In 2021, One Shot blasted into motion followers’ hearts, making full use of Scott Adkins’ diverse talent set. It’s a high-octane tactical motion film with a enjoyable gimmick: The entire film is designed to appear like one steady take.
The newly launched sequel, One Extra Shot, now out there all over the place you lease or buy motion pictures digitally, is a extra assured, polished effort than the unique, including a compelling and acquainted action-movie setting (an airport), extra motion legends (Tom Berenger and Michael Jai White), and a string of thrilling struggle sequences that benefit from the situation, the self-esteem, and the expertise.
One Extra Shot additionally reunites director James Nunn with Adkins and struggle choreographer Tim Man, who’ve every labored with Nunn 4 occasions. However this film is Nunn and Adkins’ most completed collaboration but. Polygon spoke with Nunn in regards to the difficulties of capturing an motion film in a single take, following within the wake of Sam Mendes’ Oscar winner 1917, hiding the cuts, what he discovered from the primary film, and his hopes for the way forward for the sequence.
This interview has been flippantly edited for size and readability.
![Scott Adkins leans against the front of a car as you can see his breath exhaled in the cold weather in One More Shot](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uZRCAKRP36QZAX3Hpr63KTfsBUU=/0x0:1024x683/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1024x683):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25234747/OneMoreShot_Unit_Photography_Harris_082A2475.jpg)
Picture: Sony Photos Leisure
Polygon: As somebody who’s filmed extra typical motion motion pictures, like Eliminators, what do you suppose is completely different for the viewers when a film is portrayed as one steady take?
James Nunn: Properly, it’s humorous, as a result of it began as an train in How can I push one thing? How can I be completely different? How can I be distinctive? How can I exploit Scott’s uncooked, superb means to the very best? And the way can I exploit my technical knowhow? So it really began as extra of an experiment in simply proving to folks, I’m actually good technically, he’s actually good bodily and on digicam — merge them expertise, make a film. That was the place the preliminary pitch got here from. However as time went on, and as we began filming it, truthfully, I’ve type of fallen in love with doing it this fashion. You notice that you just’re pushing this immersion in your viewers.
All motion pictures have a ticking clock. That’s the premise of plenty of tales: You’re going from A to B, or A to Z, however it’s not in regards to the letters, it’s in regards to the journey between. There’s at all times a ticking-clock narrative, particularly in motion motion pictures. Whether or not it’s a bomb going off or saving the one you love as a result of she’s about to fall into acid, there’s at all times a timer. And I feel what occurs once you don’t manipulate time with cuts is, you’re really forcing folks to, virtually on a unconscious degree, simply really feel that timer a bit extra, really feel the urgency, and be a bit extra current in it.
Now look, plenty of issues include the model, as a result of you may’t movie Scott as the very best martial artist on the planet, essentially, as a result of you may’t do the angles that actually showcase what he can do. Equally, he can’t be like, spinning round doing superb butterfly pirouette kicks, as a result of it will simply be of a distinct world. So the format comes with restrictions. And we all know what we’re doing. We attempt to maintain again on the flashiness and go for, like, this grounded CQC [close-quarters combat] army vibe, which inserts rather well. I feel the elongated take of it, whether or not you prefer it or not, you’re simply being sucked in.
Sure actors will actually rise to the event and be the very best you’ve ever seen, as a result of they’re like, I don’t wish to be the one on this 10-minute take who messes it up. In order that they change on to this degree of authenticity and focus, and you’ll really feel that as effectively. However then equally, in the event you’ve obtained a barely weaker efficiency, it’s tougher to cover away from that.
I’ve fallen in love with it. I received’t do it endlessly. I’ll return to regular, typical moviemaking quickly, I’m certain. However I’m having plenty of enjoyable. And I’m so happy with the reception that we’ve had.
![Tom Berenger looks dour and points a gun in One More Shot](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nG_7jnvOV1vj9NjS662NP3YFmkk=/0x0:6435x4389/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:6435x4389):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25234147/OneMoreShot_Unit_Photography_Marshall_082A8142.jpg)
Picture: Sony Photos Leisure
What did you study from One Shot that you just utilized to One Extra Shot? The film feels extra assured — did it really feel that approach to you whereas capturing?
