Netflix ‘Adolescence’ Creators Explain How They Made One-Shot Episodes

Recent Netflix hit Adolescence has caused an impact like few drama shows do today. Its presentation of a family shattered by an unimaginable crime has shaken viewers to their core and the miniseries remains among the most popular TV shows on the streamer. Yes, it’s a very emotional story, but it certainly wouldn’t be the same without its peculiar narrative style, one that makes everyone scratch their head in wonder, as we all ask the same question: How was Adolescence shot? After a few days, the crew behind the camera revealed how they achieved the one-shot episodes and created one of the most impactful shows in recent memory.

The series was created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who also stars in the show as Eddie, Jamie’s father) and directed by Philip Barantini. It consists of four episodes shot in a single take, all taking place during the aftermath of a horrific crime. Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper in a great performance) is arrested when police raid his home. When taken to a police station, Jamie and his father are shown the irrefutable evidence of a murder. Jamie has stabbed a girl to death, but he says that it is not him. In just four episodes, viewers find out the truth behind a crime that conceals a horrific social dynamic taking place in a teenage underworld.

In a conversation with Variety, Barantini and cinematographer Matthew Lewis revealed their secrets for achieving what is obviously a challenge in terms of TV production. Today, visual effects allow filmmakers to do the impossible, but Barantini and Lewis didn’t need to use CGI to stitch together takes. It is all done practically, except for one shot where physics represented a problem: “The VFX is stuff for when we went through a window in one of the episodes. We couldn’t do that in real life. But there was no stitching of takes together – it was one entire shot in its entirety, whether I wanted it to be or not.”

To shoot Adolescence, planning was everything. The script called for multiple locations to be used in a single take, and this meant the camera had to be portable. The sets had to be close to each other because it all takes place in real-time, and transportation was, of course, necessary. However, it all worked out in the end. Many rehearsals, gimbals, no shot lists, and lots of patience were essential to achieve the show. Lewis said the following about the first scene, where police raid the Miller household:

“It’s a lot of planning… We mapped the area we were using and looked at how the camera would move within it, and we rehearsed it like a dance, between me and the cast. But even before that, Phil and l were looking for locations, and once we had that, we’d plot the route and move all the puzzle pieces until it made sense. The biggest challenge was how to go from a real house to a fake police station.

I didn’t want it to be handheld, and Phil agreed. I was concerned that four hours long would just be nauseating. In a small environment, like a kitchen, it worked, but traveling around and moving up and down long corridors, you’d feel every footstep, and it would feel like a documentary.”

The Hardest Scene To Shoot in ‘Adolescence’

Although shooting in multiple locations seems to be the most challenging aspect of making a show like Adolescence, Lewis and Barantini believe the school episode was the hardest of all (the only one takes place in the school). The logistics included having to control an entire school filled with students of all ages, and accomplishing the most ambitious shot in the series:

“It was an absolute nightmare… At the end of the school episode, we connected to a drone, which flies away, and we land again at a car park. It was a last-minute request from the execs. We were originally going to take off and fly and stay up in the air, but they thought it would be a nice beat to go back and find Stephen Graham at the end of the scene, so we had a couple of days to work that out, but we got it.”

You would think that the single-take narrative style is not necessary for a show that’s already dramatic because of its plot. However, it’s hard to imagine Adolescence without its restrictive storytelling backdrop. It causes a bit of anxiety as viewers slowly realize the story is not going to end the way they want it to, and it feels like the perfect technique to peel away the various layers that make Jamie’s story all the more compelling. And frightening.

Source: Variety