Social media has been awash with viewers praising Netflix’s latest drama, Adolescence as well as questions as to how the production crew pulled off the series’ one-take episodes.
The series, which stars Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty, was released by the streamer on March 13th.
Like director Philip Barantini’s Boiling Point, each of the four episodes was shot in real-time as one continuous shot.
Over the weekend, Netflix UK took to social media to reveal some of the secrets behind the drama about a 13-year-old boy who is accused of brutally murdering a classmate, which was shot at Production Park in Wakefield.
The show’s production team initially planned to film each episode in full 10 times (once in the morning, once in the afternoon, across five days), said Netflix, “but in reality a few attempts had to be abandoned and restarted, so some episodes had many more than 10 takes”.
In terms of which take made it to each episode, for episode one the team used take two which was filmed on day one. In episode two, take 13, shot on shoot day five of five was used. For episode three, it was take 11 filmed on day five of five, and for episode four the team used take 16, which was also shot on day five of five.
To prepare for each shoot, rehearsed segments of the script with a little bit more added each day – starting with five minutes on the first day and then adding further material as they went through, so by the end of the week they could complete full run-throughs.
Filming hour-long episodes in one take meant that there was added pressure on the crew to stay out of shot. During rehearsals the cast worked through the choreography, allowing DoP Matthew Lewis to plan the positions of the camera through the whole take, as well as the movements of the crew, said Netflix.
“Sometimes it was necessary for some of the crew to remain in shot, in these instances they were dressed in costume so that they could blend into the show to serve as extras,” said Netflix.
Much has been made of the final shot of episode two when the camera moves from the school to the crime scene in one take. This was achieved by attaching the camera to a drone at the point when the young girl stops to cross the road. The drone then flew a distance of 0.3 miles across the site to the murder scene, where a team of grips caught the camera and transitioned into a close shot of Stephen Graham.
