Russian Ark. :eek:
Wow. How did they pull this off? Has anyone seen this? Is the movie any good? Did they use the continuity to good effect, or is it little more than a gimmick, albeit, an incredible one?
I believe Hitchcock also tried to pull this off in a movie called Rope.
Timecode was a full-length movie shot in four continuous, simultaneous shots. Apart from that, it was utterly boring. Still, I’d tentatively recommend it just because it’s so technically unique.
Judging from the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, Russian Ark looks to be substantially better, in a “if you like this sort of thing” kind of way.
Running Time starring Bruce Campbell was one “continuous shot”. I put the quotes there because, well, when it comes to film, you can’t get more than about 30 to 45 minutes of continuous usage from it, so there were points where they had to make cuts, but they did it in ways that made it hard to notice, so it all flowed together as though it was one continuous product. Decent film, but probably only really appreciated by Bruce fans.
One of the most realistic, and hence awkward sex scenes I’ve seen in a movie to date. Not how you’d like to picture one of your heros.
On a similar note, there was a December 1997 episode of “Mad About You” that was shot in a single take. Obviously this was a less ambitious project than a continuous shot movie, but it still makes a very impressive 22 minutes.
Regarding Hitchcock’s Rope, there are actually eight cuts or so in the movie. Neither cameras nor projectors could have accomodated enough film at the time for a single continuous shot.
For something a little different, how about Empire, one single 8 hour-long shot of the Empire State Building, by Warhol. There was also the 35 min Blowjob and the 45 min Eat.
Correct. Film cameras only hold about 10 minutes of film.
The Spice Girls’ “If you wanna be my lover” was filmed in one continuous shot.
But not really, they did three separate shots, cut them together at inconspicuous times. Rope did that too, as did the russian movie, I would guess.
Though not all one continuous take it’s pretty damn close. My Dinner With Andre. I believe they had three or four cameras filming at once. I am unsure how many takes they did themovie in, but with the exception of bookending streetshots, the entire movie takes place at one table in a resteraunt.
I agree – neat experiement, not a good film. However, if you concentrate on Jeanne Tripplehorn’s character while she’s sitting in the limo, I think you’ll see some edits.
–Cliffy
Battery problems, IIRC. I’ll have to watch the Timecode DVD again to make sure. The disc includes a previous take, as well, before they ironed out many of the kinks.
Okay, for clarity:
There is a difference between one continuous, uninterrupted take and one continuous shot.
As Johnny L.A. pointed out, most film cameras can only hold about 10 minutes or so of film. With digital and video, you can go much longer with a continous shot.
Hitchcock’s film Rope did some sneaky stuff, like the camera passed behind somone’s back for a few seconds, the screen was black for that brief moment… Voila! Reel change!
Re: 10 minutes of film.
I’ve been salivating over the Aaton A-Minima, a super-16 camera that is incredibly quiet and about the size of a Sony VX-1000 digicam. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it can only accept 200-foot magazines which limits it to about five minutes. Now, five minutes is a helluva long take. But even with 30-second takes you still have to change magazines twice as often. Besides, it’s cheaper (per foot) to buy film stock in 400-foot loads than in 200-foot loads. (FWIW, a 400-foot roll of 16mm Fuji 125 is over a hundred simoleons – plus processing, duplicating, video transfer, &c.)
This interview with Alexander Sokurov, director of ‘Russian Ark’, confirms that digital cameras allowed him to make the film one-shot.
http://sokurov.spb.ru/island_en/feature_films/russkyi_kovcheg/mnp_ark.html
:eek:
I think Lucas’ “Lucas With The Lid Off” music video was a continuous shot also. Anyone else remember this?
There are lots of one shot music videos out there these days. Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” is also a single shot.
In my experience, Rope is the best execution of the one shot style of filmmaking.
There was a music video called Jealous of your Cigarette (can’t remember the artist) and it looked like it was done in one shot. It was basically him walking down a street dancing, being joined by others, riding a bike etc. To realize it was in one shot you have to watch things going on around the guy (smoke rising etc.) to see that it never seems to cut.
From the trailer link that Muad’Dib posted, this also appears to be the longest film ever made in one shot and one take with not a single word of dialogue 
In Rope, Hitchcock planned for the end of one reel and the beginning of the next to be a static shot. He panned over to a wall with no one there [change film], he zoomed in on a table top [change film], he panned up to the cieling [change film].
The result was that it appeared to be one continuous shot. The 5 C’s of Cinematography called it a breakthrough of applied film genius (not an exact quote).
Ah… I’m sorry I missed Eats Crayons earlier post. Same basic idea.