Longest single take scene
Discussion
I've just been watching Hunger, a film by Steve McQueen (the guy that directed Shame) and it has one lengthy take with two guys talking at a table and it seems about 10mins long. It's an impressive dialogue. This got me thinking about these single take scenes. There's another in carlitos way in the train station at the end. Anyone else seen any of these?
Shuvi McTupya said:
Not seen either of those but i was under the impression that Children of Men had the longest single scene. Maybe that was the longest action scene done in one take, or something like that...
The children of men scene is awesome. I had to see it a few times before I even noticed the camera hadn't cut away at all. Kill Bill has a good an quite long one too when she is in the club about to fight the crazy 88. Think it starts when she walks in and follows her over walls etc.
Bacardi said:
Hitchcock's 'Rope'. Every scene is a long take, up to 10 mins....
according to this http://listverse.com/2007/10/05/top-15-amazing-lon...Rope it is!
The scene in the middle of atonement blew me away the first time I saw it as so much happens in such a long scene with so many extras and the cameraman travels such a long distance when filming it. This is the only version I can find online which has subtitles.
http://vimeo.com/m/15491124
http://vimeo.com/m/15491124
Digger said:
What was the Orson Welles opening scene, or was he starring in it? As an opening scene, it was one heck of a single shot!
Touch of Evil.But that's a long tracking shot (like Goodfellas), I doubt it's the longest scene.
There's a 107 minute 'film' of Beckham sleeping. To answer the question you need to decide what counts as a film and what is an art installation.
Children of Men:
Wiki said:
Children of Men used several lengthy single-shot sequences in which extremely complex actions take place. The longest of these are a shot in which Kee gives birth (199 seconds); an ambush on a country road (247 seconds); and a scene in which Theo is captured by the Fishes, escapes, and runs down a street and through a building in the middle of a raging battle (454 seconds). These sequences were extremely difficult to film, although the effect of continuity is sometimes an illusion, aided by CGI effects.
...
The creation of the single-shot sequences was a challenging, time-consuming process that sparked concerns from the studio. It took fourteen days to prepare for the single shot in which Clive Owen's character searches a building under attack, and five hours for every time they wanted to reshoot it. In the middle of one shot, blood splattered onto the lens, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki convinced the director to leave it in. According to Owen, "Right in the thick of it are me and the camera operator because we're doing this very complicated, very specific dance which, when we come to shoot, we have to make feel completely random."
...
However, the commonly reported statement that the action scenes are continuous shots is not entirely true. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill explains that the effects team had to "combine several takes to create impossibly long shots", where their job was to "create the illusion of a continuous camera move." Once the team was able to create a "seamless blend", they would move on to the next shot. These techniques were important for three continuous shots: the coffee shop explosion in the opening shot, the car ambush, and the battlefield scene. The coffee shop scene was composed of "two different takes shot over two consecutive days"; the car ambush was shot in "six sections and at four different locations over one week and required five seamless digital transitions"; and the battlefield scene "was captured in five separate takes over two locations". In an interview with Variety, Cuarón acknowledged this nature of the "single-shot" action sequences: "Maybe I'm spilling a big secret, but sometimes it's more than what it looks like. The important thing is how you blend everything and how you keep the perception of a fluid choreography through all of these different pieces."
...
The creation of the single-shot sequences was a challenging, time-consuming process that sparked concerns from the studio. It took fourteen days to prepare for the single shot in which Clive Owen's character searches a building under attack, and five hours for every time they wanted to reshoot it. In the middle of one shot, blood splattered onto the lens, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki convinced the director to leave it in. According to Owen, "Right in the thick of it are me and the camera operator because we're doing this very complicated, very specific dance which, when we come to shoot, we have to make feel completely random."
...
However, the commonly reported statement that the action scenes are continuous shots is not entirely true. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill explains that the effects team had to "combine several takes to create impossibly long shots", where their job was to "create the illusion of a continuous camera move." Once the team was able to create a "seamless blend", they would move on to the next shot. These techniques were important for three continuous shots: the coffee shop explosion in the opening shot, the car ambush, and the battlefield scene. The coffee shop scene was composed of "two different takes shot over two consecutive days"; the car ambush was shot in "six sections and at four different locations over one week and required five seamless digital transitions"; and the battlefield scene "was captured in five separate takes over two locations". In an interview with Variety, Cuarón acknowledged this nature of the "single-shot" action sequences: "Maybe I'm spilling a big secret, but sometimes it's more than what it looks like. The important thing is how you blend everything and how you keep the perception of a fluid choreography through all of these different pieces."
Not especially long, but all done in one camera shot, which is pretty impressive given the type of scene it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZzcxcKPcrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZzcxcKPcrI
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