Daniel Pietzsch

Children Of Men: Extended Takes

I learned about ‘Extended Takes’ a while ago, and yesterday I watched one movie from the list ’20 Greatest Extended Takes In Movie History’: Children of Men.

This movie contains a lot of these long scenes without cut. Two of those immediately got my attention. But first, here’s some context on what the movie is about:

Set in the United Kingdom of 2027, the film explores a grim world in which two decades of global human infertility have left humanity with less than a century to survive. Societal collapse, terrorism, and environmental destruction accompany the impending extinction. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom—perhaps the last functioning government—persecutes a seemingly endless wave of illegal immigrant refugees seeking sanctuary. In the midst of this chaos, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) must find safe transit for Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a pregnant African “fugee” (refugee).

The first scene, I’d like to share is the 'roadside ambush’:

[Director Alfonso] Cuarón’s initial idea for maintaining continuity during the roadside ambush scene was dismissed by production experts as an “impossible shot to do”. Fresh from the visual effects-laden Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Cuarón suggested using computer-generated imagery to film the scene. [Cinematographer Emmanuel] Lubezki refused to allow it, reminding the director that they had intended to make a film akin to a “raw documentary”. Instead, a special camera rig invented by Gary Thieltges of Doggicam Systems was employed, allowing Cuarón to develop the scene as one extended shot. A vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera, and the windshield was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including the DP and camera operator, rode on the roof.

So please note: these shots are without cuts!

Here is an article where you can see how the car looked like when they filmed the scene: Children of Men - Hard Core Seamless vfx.

Even longer is a scene “in which [main character] Theo is captured by the Fishes, escapes, and runs down a street and through a building in the middle of a raging battle”:

The creation of the single-shot sequences was a challenging, time-consuming process that sparked concerns from the studio. It took fourteen days to prepare for the single shot in which Clive Owen’s character searches a building under attack, and five hours for every time they wanted to reshoot it. In the middle of one shot, blood splattered onto the lens, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki convinced the director to leave it in. According to Owen, “Right in the thick of it are me and the camera operator because we’re doing this very complicated, very specific dance which, when we come to shoot, we have to make feel completely random.”

Now watch this. It’s one take until the 6 minute mark.

That’s just amazing, even if you read that the final product doesn’t seem to be one single shot:

However, the commonly reported statement that the action scenes are continuous shots is not entirely true. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill explains that the effects team had to “combine several takes to create impossibly long shots”.

All quotes taken from the Wikipedia article on 'Children of Men’.