Adolescence and The Studio, two of the most talked-about TV shows right now, have very little in common. The former is a sobering Netflix blockbuster from England about teenage internet culture and the manosphere, and the other an American satire on Hollywood on Apple TV+. If anything connects the two, it is the single-take episode, in which events are filmed continuously as they happen, without editing cuts.
Adolescence, directed by Philip Barantini and shot by Matthew Lewis, comprises four one-take episodes. The Studio, directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, has many sequences in the three episodes released thus far that last several minutes rather than cutting between the action. In fact, The Studio’s second episode, titled ‘The Oner’—Hollywood slang for a storytelling device that has been round for decades in films and shows—is so meta, it shows us how the technique can go very, very wrong and be a success through its 25-minute run.
“The oner is the ultimate cinematic achievement, you know. It’s like the perfect marriage of artistry and technicality,” Seth Rogen’s character, Matt Remick, exults. Matt rattles off the names of films that have previously used continuous takes—Birdman (2014), Goodfellas (1990), Children of Men (2006). It’s a great storytelling tool, adds Matt, whose tendency to state the obvious is part of the hilarity of The Studio.
And Matt is right. Pulling off a one-take shot requires dexterity. The writing, staging, performances, cinematography and set design have to be perfectly synchronised for the single take to happen. Such sequences are executed only after immense planning. If a single element is out of place, the shoot will need to begin all over again. We see this play out when a fumbling Matt upends the film shoot at the set, and we see it again in how Rogan achieves it successfully by shooting the entire episode about a oner in one seamless take.
In the hands of the right creators, the single-take film or episode can be a magnificent example of storytelling rather than a gimmick. The one-take approach is arguably one of the chief reasons Adolescence has resonated the world over. Written by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, Adolescence revolves around a 13-year-old boy convicted for the murder of his classmate. The single take brings out the drama surrounding Jamie’s (Owen Cooper) arrest and the shock felt by his family, particularly his father, Eddie (Stephen Graham).
Uninterrupted filming and the absence of cutting ratchets up the unease, tension and anguish that unfold as Jamie protests his innocence and Eddie struggles to grapple with his son’s possible guilt. There is a sense of relentlessness in Adolescence, the feeling that there is no escaping the bitter truths that will be revealed during the course of the investigation. The viewers too feel trapped in this interrogation.
Could this effect have been produced by splicing up each episode into many shots? Perhaps, given how brilliant the screenplay is. But what the one-take style undeniably does is immerse us into Jamie’s situation and hold us captive throughout.
Perhaps no episode illustrates the strength of the “oner” as the third segment. Jamie has a conversation with his counsellor Briony (Erin Doherty), which begins innocuously enough but then steadily unravels. The camera views both characters in the same frame and then moves back and forth between them. We see Jamie lurching from vulnerability to aggression while simultaneously swinging back to the impact his behaviour is having on Briony. The room feels claustrophobic and explosive—and not just for Briony, because there hasn’t been a moment of relief for her or us.
In The Studio, lengthy takes and the single take bring out the merry chaos and normalised absurdity involved in filmmaking in Hollywood. Here, both styles contribute to the show’s larger satirical view of behind-the-scenes showbiz shenanigans.
Seth Rogen’s Matt has been recently made head of the fictitious Continental Studios. His heart bleeds for the kind of arthouse movies that win Oscars but don’t necessarily rake in the billions, as his boss, Continental’s CEO Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston), reminds him.
The Studio is stuffed with Hollywood jargon, insider jokes and appearances by luminaries playing fictionalised versions of themselves. One of the clever cameos is by Martin Scorsese, who superbly used a continuous take in Goodfellas to show his lead character’s successful entry into the mafia.
“Griffin Mill” itself is a tribute to Robert Altman’s The Player (1992). The Player stars Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill, a cynical studio executive who begins to get death threats from a writer whose script he has rejected.
The Player opens with a lengthy take that lasts nearly eight minutes. The camera follows Griffin as he makes his way into his office but briefly lingers on a couple of bystanders. One of them says, “The pictures they make these days are all MTV, cut cut cut! The opening shot of [Orson] Welles’s Touch of Evil was six and a half minutes long! Well, three or four anyway.”
In The Studio, the long take is consciously not as fluid or smooth as it is in Touch of Evil, Goodfellas or The Player. Adam Newport-Berra’s camera has a jittery quality that brings out the over-caffeinated energy, adrenaline rush and sheer despair felt by characters trying to draw the line between creativity and commerce.
The camera whips this way and that between characters, mimicking their nervousness as they strive to rein in fatuous movie stars, indulgent directors and their own bottomline-obsessed tendencies. ‘The Oner’ episode itself is peak satire, sending up this beloved Hollywood stab at virtuosity while also being a superbly filmed account of a shoot going out of control.
While Adolescence creates intensity through the continuous take, The Studio uses the device for laughs. The effect is identical: we are sucked right in, and we cannot look away.
