | 83 min. | Tristan Barr & Michael Gosden | Australia | [28] | |
2018 | The Silent Pasture of Sparrows | 20 min. | Qmars mootab | United States | [29] |
Utøya: July 22 | 90 min. | Erik Poppe | Norway | [30] | |
Blind Spot | 98 min. | Tuva Novotny | [31] | ||
Tatort: Die Musik stirbt zuletzt | 87 min. (Swiss German version) | Dani Levy | Switzerland | [32] | |
88 min. (Standard German version) | [33] | ||||
2019 | El Amor No Puede Esperar (Love Can't Wait) | 76 min. | Juan Carlos Carrasco | Mexico | [34] |
2020 | Limbo | 89 min. | Tim Dünschede | Germany | [35] |
Autumn (The Third Day) | 720 min. (TV episode) | Felix Barrett | United Kingdom | ||
Let's Scare Julie | 83 min. | Jud Cremata | United States | [36][37] | |
2021 | Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam | 85 min. | Don Palathara | India | [38] |
Rendez-Vous | 105 min. | Pablo Olmos Arrayales | Mexico | [39] | |
Roaring 20's | 85 min. | Elisabeth Vogler | France | [40] | |
Boiling Point | 94 min. | Philip Barantini | United Kingdom | [41] | |
Causalidad | 115 min. | Who (Marcelo Politano) | Argentina | [42] |
† One five minute shot and the film's opening credits precede the film's 57 minute main shot.
Edited to appear as "one shot"
Year | Title | Length | Director | Nationality | Ref. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1948 | Rope | 80 min. | Alfred Hitchcock | United Kingdom / United States | ||
1964 | Empire | 485 min. | Andy Warhol | United States | ||
1991 | Homework | 85 min. | Jaime Humberto Hermosillo | Mexico | ||
1997 | Running Time | 70 min. | Josh Becker | United States | ||
2002 | Irréversible | 97 min. | Gaspar Noé | France | ||
2009 | Enter the Void | 161 min. | ||||
2010 | La Casa Muda | 86 min. | Gustavo Hernández | Uruguay | ||
2011 | Silent House | 87 min. | Chris Kentis, Laura Lau | United States | ||
2014 | Birdman | 119 min. | Alejandro G. Iñárritu | |||
2017 | "eps3.4 runtime-error.r00" (Mr. Robot) | 43 min. (TV episode) | Sam Esmail | United States | [43] | |
Bushwick | 94 min. | Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott | ||||
2018 | "Two Storms" (The Haunting of Hill House ep. 1.6) | 57 min. (TV episode) | Mike Flanagan | [44][45] | ||
2019 | 1917 | 118 min. | Sam Mendes | United Kingdom | ||
2020 | Droste no hate de bokura (Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes) | 70 min. | Junta Yamaguchi | Japan | [46] | |
2021 | One Shot | 97 min. | James Nunn | United Kingdom | [47] |
See also
References
- "Best one shot (one-take) movies". FEENTA. 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
- Grode, Eric (December 25, 2019). "'1917' Isn't the First (Supposedly) One-Shot Film. Here's a Timeline". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 24, 2020.
- "'1917' and 12 Other 'One-Shot' Movies, From 'Timecode' to 'Birdman' (Photos)". TheWrap. 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
- "Bela Tarr: Macbeth (1982)". Can't Stop the Movies. 2010-08-03. Retrieved 2016-03-27.
- Smith, Clay (1999-03-19). "Reflections". The Austin Chronicle. Austin. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
- Williams, Richard (2000-08-11). "Once upon a Time Code". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
- Ward, Caleb (2014-04-22). "Behind the Scenes of the 96 Minute Shot, The Russian Ark". The Beat. PremiumBeat. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- Beale, Lewis (2008-07-15). "A movie shot in real time recalls Colombian nightmare". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- Lowe, Justin (2008-11-12). "Still Orangutans". The Hollywood Reporter. AP. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- Sorabjee, Deepika (2014-07-06). "Circling Time". ArtSlant. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
- Simon, Alissa (2013-09-17). "Venice Film Review: 'Fish & Cat'". Variety. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- Dalton, Stephen (2013-07-10). "The Sad Smell of Flesh (El Triste Olor de la Carne): Karlovy Vary Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2016-01-12.
- Lyttelton, Oliver (2013-09-09). "Venice Review: Amos Gitai's Shot-In-One-Take 'Ana Arabia'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2015-11-27.
