{"id":133021,"date":"2020-11-30T15:33:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/daredevil-true-detective-dont-look-away-long-takes-that-are-worth-watching\/"},"modified":"2020-11-30T15:33:44","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:33:44","slug":"from-daredevil-to-true-detective-the-art-of-the-long-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/11\/30\/from-daredevil-to-true-detective-the-art-of-the-long-take\/","title":{"rendered":"From Daredevil to True Detective: The Art of the Long Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When it comes to film and television, there are so many things one tends to take for granted.\u00a0 A non-diegetic soundtrack can play without viewers<\/a> giving it a second thought because it’s something viewers have come to expect is part of the package.\u00a0 A studio audience can feel like a natural part of a production until viewing a show that operates without one.\u00a0 All art is made up of conventions that seem like natural inclusions until somebody flips the expectation on its head.<\/p>\n

Such conventions can even be something as basic<\/a> as camera cuts.\u00a0 When characters have a conversation, generally the camera will cut back and forth to focus on who\u2019s talking or giving an important reaction rather than having the camera manually turn its viewpoint back and forth.\u00a0 Sometimes a camera cut is used to show the passage of time or a transition to a new location.\u00a0 They can also save the filmmakers a lot of effort because if something goes awry while filming they can just edit around it.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Wandavision Uses a Live Audience to Capture the Feel of a 50s Sitcom<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

What about when the camera doesn\u2019t cut away<\/a> and viewers are given just one long continuous shot?\u00a0 This is commonly referred to as a \u201clong take\u201d.\u00a0 Sometimes it can be the highlight of the movie because long takes are not only impressive and a massively-difficult undertaking, but they also tend to be especially engaging since the viewer is left with an uninterrupted view of the action, and it will frequently carry them along the scene if the action and camera work is particularly mobile.<\/p>\n

Compiled below is a non-comprehensive list of some fantastic long takes worth watching.<\/p>\n

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Of any piece of cinema, this is a scene that successfully makes beating the crap out of a room full of people look as exhausting as it probably is, and the fact that it\u2019s a long take really helps to amplify that feeling.\u00a0 In this scene from revered Korean neo-noir film Oldboy<\/em>, the main character Dae-su starts on one end of a dark, grungy corridor, and by the end of the scene he is on the other side of it.\u00a0 What the scene intentionally lacks in flashy choreography<\/a> it makes up for in raw grit and feeling.\u00a0 Enemies don\u2019t just stand around waiting to attack one at a time, and the main character doesn\u2019t make it through the fight unscathed.\u00a0 There are lulls in the action as people catch their breaths and consider if the fight is worth continuing.\u00a0 It all adds up to make one of the more impactful action scenes to watch.<\/p>\n

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Of any piece of cinema, this is a scene that successfully makes beating the crap<\/a> out of a room full of people look exhausting for the cameraman.\u00a0 In this scene in The Protector<\/em>, Tony Jaa\u2019s character Kham is so mad about his elephant being kidnapped that he beats up 4 floors-worth of people.\u00a0 As soon as the scene starts, Kham is throwing people through doors and off balconies and doing Tony Jaa\u2019s signature Muay Thai to knock the living daylights out of people.\u00a0 Tony Jaa\u2019s movies are known for hard-hitting fight scenes where the blows look brutal and like they really hurt the stunt performers, so pulling that off in a scene such as this makes it even more impressive.\u00a0 One of the stunt performers almost died, as during filming the safety mat he was supposed to be thrown off a balcony onto hadn\u2019t been placed quite in time for his big fall, so Tony Jaa stopped them from falling mere seconds before a tragedy could occur.\u00a0 A camera operator trained specifically for this scene, as other camera operators were not able to keep up with the action as it traversed ever higher, and even then that camera operator had a rough go of it.<\/p>\n

