Adolescence director exposes moment you can see cameraman in gripping scene

Adolescence has been hugely successful for several reasons but when you put aside the brilliant performances of Owen Cooper, Stephen Graham, and Ashley Walters, one of the most well-received elements of the Netflix project has undoubtedly been the one-take approach to filming.

Countless shows are similar to Adolescence but the one-take filming method definitely adds to the intensity of the show and the way in which we digest it.

“When we talked about this project, and the one-shot thing, we really talked about it quite seriously because I’ve done Boiling Point, and I didn’t want to be known as the guy who just does the one takes. But this particular story, what it does is it forces you to pay attention,” director Philip Barantini earlier told Metro.

“It’s relentless, and it puts a perspective on things that you wouldn’t necessarily have. You can’t jump forward in time, you can’t cut to another person, you can’t go to a close-up.”

Of course, the fast-paced nature of filming only one take is bound to create some issues, and though not strictly an error, Philip has recently shed light on a scene where you can *technically* see the cameraman.

The Adolescence cameraman is in the white van pictured below

In episode two, which takes place at the local school where both killer Jamie and victim Katie attended, Ashley Walters chases down a school kid to question him about incel culture and where Jamie got the knife. Following this scene, and despite the entire show being one-take, the camera seemingly flies through the air and across town before landing on Stephen Graham’s character Eddie who is laying flowers at the scene of the crime.

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To keep with the show’s one-take approach, the camera had to be airlifted from one scene to another using a drone while still rolling. Cinematographer Matthew Lewis then had to hottail it down the road to meet the drone and continue on with the scene.

“As Ashley [Walters] leaves in his car, we have a team coming up behind Matt [the cinematographer], who clip the camera to a drone with a hook. Then we fly the drone over the town. In the meantime, Matt legs it into a van. He drives to the end site, catches the drone with two other people, disconnects it and starts walking towards Stephen’s face,” director Philip Barantini told The Guardian.

“If you watch it again, you’ll see his van drive into the car park as the drone comes into land.”

You can’t actually see Matt in the scene but we wouldn’t have clocked the van if Philip hadn’t pointed it out.

Initially, the scene was much simpler and entailed the drone flying over the murder scene and into the distance, as Philip explained: “The original idea was that the drone would just take off, fly over the murder site, and then keep flying. That was supposed to be the end of the episode. But then on Wednesday of the shoot week, Toby Bentley, the Netflix executive, said: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could have Stephen at the end?’”

The one-take approach almost torpedoed the Adolescence scene

Obviously, not being able to film as many takes as humanly possible can pose some issues when you’re dealing with larger-scale scenes. Even in this one, the crew had to contend with strong winds and almost ditched the scene as a result.

“We’d do a take in the morning and a take in the afternoon every day,” Stephen Graham told the publication. “On Wednesday, Toby had his idea. It was like: ‘Shit, that only gives us Thursday and Friday to get it right.’ On Thursday, the winds were too high. Friday morning, the winds were OK, but the drone wobbled and fell.”

It was actually the final take that we saw on Netflix.

Adolescence is on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Featured image credit: Netflix