- "Malibu local completes film". The Malibu Times. 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
- "Mitani Koki to film another single-cut drama starring Takeuchi Yuko". Tokyo Hive. 2013-04-19. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
- Jeshi, K. (2014-01-02). "A record start". The Hindu. Retrieved 2015-10-20. JESHI, K. (2014-01-02). "A record start". The Hindu.
- Kohn, Eric (2015-02-16). "Adopt Films Picks Up One-Shot Heist Thriller 'Victoria'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- "Shadow Behind the Moon". Five Flavours Film Festival. Retrieved 2017-03-29.
- "Duniya Vijay's 'Daksha' with S.Narayan". Sify Movies. 2014-04-07. Archived from the original on 2017-02-05. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
- "'Comedy Bang! Bang!' Shoots for the Stars with This Season's Ambitious Single-Shot Bottle Episode". Vulture. 2015-09-02. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
- Barry, Kristina (2014-03-28). "One shot wonders - how feature film Eight was made". The Creative Issue. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- "Rome Film Fest; "Immortality," shot in a single take". variety. 2016-10-03.
- Kelly, Brendan (2016-07-11). "Podz's King Dave: One-shot film premières at Fantasia". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
- Scheck, Frank (2018-04-01). "'Fourplay': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-04-01.
- Chitwood, Adam (2017-05-16). "'The Wedding Party' Trailer Reveals Romantic Comedy Shot Entirely in One Take". Collider. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- Shukla, Richa (2017-01-02). "Haroon Rashid's film in Guinness World Records". The Times of India. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
- Bradshaw, Peter (2019-01-04). "One Cut of the Dead review – zombie films get a shot in the arm". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
- Cunningham, James (2017-03-01). "Australia's first single-take feature film, 'Watch the Sunset', with it's [sic] cinematographer Damien Lipp". Australian Cinematographer Magazine. Australian Cinematographers Society. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
- Buder, Emily (2018-01-24). "How a Sundance Film Pulled Off a 90-Minute Single Take". No Film School. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- Connolly, Kate (2018-02-19). "Utøya massacre re-enactment stuns Berlin audiences". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
- Lodge, Guy (2018-10-03). "Film Review: 'Blind Spot'". Variety. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
- Brachmann, Jan (2018-08-05). "Luzern hören und sterben". Faz.net. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
- comparison between the Swiss and Standard German versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcsqnJeQZw
- Carrasco, Juan Carlos, Love Can't Wait (Comedy, Romance), retrieved 2021-03-21
- Ortmann, Joana (2020-02-20). "Das ist das One-Shot-Experiment von fünf HFF-Absolventen". Bayerischer Rundfunk. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
- "How Jud Cremata pulled off a one-shot thriller with 'Let's Scare Julie'". Screen International. 2020-05-07. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
- "Let's Scare Julie". Film Seekers. 2020. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
- "Don Palathara's next is Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam". Cinema Express. 2020-10-19. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
- "Thriller Shot in One Take 'Rendez-Vous' Due on VOD Feb. 12 From Level 33". MediaPlayNews. 2021-02-11. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
- Keslassy, Elsa (April 21, 2021). "Tribeca-Bound, Paris-Set 'Roaring 20's'Acquired by Films Boutique (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
- "Boiling Point". 55th Karlovy Vary IFF. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
- "Amazon Prime Video premieres Causalidad, a film made entirely in sequence shot". Market Research Telecast. 2021-12-17. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
- O'Keeffe, Jack (2017-11-09). "Was That 'Mr. Robot' Episode Really Shot In One Take? "eps3.4_runtime-err0r.r00" Is The Most Ambitious Hour Of The Series So Far". Bustle. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
- Evangelista, Chris (October 23, 2018). "Here's How 'The Haunting of Hill House' Episode 6 Was Made". /Film.
- Stack, Tim (October 23, 2018). "The Haunting of Hill House creator Mike Flanagan on hidden clues, major scares, and a season 2". Entertainment Weekly. Meredith Corporation.
- Balmont, James. "Screen sensation: the single-shot thriller bringing time-travel into the Zoom era". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
- Harvey, Dennis (November 5, 2021). "'One Shot' Review: Defending a High-Security U.S. Military Base in Gimmicky Single-Take Stunt". Variety. Retrieved November 6, 2021.