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Started watching Adolescence
Its a heavy show but three episodes in, I'm loving the single shot approach that they took.
Without cuts, it's all about the pace of the drama, the honesty of each beat and the quality of the performance. That, and I haven't seen a show tackle toxic masculinity in quite this way and I'm super here for it.
Has anybody else seen it? What did you think?
I'm a film major and often found "camera people" annoying because they viewed camera work like a competitive sport. I don't like sequence shots, directors do that to show off. Because the camera must move to achieve its "resting" position, a sequence shot means that a lot of the time the framing is not the most optimal or the most dramatic. In Adolescence, you'll spend a lot of time looking at the back of people's heads. It's like the camera is always looking to arrive at a composition, but you have to watch the ugly bits in between. That said, I watched parts of this show with my wife. I like the concept and the acting, so I will probably watch it in full. But not for the sequence shots! lol
To me, sequence shots are immersion-breaking because they force me to sense the director and the camera person moving around. It feels too intentional.
If its any consolation, I don't care for sequence shots even when Orson Welles does it.
EDIT: there is one reason for using sequence shots that I think might make sense, which is to allow the actors to always be in a continuous progression. They're not recording bits, they are doing the entire scene which makes it easier to sustain the emotion required by the script. That said, a similar result could be achieved by simply shooting master takes of each character and then editing it together. Sequence shots take a lot of work and repetition, which might make it harder for the performers rather than easier. The shots can be ruined by a number of factors that are outside the performer's control. And after a number of repetitions, some actors get numb and impatient, and the acting suffers from it. So yeah... sequence shots might be good for acting, but might be bad too.
Doing an entire hour in a single seemingly continous shot is definitely a show-off. But long takes that aren't absurdly long can definitely be effective. I really like the first-person intro sequence of Enter the Void, for example. The film as a whole I can't recommend, it basically looks really cool but has no actual substance to it, but I haven't really seen anything quite like the first minutes of that film. I say this as a stills photographer who really likes static shots in movies (because they scratch that photographer's itch).
There's also the issue of pacing. With no apparent cuts and moving locations, you run the risk of a lot of dead time. But you can use that to deliberately slow the pace down to make the more dramatic moments more impactful and let them breathe, which I think was at least the intention in 1917.
Immersion is really subjective. There aren't any cuts or edits in real life. I suspect that the more you know and care about filmmaking, the more immersion breaking these "show-off" techniques are. Because you're more aware of the editor and director basically executing a kind of cinematic magic trick on the audience.
But there are cuts in real life! We cut all the time. When our attention changes focus between objects, we do not experience fluid and elegant visuals connecting them. You blink and you are there. The gentle motion of most sequence shots does not reproduce how we experience objects around us.
I don't think switching attention is comparable to standard film cuts, where you may suddenly be in a completely different time and location, or rapidly switching between points of view of the same situation which you couldn't possibly achieve in that time frame in real life. I don't mean that a long continuous shot with a slowly moving camera is necessarily "more realistic", but I certainly don't think it's objectively less like our standard everyday experience either. I've only watched the first episode of Adolescence, but for example the shots where the camera is following someone between different offices do feel, to me, very much like following along behind a person walking around in real life. Of course real life isn't choreographed the way a tv show is.
All of this just to emphasize that immersion is a subjective thing. It really is the sensation of being "in" the story, not some kind of objective measure of how much "like real life" that piece of media is. A novel can be immersive even if you have to imagine everything in your mind's eye, which is definitely not the same thing as seeing and hearing and smelling it in real life. I think different people will react differently to, for lack of a better word, fancy cinematography.
I'm decidedly not a film major, but I think I've if the most amazing things in film are the moments when the camera is completely invisible. The best example that comes to mind is when two people are having a conversation on screen and the camera instantly flips back and forth between them. It feels natural when that is not how I would watch two people speak at all!
Isn't it though? Your eyes flicker between them instantly, not panning between them. Not over each actor's shoulder of course, but still back and forth between them
I have seen the first two episodes, and I agree that this kind of one shot was distracting. At least at first, I noticed it too much with how the camera become almost an active participant in the narrative. It is not immersive when you are too much aware of how the technical film crew are doing it. I stopped noticing it for the second episode however, but I also think it really doesn't add that much. It could still be told in real time with editing cuts, and be better off with it without the downsides you mention.
I do like long takes however when they are done well, which I think is mostly when it is used in static shots. Letting a scene unfold with the actors for longer periods without the traditional shot/reverse-shot formula. There are also impressive feats like the hospital scene in Hardboiled, but they are their own thing in action scenes and not just sequences of people walking through doors like in Adolescence.
Yes, there are many cool alternatives to the shot/reverse-shot formula other than sequence shots. One alternative is to simply cut much much less, and to make your cuts count.
I edited my comment above, you may wanna read my edit.
Is that because of the technique, or because it is very hard to do it well? I have not seen Adolescense, but for me it really works in a movie like Victoria (2015). The one shot approach is very effective in building up the tension there.
I'm not a film major - simply a motion picture enthusiast.
For what it's worth, I'm generally not a fan of non-standard shots of any kind in great quantity. They can be pleasant, and even effective, when used very modestly, but I find them distracting if used even moderately. I'd compare it to when authors try to vary from using "said". It can be effective to occasionally swap in a "he yelled", or "she whimpered" for effect - but utterly distracting when done regularly.
With that said, I thought it was very effective for this show. It was different enough from everything else I watch to just fall into being part of the experience of watching this show. It was a little distracting at times, but I found it really well executed.
But if this were to become a trend, I would find it very tiresome very quickly.
I thought it was fantastic. Maybe it just hit me extra hard, but I think it has some of the best performances I've ever seen - especially in episode four. The episode really stuck with me, to the point where I get choked up if I think about it for too long. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but they'll always be #1 when it comes to actors and pop-adjacent rock bands.
As for the style, I'm not as much as a sequence/single shot fanboy as I used to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a sucker for it though and through, but I think 1917 marked the point of oversaturation. (Pour one out for Alfonso Cuaron, they stole his flow.) Having said that, I liked how they used it in this show. At times it kinda felt like I was watching a play, or like I was in the room. And kinda like you said, it really added to the build up of tension and the emotional release from the actors.
If you're into that style and are in need of a palate cleanser after episode four destroys you, check out The Studio on Apple TV. The first two episodes were the funniest pure comedy I've seen since Veep.
This is the reminder I needed to finally watch Veep. Thank you!
I really like the long takes fwiw. It really made everything "seep" in more. But I really just want to mention that shot at the end of episode 2, where the camera flies up and we get a view of the neighbourhood around the school.
I thought that segment was amazing. Firstly with how the hell they did that and secondly with the music that plays.
They hooked the camera on to a drone. Seems simple enough, but damn I would be nervous to drop it and ruin the whole take :D
I would be more worried about dropping it and ruining the whole camera! lol
A drone could pose a challenge for audio, but I assume they used a particularly silent drone. And if their buzzing is at a frequency far from the human voice, I suppose it is not too hard to remove it in post.
It took me a minute to realize that it was Strong - almost like the double take I did when Tears for Fears played at the end of Donnie Darko. The lyrics hit differently with the presentation changed.