Research
In this research, I intend to investigate Long take. It will cover three parts: What is a long take? What are the meanings of long takes? How to achieve a long take?
A long take also called continues take or continues shot, is a shot lasting much longer than the conventional editing space either of the film itself or of films in general. Many action film use the long take as a way to authenticate a fight sequence. In 1917, the long take also give audience a sense of immerse. The long take also looks just a single shot .The composition of a single shot, however, contains extremely complex elements :(1) different scenes (close-up, close-up, mid-range, panoramic, and large perspective); (2) position and Angle of the camera; (3) motion changes of the picture composition and composition; (4) selection of lens (standard lens, telephoto lens and wide-angle lens) and depth of field; (5) focus and change of focus; (6) light and illumination (high and low, light ratio); (7) color and color contrast (color sheet), etc. The expressiveness of a single shot depends on the comprehensive use of the above elements.
Today’s movies are made up of several thousand editing cuts, putting together typical shots comes with enough challenge. But while a typical final cut rarely exceeds three seconds per shot, a true long take can last several minutes — or even last for an entire film, as in “Russian Ark” (2002).
These tracking takes involve complicated camera movement, countless hours of rehearsing, and enormous amounts of patience, as a single mistake forces the team to prepare and shoot the scene all over again.
Of course, long takes almost always stand out from the rest of the film when done right. Whether it’s an elaborate action sequence or an establishing shot, viewers love watching a scene unfold without any visual interruptions. This is why many directors pay close attention to long shots, even if it might cost them valuable time and resources.
The aesthetic features of long takes
- the time and space recorded by the long take is a continuous and actual time and space.
The long take does not interrupt the natural process of time, and maintains the uninterrupted process of time. It is consistent with the actual time and process, and eliminates the possibility of montage compression or extension of the actual time through lens cutting.
The space represented by the long take is the real space that actually exists. The natural transformation of the space is realised in the movement of the lens, and the connection between the part and the whole is realised, which eliminates the possibility of montage camera splicing and piecing together the new space.
(2) the long take has documentary features.
Andre Bazin’s “long take theory” holds that long shot can maintain the unity and integrity of film time and film space, express the continuity and integrity of the action of characters and the development of events, so it can more truly reflect the reality and conform to the characteristics of documentary aesthetics.
(3) from the perspective of shooting, long take is divided into fixed long take, long take with depth of field and long take with motion.
The meanings of long takes
- Establishing a Theme. A long take is sometimes seen as little more than directors’ showing off but at some point, is to accentuate the theme of this movie. That’s why long takes were used a lot in some thrillers ,suspense films and action movies.
- Technical Innovation.Long takes don’t have to be about gathering response from an audience. They can also about accomplishing something for those behind the camera for get a kick out of overcoming technical obstacles. The long take can be an exciting opportunity since they are often extremely difficult to pull off.
- Creating Tension. The legendary three minutes opening can shot of Orson Welles masterpiece Touch of Evil. The scene follows the journey of a car with a literal ticking time bomb in the truck among many other things. This scene highlights how the long take is a powerful technique for creating tension unlike editing which obscures the audience’s perception of time and manipulates it. The shot plays out in real time and the long take makes up painfully aware of every second ticking.
- Capturing Realism. The long take enhance that with wonderfully believable touches of realism while cuts continually changes perspective angle and shot type. Long takes are continuous. They flow and immerse the viewers into the story. This makes the scene much more powerful in certain instances. We are experiencing the entire story, the entire event, the entire experience moment to moment
How to achieve a long take?
1.The director’s mise-én-scene
Scheduling is the hard part. A long shot often needs a lot of scheduling: actors direct, lighting setting and equipment setting…This is a huge project which is a great teat for the director’s coordination as a team.
2.Lens selection and depth of field
A real long take often involves several scenes, and this control is also very difficult, not only need to be in place at the same time, but also need smooth focus and reasonable light distribution, which is several times the workload of separate shooting. So it will be hard to select lens and depth of field. The cinematographer of 1917 Roger Deakins says “There was some painting on the river with a 47mm lens because I wanted to cut out more of the background elements. In addition, a 35-mm lens was used in the basement in Germany, because I wanted to create the feeling of a tunnel.”
The immersive feeling of the film picture is proportional to the difficulty of shooting, which can be imagined as the shooting pressure. Shoot, each a lens is around the actor’s performance, in order to present more immersed in a “mirror” picture, taken in the actor’s performance is not interrupted, it is impossible to change camera, so in a lens beam former is pressure has been accumulated. In addition, in order to ensure the matching and coherence of the front and rear shots, the machine position point cannot be wrong. The shooting pressure does not stop there. The “one mirror to the end” mode of operation also determines that the weather will become one of the factors that have a great impact on the shooting. In this regard, the studio two ALEXA Mini LF and two sets of equipment are always on standby, in order to respond to changes in the weather.
3. Continuity of performance
Long shot gave up the pros and cons of playing lens, montage… The director could not say “cut” after the start of the shot. The performance for such a long time requires very high requirements of the actors, especially the cohesion, precise positioning, posture, expression and lines. Every aspect is required to be exact. Actors usually have to rehearse for a day and then film for a day, which can double the cost.
4. Uncontrollable factors
In order to find the right weather, a long lens may only be turned on once a day.
Above all, to achieve a long take really needs great cooperations and amazing scene control.
street snap in Chengdu Taikoo Li Shopping Central
Self Portraits, Australia, 2020, digital photographs. Three versions of the same self portrait taken from different viewpoints
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