For certain, we did. And I say “we” as a result of I’ve obtained a really strong core crew who I like working with, and so they’re all on the identical practice with me. I feel the primary film, though I used to be assured… Look, I attempted to maintain it a little bit of a secret within the first one, however everyone knows there’s hidden cuts within the film. Don’t get me improper, I’ll run a take so long as I can. There’s three causes to interrupt: security, geography, or actor availability, if you must shoot out of sequence. These are actually the explanations I reduce. If not, I’ll go for so long as I can inside that time-frame. So that you’re actually , like, eight- to 10-minute takes.
On the primary film, I knew we might do it, however we hadn’t completed it, in that we hadn’t really hidden cuts earlier than. So I put plenty of the main focus within the first film on ensuring that we might conceal the cuts. The distinction with the second film was that weight had been lifted. We’d completed it. I knew we might do it. I knew learn how to do it. I knew learn how to get myself out of a bind, even when one thing wasn’t engaged on the day and I wanted to get out of it. As a result of we’d tried and examined it earlier than.
In order that weight had been lifted off my shoulders. So it’s like, OK, effectively, now I’ve really obtained the time to suppose a bit extra about being extra elaborate with the digicam. And in addition, we had a tiny bit more cash on this one. So we might do stuff like hand the digicam out of the automobile and throw the digicam down a stairwell on a rig and know it will be OK. We had been capable of be just a little bit extra tricksy.
How did you handle filming at London Stansted Airport?
That was probably the most tough a part of this complete course of, filming within the working atmosphere of a global airport. We knew we needed to go greater. The fan response to the primary one was overwhelmingly optimistic, and way more than we’d anticipated. Clearly once you set out on these ventures you imagine within the film — you must, in any other case you wouldn’t do it. However I actually needed it to land. And it didn’t essentially get the massive push I hoped for, due to COVID on the time, however it did sufficient to essentially discover an viewers.
We listened to the suggestions of the followers. Not essentially the massive paper critiques, however the followers. And we tried to reply to that on this film and provides them extra fights, give them extra hand-to-hand, give them extra plot, but additionally make it not really feel as low-budget of a location, which was one thing we ran into quite a bit within the feedback.
So as soon as we came upon we got the fortunate alternative to go down the street for quantity two, we launched into what we’re going to do, and we had been like, We’re by no means gonna get an airport. We’re simply imagining we’re gonna get, like, some non-public little runway. It’s gonna be rubber, it’s gonna really feel low-budget anyway. So the producer, Ben Jacques, was tasked with Are you able to get an airport? And as if by some type of miracle, the fourth-largest airport in England, Stansted Airport, confirmed an curiosity. They had been like, Oh, we love the sound of this. Yeah, come on down. And so we did.
![Michael Jai White, wearing a bulletproof vest and with a rifle hanging on his shoulder, talks to another man wearing a bulletproof vest while hostages are lined up against the airport baggage carousel in One More Shot.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c6QskrGMIa6y6x2a-SdCImxsLOo=/0x0:7617x5167/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:7617x5167):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25234140/OneMoreShot_Unit_Photography_Jackson_082A3807.jpg)
Picture: Sony Photos Leisure
So we went down and we regarded, and we thought it’d be good. After which we wrote the script round it. However that is the place it turned difficult. The primary film, we had a derelict location, which we might movie for 11 hours a day, no questions requested, easy-peasy. However going to Stansted got here with an enormous quantity of restrictions, the identical restrictions you face as a traveler flying internationally. You’re going by the metallic detector, you’re going by the screening factor. Getting 100 crew in with weapons, with knives, with faux explosives takes an hour off your day simply.
Equally, you’ve obtained vacationers working round ready to catch their flights and stuff. Within the U.Okay., you may’t fly between midnight and 4 a.m. They mainly shut it down so that individuals can sleep. And that was after we shot the film. So we’d get within the airport at like 7 or 8 at evening, do some rehearsals, have a little bit of meals. After which we actually began kicking off between midnight and 4. It was a tough cease at 4, as a result of the planes had been coming in, or folks getting on planes.
