storytelling in a single shot

For week 6’s workshop, we were given the task to make a short film that tells a story in just a single shot

Lava from Matthew Bickerdike on Vimeo.

With my experience in making films, especially in action sequences, I relied mostly on short cut scenes rather than a long take, basically because I didn’t think I was skilled enough as a cinematographer. Hence, when approaching this task, I was quite doubtful of how well the filming of the scene would turn out. This activity taught me the importance of rehearsal and staging. My group and I had to plan out the choreography and rehearse the scene quite a few times before we could even think about opening the camera case. Even as the cinematographer, I also needed to practise where I’d be moving in the shots, what camera angles I needed and the amount of zoom in’s and out’s. I thought this task would take us quite a few trial and errors, but to my surprise, it only took us about 3-4 takes before we were relatively happy and content with one.

The technique of a long take is definitely a style I hope to get better at and implement into my films. Especially after watching a few examples of this activity to tell a story in only one shot, when used properly, the technique definitely adds extra depth to the story that multiple shots wouldn’t. For example, the short film ‘Life of a 5 Dollar Note‘ (I don’t remember who made it), not only did it look impressive, the idea of the scene all taken in one shot emphasised the notion of the $5’s life cycle. With our storyline of two friends trying to survive over a pit of lava, we accepted the fact that our actors were no stunt professionals, so the fast paced action of the scene won’t cut it unless I, the cinematographer, made up for the action with the camera’s movements. With a final decision on the camera’s path to circle around the main points of action, as a group, we all agreed that this made the choreography more up beat in tempo and engaging to watch. Also, this is one of the few times I’m glad to be short, because it helped for me to duck under the guys to film the scene.