One Extra Shot director on making an attempt to get an motion film via TSA

In 2021, One Shot blasted into motion followers’ hearts, making full use of Scott Adkins’ assorted ability 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 accessible 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 battle sequences that benefit from the situation, the self-esteem, and the expertise.

One Extra Shot additionally reunites director James Nunn with Adkins and battle choreographer Tim Man, who’ve every labored with Nunn 4 instances. However this film is Nunn and Adkins’ most completed collaboration but. Polygon spoke with Nunn concerning the difficulties of taking pictures 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 motion pictures, like Eliminators, what do you suppose is totally 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 totally different? How can I be distinctive? How can I exploit Scott’s uncooked, wonderful capacity to the most effective? 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 digital camera — 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, truthfully, I’ve sort of fallen in love with doing it this manner. You notice that you simply’re pushing this immersion in your viewers.

All motion pictures have a ticking clock. That’s the premise of a whole lot 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 all the time a ticking-clock narrative, particularly in motion motion pictures. Whether or not it’s a bomb going off or saving your beloved as a result of she’s about to fall into acid, there’s all the time a timer. And I believe what occurs whenever you don’t manipulate time with cuts is, you’re truly forcing folks to, nearly 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, a whole lot of issues include the type, as a result of you’ll be able to’t movie Scott as the most effective martial artist on this planet, essentially, as a result of you’ll be able to’t do the angles that basically showcase what he can do. Equally, he can’t be like, spinning round doing wonderful 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] navy vibe, which inserts rather well. I believe 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 most effective 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 swap on to this degree of authenticity and focus, and you may really feel that as effectively. However then equally, for those who’ve bought 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 a whole lot of enjoyable. And I’m so happy with the reception that we’ve had.

What did you be taught from One Shot that you simply utilized to One Extra Shot? The film feels extra assured — did it really feel that option to you whereas taking pictures?

For certain, we did. And I say “we” as a result of I’ve bought a really stable core crew who I like working with, and so they’re all on the identical prepare with me. I believe 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 incorrect, 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 performed it, in that we hadn’t truly hidden cuts earlier than. So I put a whole lot of the main target within the first film on ensuring that we may conceal the cuts. The distinction with the second film was that weight had been lifted. We’d performed it. I knew we may do it. I knew methods to do it. I knew methods 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 truly bought the time to suppose a bit extra about being extra elaborate with the digital camera. And in addition, we had a tiny bit extra money on this one. So we may do stuff like hand the digital camera out of the automotive and throw the digital camera down a stairwell on a rig and know it might be OK. We have 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 entire 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 rather more than we’d anticipated. Clearly whenever 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 large push I hoped for, due to COVID on the time, but it surely did sufficient to essentially discover an viewers.

We listened to the suggestions of the followers. Not essentially the large paper opinions, 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 in addition 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 discovered we got the fortunate alternative to go down the highway 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 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 have been like, Oh, we love the sound of this. Yeah, come on down. And so we did.

So we went down and we seemed, and we thought it’d be excellent. After which we wrote the script round it. However that is the place it grew to become 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 faux explosives takes an hour off your day simply.

Equally, you’ve bought vacationers operating round ready to catch their flights and stuff. Within the U.Okay., 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 after 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 realize, there’s all the time one man who’s by no means on the conferences who exhibits up and is like, Oh, you’ve bought 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 format 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 seem like, that sort of stuff. But it surely permits 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 sort of like how I really feel about 1917. One factor we confronted popping out after 1917, although [One Shot] had initially been written earlier than 1917, was that folks struggled just a little 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 course of a battle 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 Struggle I — all people’s studied it at school. You instantly have some concept 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 simply simply perceive. It’s in your unconscious, typically 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] outdoors of a film. Whereas all people is aware of an airport. And I believe that’s the place [One More Shot] heightens as effectively, is that we’ve gone to someplace that you simply all sort of perceive: Oh, there’s gonna be an escalator, there’s gonna be this, there’s gonna be that. So I believe to harp in your level, I agree with you completely. And then you definitely 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.

By the best way, that’s my favourite battle 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 like concerning the metro battle 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 wonderful on-screen fighters [Adkins and Aaron Toney] actually going for it. And I’m privileged that they did that for us on a transferring prepare 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 strategy 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 from side to side. And in addition it being a [real] location, not being one thing we have been constructing that folks needed to attempt to perceive.

As a result of there’s a whole lot 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 write down 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 one among these? One Final Shot, maybe?

Yeah, I do wish to do one other one. I’ve bought no spoilers for you. There’s no inexperienced mild but. I’m gonna strive my greatest and knock on each door to hopefully get us there. However there’s no information, aside from the title. And it looks as if the web has discovered the title itself.

I imply, you set us up for it.

[Laughs] Me and the producers have talked about it previously, but it surely’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 accessible for digital rental or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and Vudu.