This is topic The longest take in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 09-14-2002, 07:22 PM:
A couple co-workers and I were talking about scenes or part of scenes that are made up of only one long take, usually made up of a tracking shot.
The three main people that came to mind as far as who is known for using them are Martin Scorsese, M. Night Syamalan, and P.T. Anderson.
Who else is known for these and does anyone know what movie uses the longest take ever?
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Posted by Dennis Atkinson (Member # 345) on 09-14-2002, 08:13 PM:
For an older movie, I think "Touch of Evil" (1958) held the record at one time. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0052311 Dennis
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 09-14-2002, 08:34 PM:
Wasn't "The Robe" filmed as though the entire movie was a single shot,
with camera movement but no visible cutting?
Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 09-14-2002, 08:38 PM:
Snake Eyes (nicolas cage) had a very long opening shot. IMDB says it was 12 minutes. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120832
Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 09-14-2002, 08:52 PM:
ROPE was the Hitchcock film made to look like a single take. I believe all shots were 11 minutes long, or 1000' of film.Another long shot is the opening shot of THE PLAYER, which mentions the one in TOUCH OF EVIL.
If you look closely in SNAKE EYES, I think you can see where a cut is made. Doesn't the camera go real close to a balloon or blimp at one point? I don't recall the exact moment, but I think there is at least one clever cut in there.
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-14-2002, 08:54 PM:
Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film "Rope" was done in 10 minute takes, point of view, with special sets which moved in and out of frame to accomodate the single 300 pound ( 136 KG ) Technicolor camera movement. There was also a French film about 20 years ago which was done in long takes, in real time, using a steadi-cam mount as the operator followed the actors.
Richard Fowler
TVP-Theatre & Video Products Inc. www.tvpmiami.com
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-14-2002, 10:41 PM:
"Touch Of Evil" has the looooongest dolly tacking shot in film history. I believe it was almost a mile long. VERY COOL!
"Rope" has the longest takes on record using up a full camera load for each take.
Mark @ Claco
Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 09-15-2002, 03:13 AM:
ROPE has a few intentionally visible cuts. I believe they occur at each reel change.SNAKE EYES has a number of cuts in the opening sequence, the most pointless of which is a very obvious JAWS-style wipe in which Nicolas Cage actually moves substantially closer to the camera.
Another sequence with very long takes (including an elaborate steadicam shot) is the Tarantino segment of FOUR ROOMS.
One of my favorites is the seemingly single shot which opens Kathryn Bigelow's masterpiece, STRANGE DAYS. On the DVD, she has an hour-long commentary devoted exclusively to the making of that sequence.
There's also a single shot in CLERKS which, if memory serves, lasts for over six minutes.
A couple cool non-film pieces are PTA's video for Michael Penn's TRY (available on the BOOGIE NIGHTS DVD) and the Bermuda Triangle episode of THE X-FILES (I forget the name, but it was in Season 6). TRY was made to look like all one take of a steadicam following Penn down the longest hallway in North America. THE X-FILES episode featured one steadicam shot for each act. The final act did some weird split screen stuff, too.
Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 09-15-2002, 06:24 AM:
I am surprised no one has brought up Kubrick. I have heard he would take up entire 20 minute mags for one shot. I can only imagine what he would have done if he got his hands on the 50 minute digital mags that Lucas is using now. I know most of those shot are edited down in his movies but he would just plain torture his actors in those incredibly long shots.
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-15-2002, 07:14 AM:
Kodak sells 2000-foot lengths of 35mm camera film.------------------
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Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 09-15-2002, 09:08 AM:
I believe there is a very long take at the beginning of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, but it's been a while since I've seen it so I could be mistaken.
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-15-2002, 09:43 AM:
The 2000 foot 35mm length is usually used for multi-camera t.v. shows to cut down on reloading time.
Richard Fowler
TVP-Theatre & Video Products Inc. www.tvpmiami.com
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 09-15-2002, 10:27 AM:
While not the longest take, one that I thought was used very effectively was in De Palma's "Untouchables."
Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 09-15-2002, 10:28 AM:
There are several 5+ minute takes in "Sling Blade". Something else about this movie; the female lead, Natalie Canerday, has no closeups in the whole picture. All the other principals do, but not her.
I once heard about a supposed 10-minute take in "Same Time, Next Year", but I've not had a chance to see the movie again since then, to verify it.