One specific evening, we had been within the baggage declare space, and we had an extended take and an hour to go. And we’ve had months and months of conferences about this. However you already know, there’s at all times one man who’s by no means on the conferences who exhibits up and is like, Oh, you’ve obtained to wrap in 20 minutes. We managed to get two takes that had been 9 minutes every. The second’s within the film.
Everybody is aware of the structure of an airport, so it turns into quite a bit simpler for the viewers to floor themselves in the place issues are, what access-restricted places appear like, that type of stuff. Nevertheless it allows you to work together extra with the atmosphere by way of the motion. What else did the airport location add to the movie?
It’s type of like how I really feel about 1917. One factor we confronted popping out after 1917, despite the fact that [One Shot] had initially been written earlier than 1917, was that individuals struggled just a little bit with the backstory. There wasn’t an enormous quantity of backstory being informed. And the issue with doing issues in actual time as a one-shot factor is, you may’t cease in the course of a struggle and begin calling your mother or your spouse, as a result of the viewers is aware of what you’re doing. You’re crowbarring in a backstory, however it simply begins to really feel hokey and never actual.
And the benefit that 1917 had over us is that the nation and the world’s collective understanding of a soldier in World Struggle I — all people’s studied it at school. You instantly have some thought or backstory data of that soldier. So it’s not essentially that 1917 even has extra backstory than we do. However what makes a distinction is that there’s this unwritten understanding of World Struggle I that you just simply perceive. It’s in your unconscious, usually talking, as a Western viewers.
And that’s the identical, most likely, with the airport. Not all people’s seen a Guantanamo-style base [the setting of One Shot] exterior of a film. Whereas all people is aware of an airport. And I feel that’s the place [One More Shot] heightens as effectively, is that we’ve gone to someplace that you just all type of perceive: Oh, there’s gonna be an escalator, there’s gonna be this, there’s gonna be that. So I feel to harp in your level, I agree with you completely. And then you definately simply begin having fun with the fruits of what you could find, you’re strolling round and also you design the [fall] going over the rails, or combating on the metro.
![Scott Adkins stands next to a wounded Hannah Arterton, with a bandage on her arm, in the airport in One More Shot.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hQZ6kQO5TQ-dRiKTIp53uIEGs2g=/0x0:6460x4732/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:6460x4732):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25234141/OneMoreShot_Unit_Photography_Lomax_082A7433.jpg)
Picture: Sony Photos Leisure
By the way in which, that’s my favourite struggle within the film.
Me too. We don’t reduce in the course of the fights. That’s a part of the explanation that Scott loves doing it as effectively, is that we actually make him do it for 2, three minutes. And what I like in regards to the metro struggle is due to the entire foreground, poles, beams, and glass, it’s really unimaginable to have even put a reduce in there. So that’s simply two bodily superb on-screen fighters [Adkins and Aaron Toney] actually going for it. And I’m privileged that they did that for us on a transferring practice at about 30 miles per hour.
What strikes me as one of many hardest storytelling challenges of the format are the transition sequences. How did you method getting from scene to scene inside this construction?
[That’s where] the benefit of going to the situation [came in]. Having a 10-page define, discovering the situation, then writing the script across the location, after which doing set visits . And in addition it being a [real] location, not being one thing we had been constructing that individuals needed to try to perceive.
As a result of there’s plenty of One Shot that’s really a set. Like, we use the outside terrain, however really all of the interiors are usually fudged collectively in a fitness center on the situation. And that was a lot simpler for [screenwriter] Jamie [Russell] to put in writing these passages of time. After which I had a few actor pals come down about three months earlier than we shot the film, and on a GoPro, we walked each scene only for script timings.
You wish to do one other one in every of these? One Final Shot, maybe?
Yeah, I do wish to do one other one. I’ve obtained no spoilers for you. There’s no inexperienced gentle but. I’m gonna attempt my greatest and knock on each door to hopefully get us there. However there’s no information, apart from the title. And it looks like the web has discovered the title itself.
I imply, you set us up for it.
[Laughs] Me and the producers have talked about it up to now, however it’s type of organically been like this little little bit of a curler coaster on-line, which is enjoyable and thrilling. So I desperately would love to do this film, however we’re not there but. Let’s see.
One Extra Shot is out there for digital rental or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and Vudu.