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Best Movie Shot in the Shortest Amount of Time Ever

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Keith Alan Morris

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Okay, this is like my previous threads Best Single Shot Ever and Best One Location Movie Ever, as I'm looking for inspiration. I am gearing up to shoot some stars out in record time on one film, so I'm wondering what I can squeeze them onto next. In this thread, can you name some big features made quickly and competently? Example: Robert Rodriguez shot Johnny Depp out in 8 days for Once Upon a Time in Mexico. What else?
 
Pretty sure SMOKE was shot pretty quickly while filming another movie...and its a great one.
 
Matt Ryan said:
Steven Spielberg's DUEL
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No, that was at least a 10-day schedule, plus a couple of days for pickups.

I'd say the most commercially successful short-schedule movie was Little Shop of Horrors (the original 1960 version), famously shot in about 2 days and 1 night.
 
Marc Wielage said:
No, that was at least a 10-day schedule, plus a couple of days for pickups.

I'd say the most commercially successful short-schedule movie was Little Shop of Horrors (the original 1960 version), famously shot in about 2 days and 1 night.
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I believe 10 day production, 3 days pickups. This isn't a contest, he's just asking for films with short production schedules.
 
Found footage style but very successful, although no name actors, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Shot in 7 days. BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was shot in 8 days.
 
we did mike figgis' time code 2000 in 1999 we shot the movie in 120 minutes twice a day for two weeks , and then mike picked the best day and transferred it to film .
it was the first large studio 24p video feature it was shot with 4 24p cameras that were a sony / panasonic team effort to make .
 
chad vachter said:
we did mike figgis' time code 2000 in 1999 we shot the movie in 120 minutes twice a day for two weeks , and then mike picked the best day and transferred it to film .
it was the first large studio 24p video feature it was shot with 4 24p cameras that were a sony / panasonic team effort to make .
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'Timecode' was a very enjoyable theater experience. It would also go on the very short list of single-take features (it was continuous for all four cameras, correct?).
 
yea, four cameras and all actors had cell phones so if two cameras were dangerously close , a person would call each actor , and tell them which direction to flee, and they would have to improv their phone conversation, to copy what the person on the other end was telling them . it was all done on and around 9000 sunset blvd , there was several times that other stars saw our actors and they would have to stay in character which was pretty funny. roger moore and jerry o'connel and a few other people happened to be walking by and started conversations, blowing that days take. and sadly , a person was hit by a car in front of one of the cameras and actor they were following . it was also nuts as jeannie triplehorn would waltz down sunset blvd with a nickel plated revolver after "shooting stellan skaarsgrad " it was a really fun show .
 
Matt Ryan said:
Forgot to mention Alfred Hitchcock's ROPE. 1 Day.
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ROPE was definitely not filmed in one day. It was shot over a period of over a month (though not continuously), with Hitchcock going back and reshooting several sequences that he wasn't happy with. It's not a one take film, either, only made to look like it is.

RUSSIAN ARK, on the other hand, was actually one take, and the entire thing was shot on December 23, 2001.
 
Jason Murphy said:
ROPE was definitely not filmed in one day. It was shot over a period of over a month (though not continuously), with Hitchcock going back and reshooting several sequences that he wasn't happy with. It's not a one take film, either, only made to look like it is.

RUSSIAN ARK, on the other hand, was actually one take, and the entire thing was shot on December 23, 2001.
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Your right, it was supposed to be shot in one day but he ended up re shooting some scenes.

The film was shot in ten takes, ranging from four-and-a-half to just over ten minutes (the maximum amount of film that a camera magazine or projector reel could hold) duration. There are 11 shots total.

"Hitchcock told François Truffaut in the book-length Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon & Schuster, 1967) that he ended up re-shooting the last four or five segments because he was dissatisfied with the color of the sunset."

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/rope-film#ixzz1zWd1elws
 
Matt Ryan said:
I believe 10 day production, 3 days pickups. This isn't a contest, he's just asking for films with short production schedules.
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I'm just answering the question. I wrote a long article about the production of Duel back in 1984, and interviewed quite a few of the participants (including producer George Eckstein and star Dennis Weaver), so I know the specifics on this particular shoot.

It's hard to shoot a feature in two weeks, let alone 2 days, so a lot boils down more to, "what scripts are possible to shoot in a short amount of time." My Dinner with Andre was two people having a conversation at a restaurant, and I think that still took a week to shoot. To me, it's more about the complexity of the story, the number of characters, and the logistics and challenges of the location (or studio).
 
I actually was the digital camera supervisor and Colorist on "Russian Ark" and have designed the whole setup technical setup around it. We have lit the film in 12 hours, the night before shooting. It was for a more than 2 km long steadycam passage. Then we shot the whole thing next day. It was the fourth take which worked out perfectly. It was a massive technical undertaking, using one of the first Sony F900 available in Europe and some ground breaking Harddiskrecorder from a german company, "directors friend". We Shot mobile, uncompressed HD at a time, when most postproduction houses where still running off HDCAM tapes.
A couple of weeks ago i finished shooting a german feature film starring Ulrich Thomsen as a DP. We had him only available for 9 days, so we have worked on a elaborate multicamera Setup. The whole thing was playing for 80% inside a car, so we managed to setup up to 6 cameras. Since we were quite limited on the budged side, we had to combine everything that came across (RedMX, Scarlet, X35, Canon 5D, Si2K and one EX1). After a tricky gradingsession, everything ended up quite seamlessly. We used the better cameras for the wider shots, and went closer the less resolution the cam had. Finally no one is seeing the difference between the shots:)
 
Stefan Ciupek said:
I actually was the digital camera supervisor and Colorist on "Russian Ark" and have designed the whole setup technical setup around it. We have lit the film in 12 hours, the night before shooting. It was for a more than 2 km long steadycam passage. Then we shot the whole thing next day. It was the fourth take which worked out perfectly. It was a massive technical undertaking, using one of the first Sony F900 available in Europe and some ground breaking Harddiskrecorder from a german company, "directors friend". We Shot mobile, uncompressed HD at a time, when most postproduction houses where still running off HDCAM tapes.
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That's awesome. You have all of my respect for putting together that Russian Ark camera setup. I'm still impressed that you guys were able to pull that off with the technology you had a decade ago.
 
Keith Alan Morris said:
Awesome, Marc. Please send the article! km9000@gmail.com One of my favorite films ever, considering it's logistics, complexity, etc.!
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I wish I had it! It was a cover story in Video Review magazine spread over two issues, a big article on all of Spielberg's TV work, and it took quite a bit of research. We couldn't get to Steven, but I did get 20 minutes with Universal chief Sid Sheinberg, who was one of the people who started Spielberg's career by hiring him to do the Night Gallery pilot. Quite a fascinating story.

VR has not been digitized, and I don't know the status of if and when it ever will be. A lot of 1980s and even 1990s magazines have kind of fallen through the cracks in terms of being available for researchers and fans.
 
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