The single shot from The King’s Speech interested me in terms of the way it broke from conventions of traditional scene coverage as it wasn’t ‘shot to edit’. While I think the director Tom Hooper took an interesting approach to conveying the story in this scene with the hand-held single shot, covering a scene in this way is restricting as there is very little variance for post-production.

When I first watched this scene, I thought that it was covered with a dolly shot, however after watching it a few times, I realised that it was most likely shot with hand-held camera. While the hand-held works in some of the more emotionally unstable shots in the film, I think it’s quite clunky in this particular scene. By covering the scene in a smooth dolly shot, the actor’s movements would’ve been emphasized more rather than being outshone by the shaky hand-held camera movement.

The main critique I have of this scene, is that it ends on the Queen. Story wise, the scene marks a huge milestone for the King who has just heard himself speak without stammering for the first time in his life and now has hope that he can overcome his speech impediment. However, the continuous single shot chosen to cover this scene restricts the way in which the scene can be covered. If the scene was shot to edit, the editors would’ve been able to end the scene on the King in frame if they wanted. The way the scene is currently, it appears as though the revelation is affecting the Queen more than the King (even though she is indirectly affected), due to the scene ending on her in frame.

Personally, I would’ve covered the scene in the single shot, but then also covered it in a shot to edit style so that I had more variance of shots to work with in post-production. I would’ve shot the King sitting from a high-angle to demonstrate his feelings of being insignificant before he hears himself speaking. I think having more close-ups of him would allow the editors to elongate the length of the screen time and allow the audience to focus on his reaction.

Even having a shot-reverse-shot of the relationship between the King and the record player could have added another dynamic to the scene. Rather than how the scene is currently, filming from the King’s perspective rather than the record player’s the entire time, would give the scene more depth.

By covering the scene in a shot to edit style, not only would there have been more opportunities for different edits in post-production, but the King’s epiphany would’ve been given more focus rather than concentrating on the Queen.