In 2021, One Shot blasted into motion followers’ hearts, making full use of Scott Adkins’ different talent set. It’s a high-octane tactical motion film with a enjoyable gimmick: The entire film is designed to seem like one steady take.
The newly launched sequel, One Extra Shot, now obtainable in all places you hire or buy films 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 vanity, 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 achieved collaboration but. Polygon spoke with Nunn concerning 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 collection.
This interview has been calmly edited for size and readability.
Polygon: As somebody who’s filmed extra typical motion films, like Eliminators, what do you suppose is completely different for the viewers when a film is portrayed as one steady take?
James Nunn: Nicely, 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 potential to one of the best? And the way can I exploit my technical knowhow? So it truly 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 abilities, make a film. That was the place the preliminary pitch got here from. However as time went on, and as we began filming it, actually, 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 films have a ticking clock. That’s the premise of lots of tales: You’re going from A to B, or A to Z, but it surely’s not concerning the letters, it’s concerning the journey between. There’s at all times a ticking-clock narrative, particularly in motion films. 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 while you don’t manipulate time with cuts is, you’re truly 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, lots of issues include the fashion, as a result of you’ll be able to’t movie Scott as one of the best martial artist on the planet, essentially, as a result of you’ll be able to’t do the angles that basically exhibit what he can do. Equally, he can’t be like, spinning round doing superb butterfly pirouette kicks, as a result of it might 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 one of the 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. So that they change on to this degree of authenticity and focus, and you’ll really feel that as effectively. However then equally, should you’ve received a barely weaker efficiency, it’s more durable to cover away from that.
I’ve fallen in love with it. I gained’t do it without end. I’ll return to regular, typical moviemaking quickly, I’m certain. However I’m having lots of enjoyable. And I’m so happy with the reception that we’ve had.
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 technique to you whereas capturing?
For certain, we did. And I say “we” as a result of I’ve received a really stable core group who I really 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 mistaken, 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 lower. If not, I’ll go for so long as I can inside that timeframe. So that you’re actually , like, eight- to 10-minute takes.
On the primary film, I knew we may do it, however we hadn’t finished it, in that we hadn’t truly hidden cuts earlier than. So I put lots of the main target within the first film on ensuring that we may cover the cuts. The distinction with the second film was that weight had been lifted. We’d finished it. I knew we may do it. I knew how one can do it. I knew how one can 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 truly received 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 may do stuff like hand the digicam out of the automobile and throw the digicam down a stairwell on a rig and know it might be OK. We have been capable of be slightly bit extra tricksy.
How did you handle filming at London Stansted Airport?
That was probably the most troublesome a part of this entire course of, filming within the working atmosphere of a global airport. We knew we wished to go larger. The fan response to the primary one was overwhelmingly optimistic, and rather more than we’d anticipated. Clearly while you set out on these ventures you consider within the film — you must, in any other case you wouldn’t do it. However I actually wished it to land. And it didn’t essentially get the massive push I hoped for, due to COVID on the time, but it surely did sufficient to actually discover an viewers.
We listened to the suggestions of the followers. Not essentially the massive paper opinions, however the followers. And we tried to answer 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 so much 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 have been like, We’re by no means gonna get an airport. We’re simply imagining we’re gonna get, like, some personal 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 form of miracle, the fourth-largest airport in England, Stansted Airport, confirmed an curiosity. They have been like, Oh, we love the sound of this. Yeah, come on down. And so we did.
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 may 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 via the steel detector, you’re going via the screening factor. Getting 100 crew in with weapons, with knives, with pretend explosives takes an hour off your day simply.
Equally, you’ve received vacationers working round ready to catch their flights and stuff. Within the U.Ok., you’ll be able to’t fly between midnight and 4 a.m. They mainly shut it down so that folks can sleep. And that was once we shot the film. So we’d get within the airport at like 7 or 8 at night time, 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 have been coming in, or folks getting on planes.
One specific night time, we have been within the baggage declare space, and we had a protracted 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 reveals up and is like, Oh, you’ve received to wrap in 20 minutes. We managed to get two takes that have been 9 minutes every. The second’s within the film.
Everybody is aware of the structure of an airport, so it turns into so much simpler for the viewers to floor themselves in the place issues are, what access-restricted areas seem like, that type of stuff. But it surely permits you to work together extra with the atmosphere when it comes to 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, regardless that [One Shot] had initially been written earlier than 1917, was that folks struggled slightly bit with the backstory. There wasn’t an enormous quantity of backstory being advised. And the issue with doing issues in actual time as a one-shot factor is, you’ll be able to’t cease in the midst 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, but it surely 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 Warfare I — everyone’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 Warfare I that you just simply perceive. It’s in your unconscious, typically talking, as a Western viewers.
And that’s the identical, most likely, with the airport. Not everyone’s seen a Guantanamo-style base [the setting of One Shot] exterior of a film. Whereas everyone 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 you then simply begin having fun with the fruits of what you will discover, you’re strolling round and also you design the [fall] going over the rails, or combating on the metro.
By the best way, that’s my favourite struggle within the film.
Me too. We don’t lower in the course of the fights. That’s a part of the rationale that Scott loves doing it as effectively, is that we actually make him do it for 2, three minutes. And what I really like concerning the metro struggle is due to all the foreground, poles, beams, and glass, it’s truly not possible to have even put a lower 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 back and forth. And in addition it being a [real] location, not being one thing we have been constructing that folks needed to try to perceive.
As a result of there’s lots of One Shot that’s truly a set. Like, we use the outside terrain, however truly all of the interiors are typically fudged collectively in a health club 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 mates 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 certainly one of these? One Final Shot, maybe?
Yeah, I do wish to do one other one. I’ve received no spoilers for you. There’s no inexperienced gentle but. I’m gonna attempt my finest and knock on each door to hopefully get us there. However there’s no information, aside 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, but it surely’s form 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 try this film, however we’re not there but. Let’s see.
One Extra Shot is accessible for digital rental or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and Vudu.