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Steven Spielberg - the one-take ninja master.
- Thread starter SCULLIBUNDO
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BadAss2961
Member
Maybe my favorite one. Great accomplishment for a TV series.
Cool mirror trickery one shot. Yeah, Zack Snyder... Yeah, Sucker Punch.
To Far Away Times
Member
I love long takes in movies. Never ceases to impress me.
Glorious_Paradox
Member
Yeah, that scene absolutely blew my mind when I saw it.
Another great one is this badass fight scene from The Protector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ditPebZ8g
Ether_Snake
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That movie was so bad.
As far as directing, this a very simple scene, they just used doubles, the camera movement is super basic.
And unlike Spielberg, it serves no purpose in the film, it's just empty and showy, like Zack Snyder.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
Sectorseven
Member
I think there are several in Children of Men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twcKoAQ7HIg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twcKoAQ7HIg
Hard to quantify. They take longer to set up and longer to shoot, and time is money.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
The worst one in recent memory was that shit from Atonement. It doesn't serve the story in any way, it doesn't sneak up on you like Children on Men, or anything. It takes you completely out of the story til all you can think is "wow, look how difficult this shot is. I wonder how hard that was to execute?"
Digital-Hero
Member
How are we not giving credit to Steven's DP on some of these shots...
Discotheque
Banned
zemeckis did that with contact
Spring-Loaded
Member
The spread of the term 'DP' has completely fucked with people's understandings of the cinematographer's duties.
In general, only a hack director would leave composition and camera movement entirely to the DP.
How many ninja one take shots do you see in Funny People, from Spielberg's regular cinematographer?
When it comes to directors with a strong stylistic imprint, you'll notice the same visual schemes across their filmography, regardless of the DP. Meanwhile, the DP bring their own approach to the lighting and lensing as well, but they tend to be far more flexible. Which makes sense. They are not at the top of the chain of command, and tailoring their work to the director's demands is part of their job.
This pretty much sums up Joe Wright.
BadAss2961
Member
A lot of these don't serve much purpose, even the Goodfellas one which always stood out to me. But they're great shots.
Discotheque
Banned
i don't really mind when directors start flexin like joe wright. it's still good.
but yeah better when it's just natural like spielberg's doing.
but yeah better when it's just natural like spielberg's doing.
Eh, some directors prefer to stick to directing actors. That doesn't make them hacks.
I was making my point as loudly and obnoxiously as possible. What I said isn't really fair, but its a huge part of the process to have no input into.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
The Goodfellas one absolutely serves a clear purpose. It's about communicating how Karen is being romanced/seduced by Henry's connections - right down to the shot's ending with her hand resting on his.
As I said earlier in this thread, there's nothing wrong with a cool shot for the sake of cool shot, but what makes Spielberg so great is that he's able to leverage those technically complicated shots as a very effective storytelling mechanism, which is why they feel more organic to his films, and since that's what the OP is pretty much all about, I thought it was worthwhile to contrast him to Snyder.
I also think that mirror scene achieve nothing but a slight spatial confusion, at most it will make you think "gee, I wonder how they made it" which takes you out of the movie.
p.s.
I also disagree that the Goodfellas scene served no purpose, but that's a different discussion.
LegendOfGood
Member
This is beautiful. Such seemingly casual work on something so emotionally powerful.Thanks, Sculli.
It depends. If you're good at it and efficient, it can actually save a ton of time and money in terms of setups and teardowns. You can shoot in one setup what could take two or three or even more, plus insert shot coverage. So while one long shot does take a lot of effort, in the long run people often credit Spielberg's ability to bring things in on time and on budget to his expert use of long takes like the ones in this thread. He's done it a hundred times, he knows the pitfalls, he knows what needs to be there, and the crew only has to setup once instead of three times for that scene. Sometimes that can be the difference between one day of shooting and two or three days of shooting.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
This is mostly true. Ever since 1941, beginning with Raiders, Spielberg has had an incredible tenacity to shoot fast as a motherfucker and come in on time and under-budget. It's the best thing 1941 ever did for his career.
Though I have to believe he gets some coverage on scenes he's constructed as one-shots, if only for safety reasons when it comes time to edit the thing.
Twelve Quick Examples (10:00)
Eight Lengthy Examples (13:51)
One Scene, One Shot (7:59)
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/focusing-spielbergs-use-long-take-oner-will/
I've long talked about this fact, but this guy cutting together these videos gives me cause to post a thread.
