PRODUCTION ADOLESCENCE
incredible. As is well documented, each one of the show’s four episodes was shot as a single, continuous take: no cuts, no stitching scenes in post – and one hell of a challenge for the people making it. SERVING THE STORY There’s always a danger that a technique like this will hog focus, or worse, feel like a gimmick; a chance to show off skills without adding much worth for the audience. But for DOP Matt Lewis (and almost everyone else seems to agree), the one-shot approach was exactly right for Adolescence ’s unflinching storytelling. “It doesn’t work in every scenario, and I never want to force a one-shot because it limits you massively,” he begins. “Not just in geography and time – and lack of editing – but the way the camera moves, you can really only see one person at a time during a conversation, so you need to be sure it’s going to work. But what it does super well is create a slow cranking of tension. It has this relentlessness. “Ultimately, if you remove the action from a one-shot,” he continues, “it starts to become unsettling. It’s bubbling all the time. You don’t get a break, you’re always holding your breath.” Unlike in traditional filmmaking, where a scene might cut to a wide establisher to provide a moment of relief, the one- shot never allows the viewer to fully relax: “It works well when you want this unsettled feeling, but you couldn’t apply it to a light-hearted scenario because you can’t uncrank it once you’re in it. In a one- shot, even the act of moving backwards feels like the end of the show. You can
only spiral in until the blocking changes; it was a big challenge.” Adolescence was conceived of as a one-shot piece, so the approach was baked into the structure of the storytelling right from the start. Writer Jack Thorne describes it as an ‘unblinking eye’ that forces the audience directly into the world of the characters, and it’s extremely effective in this context, giving a feeling of real-time immersion in the drama.
It’s impossible not to marvel at some of the feats the team pulled off, like the opening sequence, which takes us through the arrest, bashing down the door to teenage Jamie’s home at dawn, ripping him out of bed, bundling him into the police car and driving to the station where he’s questioned. Or in episode 2, when the camera goes straight from the ground to airborne, transitioning seamlessly into a drone shot – achieved with the help of The Helicopter Girls – to float the viewer from the school to the harrowing crime scene, swooping back down to ground level to show Jamie’s dad (Stephen Graham) laying flowers. BACKBREAKING CHALLENGES While it makes for incredible telly, the mind-blowing ambition of the one-take formula presented ongoing challenges during production. The team battled with signal issues, technical failures and the relentless physical toll of capturing the performances playing out in full each take. The process was one of continual problem-solving, says Lewis, and there were many moments when he wasn’t sure they could pull it off. One memory
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