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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-15-2002, 11:16 AM:
THE BIRDCAGE had are rather long opening shot from the water all the way into the club...I don't remember the length or if any technogimicktry was used but it seemed to cover a GREAT distance.Steve
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Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 09-15-2002, 12:00 PM:
Steve's post reminded me of a shot in Mikhail Kalatozov's I AM CUBA, in which the camera starts in a roof-top club and ends in the swimming pool downstairs. There's also a lot of less elaborate, but still very long shots in that movie, most of which use an extremely short lens.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-16-2002, 02:12 AM:
Mike Schindler writes:
quote:
ROPE has a few intentionally visible cuts. I believe they occur at each reel change.
Actually the reel changes are designed to look invisible. The outgoing camera pans or tracks into a dark area (e.g. the back of someone's suit jacket, or a dark wall), there is a cut and then the new camera pans or tracks away from the same position.
I think you're right and that there are one or two visible cuts: I seem to remember one towards the end during the sequence in which the camera's POV is responding to James Stewart's description of how the murder was perpetrated. According to Hitchcock's own account (in Hitchcock by Truffaut) the biggest logistical nightmare was the sound recording. It was done directly into an optical sound camera, so all the mixing had to be live and in real time. Apparently there were more rejected takes because of sound issues than there were due to botched camera movements.
Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 09-16-2002, 03:05 AM:
The first time I saw ROPE was a 16mm screening at the Art Institute of Chicago. I remember having heard about how it was designed to look like all one shot, and wondering how they were going to accomplish the reel changes. I also remember being disappointed upon seeing that each reel changed with a standard intentionally visible cut to another shot. But that was seven years ago, so my memory could be faulty.However, I decided to watch the DVD tonight, and I kept track of when and how the cuts appear. Here's what I found:
2:08- visible
11:43- invisible
19:33- visible
26:50- invisible
34:00- visible
43:57- invisible
51:32- visible
59:19- invisible
1:09:26- visible
1:14:03- invisible
I also happened to watch CLERKS tonight. If anyone cares, that shot that I referred to earlier is five minutes and twenty six seconds long.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-16-2002, 07:43 AM:
I've just flicked through Truffaut, in which H insists that the only cuts are the camera change ones, all of which he tried to conceal.Could the unconcealed cuts in your DVD be due to later cutting, e.g. censorship? I notice that your last cut, which I presume is to the end credits, comes at 74'03". My 16mm print runs 81 minutes, which on PAL video would mean 78ish allowing for the 24/25fps difference. If your DVD (which is presumably NTSC and thus has the same running time as the film source it was telecined from) runs 75-ish, might it be that the 'visible' cuts are the work of a third party?
I'll have to look at my 16mm again soon, though I don't know when I'll get the time.
Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 09-16-2002, 10:25 AM:
The last cut that I listed is to the last shot. The film on the DVD runs a little over 80 minutes. The cuts which appear in the film are definitely meant to be there. Many of them are sort of reaction shots to the previous ones. Also, if these cuts were made because of censorship, then, based on the length, that would mean that the censors would have taken out every other invisible cut. This seems rather unlikely. I'm pretty sure that some of the video transfers have the cues for the reel changes on the print. If anyone has one of those, we could get a definitive answer, one way or the other.
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 09-16-2002, 01:07 PM:
From the 29th Telluride Film Festival 2002RUSSIAN ARK
Hitchcock dreamed of making a film in a single take, but Alexander Sokurov, thanks to HD video technology, accomplished it. RUSSIAN ARK is a 96-minute dream journey through St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, three centuries of Russian culture, 33 rooms and 2,000 extras. A French Marquis guides us, commenting in Russian art, interacting with historical figures (Catherine the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra), all the while responding to the dreamer’s often-incredulous reactions. This is an startling departure from the austere earlier films of Sokurov, who was a Telluride tributee in 1998. The Film’s final sequence-a Royal Ball of 1913 with hundreds of resplendently costumed dancers-eclipses even Visconti’s THE LEOPARD as perhaps the cinema’s richest evocation of the aristocratic culture of Europe in its fading hours. Brilliant. You’ve never seen anything like this. Filmed by Steadicam operator Tilman Büettner (Run Lola Run). (Russian, 2002, 96 Minutes)
I wish I had seen it. It sounds like fun.
Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 09-16-2002, 10:31 PM:
I just thought of two other music videos which are all one shot. Definitely Paul Hunter's video for the untitled D'Angelo song. That one's one shot, and it's great. Another which is one shot with a few shots laid on top of it is Sinead O'Connor's NOTHING COMPARES 2 U by John Maybury. That might not count, but it's still very beautiful, mainly because of that one shot.