I love the idea of experimental art. I am intrigued by art that is novel and unorthodox, using methods that no one previously dared to do or saw value in. Filmmakers constantly experiment with new scenarios, character designs, plot structures and color schemes. But the most important and rare experimentation is the way all of these are then visually presented in film.
Above all types of experimental film, I have one personal niche that I would like filmmakers to explore in more depth and variety — “one take” films. This film style should be popularized for how it makes stories feel alive.
“One take” or “continuous shot” films are unique, an experimental form of art that can be applied to a variety of themes. In this technique, the entire plot of a movie is shown from the beginning to the end as one long, uninterrupted camera shot. Whereas traditional movies cut between characters or scenes, a one take film uses a singular perspective to depict a story experienced in real life rather than one made to look “cinematic.”
Subsequently, our role as the viewer also changes. We are not watching a movie solely to view a story, but instead, we are actively observing it as it unfolds completely before our eyes.
The advantage of this style comes in two forms, the first being the production of art. This artistic aspect relates to the choices screenwriters make during the film’s production process. The archenemy of creatives is a movie plot with no challenge or narrative that drives a story forward. The continuous shot film is excellent at overcoming this issue, forcing the screenwriter into the tight space of a single perspective, which makes them design a story formed of events meaningfully linked to each other, rather than a series of loosely connected scenes that jump between each other.
The second advantage is the reception of art: how we, the viewers, see, follow, remember and interpret the film. We watch, in an interrupted way, what the camera records in an uninterrupted way. The single perspective of the camera creates a psychological effect in which your observation of the events in that film is more akin to a personal experience. From beginning to end, the viewer sees the film from an angle solely for them, making the experience of watching the movie and observing the art that much more personal.
What holds back this style from becoming more common is the difficulty of production. Though it is advantageous from an artistic point of view, logistically it can be very complex to organize the scenes of a movie in a way that flows seamlessly from one to another.
The most notable example of this situation is also the one movie in my recent memory that used this style of filmmaking: “1917.” This 2019 film is based on a World War I story of two British soldiers trekking across the trenches of the Western Front to stop an ill-prepared offensive.
The premise of the movie was implemented masterfully, and it is easily one of my top five movies ever. But it is simply not always feasible to produce a large-scale production like 1917 as a true continuous shot due to the effort and resources spent planning and filming the individual scenes of its long chain of events. Rather than filming the entire movie in one take, the production team edited extremely long shots together to blend into a single continuous take.
The next step for the future of this style is effectively a self-fulfilling prophecy. Films like “1917” and other titles, including “Birdman” and a new series, “Adolescence,” are some of the few examples of this technique being used in professional cinematography. They are works that tackle psychological issues and intimately personal problems — compressing time and space from the perspective of a singular character, allowing us to feel more connected with their stories.
Using their respective psychological themes of “desperation to succeed” and “separation from reality” as artistic examples, more experimentation can and should happen to bring forth such variety and experience for future filmmakers to find inspiration from.
Essentially, the continuous shot is a style worth exploring more in depth in cinema. The few productions made in the last decade using this technique have already made a name for themselves as niche but memorable works admired by the mainstream audience. If it is used more often, even newer techniques for cinematic storytelling can emerge out of artistic experimentation — something I deeply look forward to.
Deniz Gulay is a junior double-majoring in history and Russian.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.