Tuesday, September 29, 2009

One Take Wonder

In the good ol days of the blog, I would take this opportunity to write a piece on the pros and cons of the 'oner' (filming a scene or sequence in one take)...and discuss art vs. ego, story vs. 'look at me', substance vs. style and so on. But these days no one's reading magazines or newspapers anymore much less the blogs it seems, so I'll simply post this tasty morsel of one take video awesomeness by a group of students in Montreal and say you'll love it.

Trust me, I Gotta Feeling.




H/T Matt MacLennan

p.s. Over at his place, Matt wonders what doing a one take shot like this "gets you, really"...and when it comes to film school at least, I say it shows off your 'directing'. Note to students: wanna show off your writing, put together a good two-hander in a room with a couple of decent actors and shoot it simple...let the words and performances shine. Wanna show off your directing skills...film a wicked oner.


p.p.s. I Gotta Feeling lip dub reminds me of THIS CLASSIC from the College Humor offices.

3 comments:

wp said...

This is the best thing I've seen in a while! And you don't need a budget to do this. Just a video camera and a gang of enthusiastic friends.

As for a one hander or a two hander... for me it's really about what the scene suggests. Would doing it in one shot give you something more than covering the scene in a classical sense? Would a single shot increase the tension? Create a sense of dread? Does a two-hander give you a rhythm that a one shot wouldn't? Etc.

I love watching PT Anderson films because he will make the camera do some amazing things. But I'm not sure they always service the scene. But most of the time he pulls it off.

Not sure about the rest of your readers, but I like it when you blog about this stuff.

Besides, I don't have a newspaper subscription anymore...

blindmind said...

I LOVE that "Flagpole Sitta" vid. I used to watch it three times a day just for the feel good.

Something about those lip dub videos - yes, they do profile talent and make the participants famous in a small, small way but every time I see one of them I can't shake the feeling that, at its heart, the video is about people pulling together to make something great for its own sake.

A lesson a lot of people in the film/t.v. biz could learn.

dandan said...

That was a fantastic clip, I loved it. Thanks for sharing