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In the first season of Netflix\u2019s Daredevil<\/em>, the show featured a roughly 3-minute long take of Daredevil literally knocking the teeth out of a group of ne\u2019er-do-wells in a corridor with lighting and color-grading very reminiscent of Oldboy<\/em>\u2019s corridor fight.\u00a0 In the third season\u2019s fourth episode, it appears the show\u2019s creators decided to up the ante, and Matt Murdock finds himself in a battle for life-or-death in an 11-minute uninterrupted shot.\u00a0 The scene takes place in a prison and involves both prisoners<\/a> and heavily armored guards on Wilson Fisk\u2019s payroll.\u00a0 As the fight ensues, a prison riot breaks out and Murdock negotiates for his life and is eventually escorted out of the prison through a series of snaking hallways as calamity envelopes the penitentiary.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame the show was cancelled because viewers were no doubt looking forward to an episode in the future that would probably feature a 22-minute long single shot fight scene where Matt Murdock spars with an entire criminal organization before escaping on a rocket headed for the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

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This scene from the Orson Welles film\u00a0Touch of Evil<\/em> shows not only how to pull off an impressive long take, but what the benefits of attempting such a monstrosity of an undertaking can be.\u00a0 In this opening scene, a bomb with a very short timer<\/a> is placed in the trunk of a car.\u00a0 Viewers then watch as the car slowly makes its way down a thriving street, not knowing when the bomb will go off or who might be caught in the blast radius.\u00a0 Even when the camera shifts focus from the car to a couple walking down the street, the car is never out of shot for long.\u00a0 It\u2019s a true masterclass in dramatic tension, stakes, and staging, as the shot is dense with movement and extras.\u00a0 The camera is constantly rising above the action before coming back to the ground, weaving between the throngs of people as they pass by until the moment of finality.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of scenes of incredible tension, Episode 4 of True Detective<\/em>\u2019s phenomenal first season<\/a> is packed with it.\u00a0 Matthew McConaughey\u2018s character Rustin Cohle infiltrates a gang of white supremacists to gain access to their meth supplier, and to get the information Rustin has to agree to take part in a robbery in the projects the gang has been planning.\u00a0 The entire robbery 6-minute scene is done in one shot and spans multiple rooms in multiple houses as the scene travels across the neighborhood.\u00a0 Throughout the scene, the plan goes awry, characters fight each other and the entire neighborhood erupts into chaos by the end.\u00a0 From the lead-up to the scene itself as it unfolds, it can be hard for one to find a moment to breathe, even after the credits roll, and the long take really gives viewers a sense of just how quickly a high-stakes situation can go intensely sour in mere moments.<\/p>\n

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The opening scene of John Carpenter\u2019s seminal 1978 film<\/a> Halloween<\/em> is another example of a long take being utilized for the sake of giving viewers a sense of anxiousness and tension.\u00a0 The scene starts out voyeuristic as viewers are shown the scene through somebody’s point of view as they spy on two teens getting frisky with each other.\u00a0 The as-of-yet to be seen figure makes their way to the kitchen and grabs a knife from the drawer, letting viewers know that things are going to take a turn for the worse for the people in the house.\u00a0 What solidifies that ominous feeling is when the assailant puts on a clown mask, as nothing ever good comes from somebody holding a knife and looking even clown-adjacent.\u00a0 The scene is not only about keeping viewers on the edge of their seat as the events unfold, but also about obscuring the true nature of the killer until the deed is done.\u00a0 On top of that, it also keeps the viewer in the dark about the motivation behind this sequence of events even after the scene has concluded since they never see the perpetrator’s facial expressions as the events play out.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes a long take looks the director decided to do as complicated a shot as possible in one shot on a dare.\u00a0 In this classic Goodfellas<\/em> scene, Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco\u2019s characters, Henry and Karen, go on a date at the Copacabana nightclub, taking the back entrance through the kitchen to reach the show floor.\u00a0 They pass through multiple hallways and a hectic kitchen on their way there, the entire way Henry saying hello, patting backs, and rubbing shoulders with a plethora of people and slipping $20 bills to many of them.\u00a0 The uninterrupted nature of the scene gives the viewers a real sense of the access Liotta\u2019s character has to the inner workings of the nightclub, how glamorous and powerful his mobster lifestyle<\/a> is making him feel, and how quickly he\u2019s able to get a table set up at the front of the show special for him on what is clearly a wildly busy night for the venue.<\/p>\n