Spielberg is the fucking master of the one-take because it's usually never done in a way that eschews narrative engagement for showmanship. The one-take is never there for the sake of the challenge or accomplishment itself. It almost never draws attention to itself, but is instead always, always, always at the service of heightening the sense of verisimilitude for the audience.
Most of all, they show that Spielberg is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to his sense of mise en scene. How he visually conveys information is second to none. I posted this in the Movies thread a while back, but watch (even without sound) how Spielberg navigates our interest in one short movement to who or what is pertinent.
It's just short scene of three characters talking in a car while surveying a target and it's a thing of beauty.
So...I watched all of these and they are indeed great. You should maybe lay off the thesaurus. Not sure if this was just an excuse to use the word verisimillitude or what, but that's ridiculous. There may be a couple people here who even know what the hell that means, but seriously stop.
Do you normally have Sculli on ignore? He has a large vocabulary and he uses it. I see no reason he shouldn't.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
I'm not really one to use a word for a word's sake. But verisimilitude is a word I've used often and is the most economical way of say what I wanted to communicate. That you've just learned a new word shouldn't be a reason to complain.
BadAss2961
Member
That's something the scene does on it's own. The one shot doesn't really make that message any clearer.
It's just a really well done take.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Jaws and Close Encounters were also bloated disasters on set, but they made so much money nobody cared. Raiders was really just a hack project, something he did for his buddy George rather than a need to express something within himself(that would be next year's movie), but it did allow him to make something really quickly and efficiently. Every shot set-up chosen deliberately and for a very important purpose; it was the most ruthlessly efficient movie made by the rare breed of populist filmmaker who knew how to communicate feeling through visuals.
Verisimilitude is a great word and this is a bad post.
It makes it clearer or at least more visceral by pulling you along with her. You experience what she does and what's happening from her perspective becomes clear, plus as a viewer you understand what's happening on a bigger scale because you know a lot more about Liotta's character than she does at that point. It's done that way for a reason, not just to show off.
Even Chrome thinks it's not a word.....that should be enough. lol
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
It being done in one take really does communicate the idea that people moving mountains for Henry an ordinary event for him. From them being led away from the line of people, down to the front-row table being constructed in front of them in a packed club, to them then being sent a bottle of champagne. And I really do think that being communicated in one take serves to romance - to lull audiences into that idea of seas being parted for them, much more powerfully than a series of disconnected cuts might. It's like a dance. Them entering the club is like a dance.
SlipperySlope
Banned
Children of Men is the movie I think of when I think of this. Simply awe inspiring. I still don't know how they pulled it off. Especially the one at the end. How the hell did they do that? (I know it was technically multiple takes, but I don't see the jump between takes. Looks seamless, with perhaps only one spot where they could have split takes in the entire 14 minute extremely complicated sequence.
It's really not that obscure a word. What would you use instead to make the same point? "Realism" doesn't fit. "Believability" isn't quite the same thing. It's the exact word needed in the sentence.
It's used a lot in literary and film criticism.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
It's a reasonably common word. For your own health I would advise against reading any David Foster Wallace.
Shows up in my Chrome. It's a common word in film and literary criticism.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
Joe Wright is indeed a filmmaker who uses long-takes a bit unnecessarily. It definitely feels more like showmanship than something that serves to better tell the story. However, he does it so fucking beautifully that I don't care. It might be what makes Anna Karenina. The story as he tells it isn't anything special, but the ballet he puts on between the camera and the interchanging sets is goddamn amazing.
SlipperySlope
Banned
I don't remember the movie, but I also remember a long shot to start it off. Something about a kid walking into his school.
One of my favorite long takes is the opening of Boogie Nights.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ
It was absolutely mind blowing to this (at the time) recent film school grad.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iiXtFyZqvQQ
It was absolutely mind blowing to this (at the time) recent film school grad.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
This is actually a really good example of the difference between a showman's long-take and one that seems to serve the story first. Both kinds are great, but compare that with THIS long-take PTA does later in that film which doesn't draw attention to itself.
Agreed.
I think it also does a very good job in communicating how cool Ray Liotta's character is, the fluidity of the shot works really well with the smoothness in which he interacts with the staff.
I would also like to advise the he doesn't read David Foster Wallace.
And I would extend that advice to everyone.
complaining about the use of rich vocabulary is almost always silly, but doing it about 'verisimilitude' when discussing film? what next? complaining that people use 'narrative'?
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
You missed the point of the OP and of Spielberg's method. I'm a huge fan of Joe Wright, but if anything, Atonement's breathtaking one-shot shows that Joe Wright lacks the restraint Spielberg does when it comes to craft.
Illiteracy makes you grouchy I see.
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