

The Pure Stress of the One-Take


Making a movie is hard enough. Finishing the script, finding actors and a crew, making sure scheduling isn't an issue, planning ahead for the editors, and ensure the final product is as perfect as possible before releasing it to a wide audience.
But I cannot imagine the added-on stress that came to delivering a scene - or even groups of scenes - that take place with one shot. I'm talking 1917, Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, and Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious. These three films achieve a cinematic impossibility: providing an entire feature-length picture with the illusion of it all taking place in one take.