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Cuaron's new two-hour film features only 156 shots with "many of them six, eight, 10 minutes long." The opening shot is 17 minutes.

Thank god at least one mainstream director doesn't want to give me seizures.

17 mins - is that a record? Not even Bela Tarr did such long takes, or did he?

The opening shot of Oxhide II hits 21 minutes. And then there's films like Russian Ark but.....

Finch wrote:17 mins - is that a record? Not even Bela Tarr did such long takes, or did he?

17 mins. is no record when the opening (and indeed only) shot of Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark is 90+ minutes!

That said, after some of those dazzling tracking shots in Children of Men, I can't wait to see what Cuaron does here.

I recall seeing Tarr saying somewhere that the only reason he doesn't shoot longer takes is because there's only so much film in a roll.

knives wrote:Thank god at least one mainstream director doesn't want to give me seizures.

The trailer does though.

Was that really the teaser? I hope they aren't playing that in any theaters.

AlexHansen wrote:I recall seeing Tarr saying somewhere that the only reason he doesn't shoot longer takes is because there's only so much film in a roll.

10-11 minutes is the usual limit for one reel of 35mm film (4-perf). Steve McQueen and his DP Sean Bobbitt acheived a 16-minute take in Hunger, but that was shot in 2-perf Super 35, so doubling the possible duration of one reel.

Longer takes were always possible when shooting in other media - Andy Warhol did a half-hour take in Blue Movie (apparently) but that film was shot in 16mm. Bela Tarr achieved 67 minutes in his 1982 version of Macbeth, shot on analogue video, made for Hungarian TV. And of course, with Russian Ark, Timecode and others, shooting an entire feature in one shot is now possible.

Alan Smithee wrote:Was that really the teaser? I hope they aren't playing that in any theaters.

I can't see any evidence that it's really tied to the film at all. It certainly wasn't released by Warner.

The script for this one is really great and I have no doubt the film has the potential to be even better. And it's written in such a way that you can feel the long takes on the page. Great to see a space-based thriller that could plausibly happen and one that really milks its stark setting and minimal scenario for all its worth. I'm also predisposed to love a film that's this ambitiously artsy and experimental taking advantage of such hi-tech VFX for contrarian ends. The story is so simple and so obvious, I'm surprised it hasn't been done before. It's basically about somebody

Spoiler

out on a space walk whose tether gets cut loose. Like the guy floating away into blackness in 2001 or like one short story I read a long time ago in some forgotten sci-fi anthology of my youth where an astronaut slowly drifts through space and then plummets to his doom in the atmosphere of a nearby planet. Except Cuarón's characters have one or two last chances left. And that's the film.

GaryC wrote:Longer takes were always possible when shooting in other media - Andy Warhol did a half-hour take in Blue Movie (apparently) but that film was shot in 16mm.

There are a lot of full-roll takes in Warhol's films. I think the feature-length Vinyl (his version of A Clockwork Orange), for example, consists of only two or three takes. It's not even two or three shots, really, since the mise-en-scene remains the same. The only reason for the cut is that they had to change reels. (And shoot up, probably.)

Wish they had quotes from more sophisticated film viewers. I can do without "worst movie ever" from a twitter user more at home with The Blind Side.

Is the IMDB page correct, in that there are only three actors in this film?

I have my doubts, but since the plot revolves around two characters stranded in space, it may not be wrong.

mfunk9786 wrote:Is the IMDB page correct, in that there are only three actors in this film?

I believe that is correct, and that for the majority of the film, it's just Bullock in a single location.

That location being

Spoiler

the infinite vastness of outer space.

Damn, disappointed to hear this was pushed back.

IMDB is reporting that there are two cinematographers on this film, Lubezki and Seresin. I've personally never heard of a film that used two cinematographers. Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts as to why Cuaron hired both Chivo (his usual DP) and Seresin (who he used on Harry Potter). Initially I had thought that maybe it was because Emmanuel was unfamiliar with how to shoot outer space sequences, but then I thought about it and he did shoot some outer space looking sequences with Malick on The Tree of Life. The only thing I can think of is that possibly Emmanuel isn't overly familiar with shooting sequences that require extensive VFX.

I have no idea about the specifics in this case, but usually when two cinematographers are credited it's because one replaced the other partway through filming.

Roger Ryan wrote:I have no idea about the specifics in this case, but usually when two cinematographers are credited it's because one replaced the other partway through filming.

e.g. Effi Briest (shot in two chunks, with other films made in between) and Days of Heaven, though in the latter case (and probably a lot of other Hollywood examples) only one of the cinematographers gets the main credit.

This discussion reminds me of Bad Boy Bubby, which employed 32 different directors of photography (one for every 'outside' scene, and each working on their scene in isolation from everyone else, in order to convey the main character's disorientation) but is credited just to one.

Roger Ryan wrote:I have no idea about the specifics in this case, but usually when two cinematographers are credited it's because one replaced the other partway through filming.

This happened on Panic Room when Darius Khondji felt micromanaged by Fincher and was replaced by Conrad Hall. Both are credited.

Danny Boyle hired both Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak from the beginning on 127 Hours. They collaborated and rotated d.p. duties throughout the project. There's a Variety piece on that unusual collaboration here.

Robert Altman was known for having difficulties with some of his DP's. He fired Jordan Cronenweth in the middle of the BREWSTER MCCLOUD shoot, although he retained a credit. He dumped Robby Müller off of FOOL FOR LOVE after just a week.