One-shot film

A one-shot or continuous shot feature film is a full-length movie filmed in one long take by a single camera, or manufactured to give the impression it was.[1]

"One Take" redirects here. For the 2020 documentary film about BNK48, see One Take (film).

Use and theory

In a 2019 article, discussing the multi-nominated film 1917, 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.[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]

Examples

Actual "one shot"

Year	Title	Length	Director	Nationality	Ref.
1974	Model	105 min.	Kostas Sfikas	Greece
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	United States	[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
	The Circle	103 min.	Yuri Zeltser	France
2007	PVC-1	85 min.	Spiros Stathoulopoulos	Colombia	[8]
2008	Still Orangutans'	81 min.	Gustavo Spolidero	Brazil	[9]
2011	21 Brothers	96 min.	Michael McGuire	Canada
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]
2013	Daikuko	98 min.	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]
2016	Eight	81 min.	Peter Blackburn	Australia	[20]
	Immortality	145 min.	Mahdi Fard Ghaderi	Iran
	King Dave	99 min.	Podz	Canada	[21]
2017	Fourplay	77 min.	Dean Ronalds	United States	[22]
	The Wedding Party	119 min.	Thane Economou		[23]
	Lost in London	100 min.	Woody Harrelson
	One Shot-Fear Without Cut	140 min.	Haroon Rashid	India	[24]
	Invasion	90 min.	Shahram Mokri	Iran
	Watch The Sunset	83 min.	Tristan Barr & Michael Gosden	Australia	[25]
2018	A Boy. A Girl. A Dream: Love on Election Night	89 min.	Qasim Basir	United States	[26]
	Utøya: July 22	90 min.	Erik Poppe	Norway	[27]
	Blind Spot	98 min.	Tuva Novotny		[28]
	Tatort: Die Musik stirbt zuletzt	87 min. (Swiss German version)	Dani Levy	Switzerland	[29]
		88 min. (Standard German version)			[30]
2020	Limbo	89 min.	Tim Dünschede	Germany	[31]

†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
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	México
2015	Hardcore Henry	96 min.	Ilya Naishuller	Russia	[32]
2017	"eps3.4 runtime-error.r00" (Mr. Robot)	43 min. (TV episode)	Sam Esmail	United States	[33]
	Bushwick	94 min.	Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott	United States
2018	"Two Storms" (The Haunting of Hill House ep. 1.6)	57 min. (TV episode)	Mike Flanagan	United States	[34][35]
2019	1917	118 min.	Sam Mendes	United Kingdom

Works other than film

Year	Title	Notes	Ref.
2016	Tony Hinchcliffe: One Shot	Comedy Special	[36]
2017	Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice	Action-adventure game	[37]
2018	God of War	Action-adventure game	[38]

See also

• List of one shot music videos
• Long take
• Digital cinematography
• Digital cinema
• List of films shot on digital video prior to 2015

References

1. "Best one shot (one-take) movies". FEENTA. 2016-09-25. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
2. 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.
3. "'1917' and 12 Other 'One-Shot' Movies, From 'Timecode' to 'Birdman' (Photos)". TheWrap. 2019-12-23. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
4. "Bela Tarr: Macbeth (1982)". Can't Stop the Movies. 2010-08-03. Retrieved 2016-03-27.
5. Smith, Clay (1999-03-19). "Reflections". The Austin Chronicle. Austin. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
6. Williams, Richard (2000-08-11). "Once upon a Time Code". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
7. Ward, Caleb (2014-04-22). "Behind the Scenes of the 96 Minute Shot, The Russian Ark". The Beat. PremiumBeat. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
8. Beale, Lewis (2008-07-15). "A movie shot in real time recalls Colombian nightmare". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
9. Lowe, Justin (2008-11-12). "Still Orangutans". The Hollywood Reporter. AP. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
10. Sorabjee, Deepika (2014-07-06). "Circling Time". ArtSlant. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
11. Simon, Alissa (2013-09-17). "Venice Film Review: 'Fish & Cat'". Variety. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
12. 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.
13. Lyttelton, Oliver (2013-09-09). "Venice Review: Amos Gitai's Shot-In-One-Take 'Ana Arabia'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2015-11-27.
14. "Malibu local completes film". The Malibu Times. 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
15. "Mitani Koki to film another single-cut drama starring Takeuchi Yuko". Tokyo Hive. 2013-04-19. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
16. Jeshi, K. (2014-01-02). "A record start". The Hindu. Retrieved 2015-10-20. JESHI, K. (2014-01-02). "A record start". The Hindu.
17. Kohn, Eric (2015-02-16). "Adopt Films Picks Up One-Shot Heist Thriller 'Victoria'". IndieWire. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
18. "Shadow Behind the Moon". Five Flavours Film Festival. Retrieved 2017-03-29.
19. "Duniya Vijay's 'Daksha' with S.Narayan". Sify Movies. 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
20. Barry, Kristina (2014-03-28). "One shot wonders - how feature film Eight was made". The Creative Issue. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
21. Kelly, Brendan (2016-07-11). "Podz's King Dave: One-shot film premières at Fantasia". The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
22. Scheck, Frank (2018-04-01). "'Fourplay': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2020-04-01.
23. Chitwood, Adam (2017-05-16). "'The Wedding Party' Trailer Reveals Romantic Comedy Shot Entirely in One Take". Collider. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
24. Shukla, Richa (2017-01-02). "Haroon Rashid's film in Guinness World Records". The Times of India. Retrieved 2017-02-02.
25. 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.
26. Buder, Emily (2018-01-24). "How a Sundance Film Pulled Off a 90-Minute Single Take". No Film School. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
27. Connolly, Kate (2018-02-19). "Utøya massacre re-enactment stuns Berlin audiences". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
28. Lodge, Guy (2018-10-03). "Film Review: 'Blind Spot'". Variety. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
29. Brachmann, Jan (2018-08-05). "Luzern hören und sterben". Frankfurter Allgemeine. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
30. comparison between the Swiss and Standard German versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcsqnJeQZw
31. Ortmann, Joana (2020-02-20). "Das ist das One-Shot-Experiment von fünf HFF-Absolventen". Bayerischer Rundfunk. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
32. Bishop, Bryan (March 16, 2016). "The making of Hardcore Henry, the craziest first-person action movie you'll ever see". The Verge.
33. 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.
34. Evangelista, Chris (October 23, 2018). "Here's How 'The Haunting of Hill House' Episode 6 Was Made". /Film.
35. 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.
36. Tony Hinchcliffe: One Shot, retrieved 2019-12-18
37. July 2017, Ben Tyrer 13. "How Ninja Theory's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is creating a realistic portrayal of psychosis". Official PlayStation Magazine. Retrieved 2020-07-09.
38. Bratt, Chris (21 June 2017). "God of War director explains why entire game has no camera cuts". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 13 April 2018.