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Directed by Steve McQueen, Hunger <\/em>is a historical drama about the 1981 Irish hunger strike.\u00a0 The scene in question is lacking the fanfare and intense camera movements of the other scenes mentioned above, but is rather a scene of just two people talking to each other.\u00a0 Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham, portraying Bobby Sands and Father Moran, respectively, discuss life and the impending hunger strike<\/a>, which the priest attempts to persuade Bobby Sands not to go through with.\u00a0 The shot is composed symmetrically, exemplifying that despite their stations in life there is little different between the two men aside from their convictions.\u00a0 The lighting is stark and dramatic, with the characters backlit and almost fully silhouetted.\u00a0 As the priest tries to break through to somebody willing to die for a cause they believe in, it\u2019s one unbroken shot of two people having a smoke and sharing a table.\u00a0 It\u2019s an emotionally powerful scene purely because the subject being discussed is emotionally powerful.\u00a0 There’s no music to force the mood, letting the scene speak for itself.\u00a0 The unbroken nature of the shot instead makes the viewer pay attention to what is being said and what is at stake.<\/p>\n

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The Argentinian crime drama The Secrets In Their Eyes <\/em>spans several decades and features a backdrop of the country\u2019s politics over the many years it encompasses.\u00a0 It won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film among other accolades.\u00a0 In it, the main character makes a promise to a grieving husband to solve the murder of his wife, and from there a complicated mystery unfolds.\u00a0 In a pivotal moment in the film, the characters track the killer to a soccer stadium<\/a>, though the sport is referred to as football there, which feels worth mentioning.\u00a0 The chase that follows is a 5-minute long single shot in the crowded stadium, complete with aerial view, over 200 extras, and some digital effects to make the stadium look totally packed as they attempt to apprehend the killer.\u00a0 It\u2019s a tense moment, made claustrophobic by how squeezed in everybody is by the bustling nature of the stadium and the fanfare of the event everybody not involved in solving a murder is there to see.\u00a0 Making the scene was an huge undertaking, reportedly taking over a year to finish from pre-production to editing, but it helps the viewer get a sense of how hectic and desperate the chase is.<\/p>\n

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This movie is difficult to describe without giving too much of the charm away, but it does manage to pull off the impressive feat of making its opening shot 37 minutes long<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0One Cut of the Dead<\/em> is a zombie film from Japan that goes a step further than the other entries on this list and breaks the fourth wall by giving an in-film explanation for why the sequence is being done all in one take.\u00a0 The point of the film is to constantly subvert expectations, and questionable occurrences in the first third of the movie are eventually given a thoroughly satisfying explanation in the final third, and what is revealed makes the viewer understand things that happened that they were not aware needed explaining, and it vastly improves the film by doing so.\u00a0 The movie takes a gamble with long-shot odds on viewers\u2019 attention spans, but it absolutely pays off, especially considering the film earned over $250,000 from its $25,000 budget.\u00a0 The actors in the film were no doubt surprised by the film\u2019s success considering it was actually the final production of an acting and directing workshop they paid to take.<\/p>\n

Long takes are risky business<\/a>.\u00a0 Some things are simply improved as a result of competent editing, otherwise it wouldn\u2019t have its own category at the Academy Awards.\u00a0 Eschewing the rudimentary aspect of film making can result in some very stilted cinema if mismanaged.\u00a0 However, when done with skill, precision, or even simply a solid amount of cleverness, it can create some of the most memorable sequences of all.<\/p>\n

MORE: Netflix to Try Old-Fashioned Television Format in France<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Movies are compilations of many shots blended through editing, but when viewers are given just one long continuous shot, it’s magic.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"From Daredevil to True Detective: The Art of the Long Take - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"Movies are compilations of many shots blended through editing, but when viewers are given just one long continuous shot, it's magic."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133022,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133021\/revisions\/133022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}