How Do You Make A Movie Look Like One Long Shot?

How do the big movie production companies get us to believe the scene is taken in one long shot when memory cards get full and film runs out? This video shows 4 ways of making the viewer believe it's shot this way in movies such as Academy Award Winning "1917," and maybe you could use it too.

Fading to black is one typical way you can transition, but if you could fill the frame with black or white in some way the transition can seem seamless and the shot can continue on another day and place. The whip-pan transition technique was a massive trend on YouTube not too long ago, which is one of the ways you can transport people to another moment.  

These examples shown in the video are of what Vox believes to be the best executions in film up to now, and for us creators, what's important here is pre production. If there is a project in which the one-shot concept could add value to, the best would be to learn from the masters. And the one thing we can keep in the back of our minds here is that something like this needs to be planned out properly, and there's no chance of changing something on the day of the shoot. Everything needs to fit together seamlessly. 

Wouter du Toit's picture

Wouter is a portrait and street photographer based in Paris, France. He's originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He does image retouching for clients in the beauty and fashion industry and enjoys how technology makes new ways of photography possible.

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