MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

Anyone ever applied any long takes to their videos or attempted them?

I really love the effect it gives, almost cinema verite look. (Shaky camera, documentary style)

Here are a few examples.

Children of Men (2006)

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6minute long take, NO special editing, just one long take.

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A shorter one.


These really impress me, especially the 6 minute one, the choreography must be immense, but the documentary style filming is what gets me attracted to it.

What do you guys think of these methods?

That stuff was pretty cool.

The ability to shoot a scene in one take, with one camera angle, takes a lot of skill.

Normally filmmakers will shoot several angles to add interest, but these scenes shot with one angle are scripted beautifully and manage to look good too.

I would really like to see some people here do a few scenes in their films like that, myself included.

It's a great new style

Most of the time the long takes seem a bit too "Look at me, I'm being clever!" unless they're done so well that you don't really notice they're long takes (Children of Men, for example)

I prefer look take seen in some action/martial art films. The reason why is if they are short scenes then the person that it doing the martial arts is not really doing martial arts. All he/she is doing is punch stop kick stop .I think that is cr**.

I have made an attempt or two but or normally erupts into every hating me because it is their fault they can't get their lines down. Although the longest they ever go is like a minute or two. We did one in Five Cents that took us like 25 takes and then we attempted to do one in the film I am currently making but ended up having to split it into two takes.

Most of the time the long takes seem a bit too "Look at me, I'm being clever!" unless they're done so well that you don't really notice they're long takes

I agree, the long take is not inherently good and should only be used when it contributes something valuable. One excellent example can be found in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Marcus Brody comes to Indy's house to tell him he is hired to hunt the ark. The whole scene is done with one take in which the camera moves about the room to follow the motion, until Indy picks up a gun, and it finally cuts to a closeup. This gives the closeup more meaning and effect than it would have had with typical shooting and editing.

I tried a long take once with a steadicam following a guy around a nightclub to make the audience feel more in the environment.

As they did in Serenity (Hello to my Fellow Browncoats) The reason Whedon (Whom i've met personally, not to brag) chose to shoot the whole first 5 mins aboard the ship in one shot was to orient the viewers, ones who needed refreshing or just new viewers to how the ship worked, where everything was. And he did it spectacularly... i now go back to Firefly and see new things because i know how the ship works


btw Serenity is a beautiful film

Zacatac927 wrote: btw Serenity is a beautiful film

I'll agree, and that opening shot was pretty amazing, but I would have liked more in the film. They started out with such a great shot and it was kinda anti-climatic.

Skanza wrote:
These really impress me, especially the 6 minute one, the choreography must be immense, but the documentary style filming is what gets me attracted to it.

What do you guys think of these methods?

I love Children of Men, but sadly you are mistaken in your assumption that it really was one shot. It actually was a culmination of three or four different locations and many takes morphed together beatifully. It still is amazing.

Zacatac927 wrote:As they did in Serenity (Hello to my Fellow Browncoats) The reason Whedon (Whom i've met personally, not to brag) chose to shoot the whole first 5 mins aboard the ship in one shot was to orient the viewers, ones who needed refreshing or just new viewers to how the ship worked, where everything was. And he did it spectacularly... i now go back to Firefly and see new things because i know how the ship works


btw Serenity is a beautiful film

I saw Serenity long before Firefly (saw the film when it came out, saw Firefly for the first time about a month ago) and I thought the opening shot looked a bit 'show-offy'

I love the way the series is filmed though, a bit rough but with great production values to balance it out