One More Shot director on trying to get an action movie through TSA

In 2021, One Shot blasted into action followers’ hearts, making full use of Scott Adkins’ diversified talent set. It’s a high-octane tactical action movie with a enjoyable gimmick: The entire movie is designed to seem like one steady take.

The newly launched sequel, One More Shot, now obtainable in every single place you hire 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 action legends (Tom Berenger and Michael Jai White), and a string of thrilling battle sequences that take advantage of the situation, the self-esteem, and the expertise.

One More Shot additionally reunites director James Nunn with Adkins and battle choreographer Tim Man, who’ve every labored with Nunn 4 instances. But this movie is Nunn and Adkins’ most achieved collaboration but. Polygon spoke with Nunn in regards to the difficulties of taking pictures an action movie in a single take, following within the wake of Sam Mendes’ Oscar winner 1917, hiding the cuts, what he realized from the primary movie, and his hopes for the way forward for the sequence.

This interview has been frivolously edited for size and readability.

Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Polygon: As somebody who’s filmed extra standard action motion pictures, like Eliminators, what do you suppose is totally different for the viewers when a movie is portrayed as one steady take?

James Nunn: Well, 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 take advantage of Scott’s uncooked, superb skill to the very best? And how can I take advantage of my technical knowhow? So it really began as extra of an experiment in simply proving to individuals, I’m actually good technically, he’s actually good bodily and on digital camera — merge them abilities, make a movie. That was the place the preliminary pitch got here from. But as time went on, and as we began filming it, actually, I’ve form of fallen in love with doing it this manner. You understand that you simply’re pushing this immersion on your viewers.

All motion pictures have a ticking clock. That’s the premise of a number 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 all the time a ticking-clock narrative, particularly in action motion pictures. Whether 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 all the time a timer. And I believe what occurs while you don’t manipulate time with cuts is, you’re really forcing individuals 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 number of issues include the type, as a result of you possibly can’t movie Scott as the very best martial artist on this planet, essentially, as a result of you possibly can’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 believe the elongated take of it, whether or not you prefer it or not, you’re simply being sucked in.

Certain 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 need to be the one on this 10-minute take who messes it up. So they swap on to this degree of authenticity and focus, and you may really feel that as properly. But then equally, if you happen to’ve acquired a barely weaker efficiency, it’s tougher to cover away from that.

I’ve fallen in love with it. I gained’t do it eternally. I’ll return to regular, standard moviemaking quickly, I’m certain. But I’m having a number of enjoyable. And I’m so happy with the reception that we’ve had.

Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment

What did you study from One Shot that you simply utilized to One More Shot? The movie feels extra assured — did it really feel that approach to you whereas taking pictures?

For certain, we did. And I say “we” as a result of I’ve acquired a really strong core staff who I really like working with, and so they’re all on the identical practice with me. I believe the primary movie, though I used to be assured… Look, I attempted to hold it a little bit of a secret within the first one, however everyone knows there’s hidden cuts within the movie. Don’t get me incorrect, I’ll run a take so long as I can. There’s three causes to break: security, geography, or actor availability, in case you have to shoot out of sequence. Those are actually the explanations I minimize. If not, I’ll go for so long as I can inside that timeframe. So you’re actually , like, eight- to 10-minute takes.

On the primary movie, I knew we might do it, however we hadn’t achieved it, in that we hadn’t really hidden cuts earlier than. So I put a number of the main focus within the first movie on ensuring that we might cover the cuts. The distinction with the second movie was that weight had been lifted. We’d achieved it. I knew we might do it. I knew how to do it. I knew how to get myself out of a bind, even when one thing wasn’t working on the day and I wanted to get out of it. Because we’d tried and examined it earlier than.

So that weight had been lifted off my shoulders. So it’s like, OK, properly, now I’ve really acquired the time to suppose a bit extra about being extra elaborate with the digital camera. And additionally, we had a tiny bit more cash on this one. So we might 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 will be OK. We have been in a position to be a little bit bit extra tricksy.

How did you handle filming at London Stansted Airport?

That was essentially the most tough a part of this entire course of, filming within the working atmosphere of an worldwide airport. We knew we wished to go larger. The fan response to the primary one was overwhelmingly constructive, and rather more than we’d anticipated. Obviously while you set out on these ventures you consider within the movie — you’ve to, in any other case you wouldn’t do it. But I actually wished 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 actually 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 movie 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 rather a lot within the feedback.

So as soon as we discovered we got the fortunate alternative to go down the highway for quantity two, we embarked on 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 Can you 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.

Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment

So we went down and we appeared, and we thought it’d be excellent. And then we wrote the script round it. But that is the place it turned tough. The first movie, we had a derelict location, which we might movie for 11 hours a day, no questions requested, easy-peasy. But going to Stansted got here with an enormous quantity of restrictions, the identical restrictions you face as a traveler flying internationally. You’re going through the metallic detector, you’re going through the screening factor. Getting 100 crew in with weapons, with knives, with pretend explosives takes an hour off your day simply.

Equally, you’ve acquired vacationers operating round ready to catch their flights and stuff. In the U.Okay., you possibly can’t fly between midnight and 4 a.m. They principally shut it down so that individuals can sleep. And that was after we shot the movie. So we’d get within the airport at like 7 or 8 at night time, do some rehearsals, have a little bit of meals. And then 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 individuals 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. But , there’s all the time one man who’s by no means on the conferences who reveals up and is like, Oh, you’ve acquired to wrap in 20 minutes. We managed to get two takes that have been 9 minutes every. The second one’s within the movie.

Everyone is aware of the structure of an airport, so it turns into rather a lot simpler for the viewers to floor themselves in the place issues are, what access-restricted places seem like, that form of stuff. But it allows you to work together extra with the atmosphere when it comes to the action. What else did the airport location add to the movie?

It’s form 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 individuals struggled a little bit 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 possibly can’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, 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 War I — all people’s studied it in class. You instantly have some concept or backstory information of that soldier. So it’s not essentially that 1917 even has extra backstory than we do. But what makes a distinction is that there’s this unwritten understanding of World War I that you simply simply perceive. It’s in your unconscious, usually talking, as a Western viewers.

And that’s the identical, in all probability, with the airport. Not all people’s seen a Guantanamo-style base [the setting of One Shot] exterior of a movie. Whereas all people is aware of an airport. And I believe that’s the place [One More Shot] heightens as properly, is that we’ve gone to someplace that you simply all form of perceive: Oh, there’s gonna be an escalator, there’s gonna be this, there’s gonna be that. So I believe to harp on 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.

Image: Sony Pictures Entertainment

By the best way, that’s my favourite battle within the movie.

Me too. We don’t minimize throughout the fights. That’s a part of the explanation that Scott loves doing it as properly, is that we actually make him do it for 2, three minutes. And what I really like in regards to the metro battle is due to all the foreground, poles, beams, and glass, it’s really unimaginable to have even put a minimize 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 additionally it being a [real] location, not being one thing we have been constructing that individuals had to attempt to perceive.

Because there’s a number 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 gymnasium on the situation. And that was a lot simpler for [screenwriter] Jamie [Russell] to write these passages of time. And then I had a few actor mates come down about three months earlier than we shot the movie, and on a GoPro, we walked each scene only for script timings.

You need to do one other one in all these? One Last Shot, maybe?

Yeah, I do need to do one other one. I’ve acquired 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. But there’s no information, apart 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, 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 try this movie, however we’re not there but. Let’s see.

One More Shot is out there for digital rental or buy on Amazon, Apple TV, and Vudu.