When to Hold a Shot

Every cut gives the editor a choice: when to move to another angle, how long to stay on a reaction, which take of each line to use. A long take gives up those choices. The scene plays in real time, in one piece, and whatever happened during the take is what the audience sees.

These nine commentaries describe why filmmakers accepted that trade, what it required from actors and crews, and why some long takes were cut up in the end. They also show that the audience’s sense of an unbroken shot and the actual absence of cuts are not always the same thing.

§1 A long take depends on the performance

John Mackenzie describes a tracking shot in The Long Good Friday that follows the action and gradually widens.

In a scene built from several angles, the editor can cover a weak moment by cutting to a reaction or choosing a better take of one line. In a long take, a mistake late in the shot means starting again from the beginning. Mackenzie adds that he had no time to shoot coverage as a fallback, so the shot depended entirely on his two actors.

The Meaning of Life commentary describes a take limited only by the film stock.

The shot follows a scene inside a building, moves to Eric Idle, and follows him out into the street. A take that long requires the actors, the camera operator, the sound crew, and everyone in the background to get every moment right in the same attempt.

§2 A long take needs staging

Holding a shot also changes the director’s work before filming. In a long take, the actors’ movement has to produce the right composition at every moment, because there is no cut to reframe the scene. The Citizen Kane commentary describes a scene with four characters held in a single shot.

The commentary continues that Orson Welles stopped shooting so he could work out how to block the scene. The solution he found keeps all four characters in view, arranged so that their relationships are visible without cutting between them.

A long take does not save time on set. It moves the work from coverage and editing into staging and rehearsal.

§3 Use the long take for a reason

The Goodfellas entrance into the Copacabana nightclub is a well-known long take. The commentary explains why it had to be one shot.

The shot follows Henry Hill through the club’s service areas and kitchen to a table set up for him in front of the stage. Staying with him in one movement shows the audience his status. Cutting would have shown the route; holding the shot shows how easily he moves through it.

The Don’t Breathe filmmakers describe a long take with the opposite effect.

Holding the shot during a violent struggle keeps the audience watching without the relief a cut would provide. The same technique that shows Henry Hill’s ease in Goodfellas here makes the audience stay with suffering.

In both cases the long take was chosen for what continuous time would do to the audience, not to display the camera work.

§4 Decide on the day, or in the edit

Sometimes the decision to hold a shot is made during filming. Rob Cohen describes a moment on The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor that was planned as three separate shots.

Joining the launch, flight, and impact of the arrows into one movement lets the audience follow cause and effect without a cut. Cohen made the change on location, working it out with visual effects supervisor Joel Hynek.

The decision can also go the other way. The Northman commentary describes a long take that did not survive the edit.

The take was difficult and impressive, and still worked better in pieces. A long take is one option in the edit, not a commitment the editor must honor. The commentary does not regret the effort, but the scene came first.

§5 An unbroken shot can contain cuts

What the audience experiences as a single continuous shot is sometimes several shots joined. The V.H.S. 2 filmmakers describe a found-footage sequence designed to look like one take.

The commentary explains the reason: with many performers in the sequence, one small mistake could ruin a take. Hiding cuts at moments when the camera moved quickly or pointed away let the filmmakers combine the best parts of several attempts while keeping the appearance of continuous time.

The reverse also happens. In The 400 Blows, the long tracking shot of Antoine running near the end of the film is real, but its sound is not.

The commentary’s point is that the long take was filmed from a moving truck, and the sound the audience hears was added afterward to remove the evidence of how it was made. Holding a shot often requires other departments to work around the method.

§6 Questions before holding a shot

These accounts suggest five questions:

1. Can the actors carry it? The Long Good Friday and The Meaning of Life depended on performances with no edit to fall back on.
2. Is the staging worked out? The Citizen Kane scene required Welles to stop and solve the blocking first.
3. What does continuous time do for this scene? Goodfellas used it to show status, and Don’t Breathe used it to withhold relief.
4. Will it still work in the edit? The Northman cut up a long take because the scene played better in pieces.
5. Does it need to be one take, or only look like one? V.H.S. 2 hid cuts inside an apparent single shot, and The 400 Blows replaced the sound of its long take.

A long take is a decision about the audience’s experience of time. It is worth its cost when that experience is what the scene needs.