Continuous takes
Image copyright: Sony- Birdman, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2014, is probably the most recent and high profile example of the one-shot technique. Viewers follow a faded US actor, played by Michael Keaton, through an emotional tail-spin. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu said he shot it to look like one take because he "wanted this character to be submerged in an inescapable reality".
- Fans of Sam Mendes will know he dipped his toe in the one-shot waters for the opening sequence of Spectre, which follows Daniel Craig's James Bond as he climbs out of a hotel room window in Mexico City to chase after a villain. "It was a very visceral way for the audience to be sucked into the film," said cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema.
- Lost In London was particularly ambitious. Woody Harrelson's directorial debut was filmed in London in the middle of the night back in 2016. It used only one camera, in what genuinely was one single take, and was broadcast live to 500 cinemas in the US. The whole project was almost derailed when Waterloo Bridge, one of the key filming locations, was closed hours before the shoot.
- Going much further back, Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope was shot not only made to look like it was shot in one continuous take, but remained in one single location for the entire film - a Manhattan apartment where a murder takes place. Hitchcock also used the one-shot technique in 1949's Under Capricorn.
- When it comes to music videos, there are hundreds of examples. A few, like Alanis Morisette's Head Over Feet, genuinely were shot in one take - which was quite easy in that particular case as the entire video is just a close-up of Morisette's face as she sings.
- Erykah Badu's Window Seat saw her gradually strip naked on a Dallas street over the course of the song, landing her in trouble with the authorities.
- Other examples which were helped by a bit of camera trickery to create the one-shot effect include Sia's Chandelier, Taylor Swift's We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, and the aforementioned Spice Girls video for Wannabe.
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