NetflixAdolescence is a new Netflix drama that tells a tragic story over four episodes shot in four single takes — here director Philip Barantini explains how they pulled this incredible undertaking off.
Actor Stephen Graham and director Phil Barantini previously made Boiling Point, a feature film that was shot in a single take. But where the movie was set in and around a restaurant, their new Netflix show Adolescence travels to multiple locations, which helps make it must-watch-television.
The story – which is inspired by two real-life tragedies – focusses on a 13-year-old boy who is accused of murder, and the four-part series starts in his family home, before moving to a police station, a school, a ‘Secure Training Centre,’ and then back to the house.
It’s an amazing achievement, made possible by meticulous planning, days of rehearsals, and everyone being at the top of their game when action is called.
Planning the Adolescence shoot in advance
NetflixBefore a word was written, Adolescence was a collaboration between creators and co-writers Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, and director Phil Barantini, as the latter explained at a screening of Episode 1.
“We’d talk about what we were trying to do before any script came along,” says Barantini. Then Jack and Stephen deliver this script and you’re like ‘Oh, we’ve got to get in a van and drive to a police station.’ And then go all over the police station and all this kind of stuff. Those are the things that didn’t really scare me.
“There’d be times we’d go back-and-forth over the script and I’d say ‘Jack we can’t do that, it’s not humanly possible. We need to tweak these little things.’ But rather than scare me, it really excited me, because the team that I have around me – certainly my cinematographer, First AD – everyone who’s around on set is proper family, so we worked these things out together.”
Doing weeks of rehearsal
NetflixNext it was a matter of rehearsing the lines, and practicing the moves, over and over again.
“It was also about being completely open,” says Barantini. “What we would do is we’d rehearse for two weeks. The first week would be just a cast rehearsal for myself and essential people, so Jack. And we would just sit and talk about it and plan it out. Before any rehearsals myself and [cinematographer] Matt Lewis had been planning out all the camera moves and how we were going to do it with passing the camera.”
Barantini continues: “First week was just cast rehearsals. The second week was tech rehearsals, so everybody’s on set at the same time – all of the crew, all of the supporting artists – everybody needs to be there, because everybody needs to know what’s going on. Because if anyone puts a foot wrong, it messes up the dance. And then on the final week was the shoot.”
Making the same episode 10 times over
NetflixPrinciple photography was then gruelling, with Barantini revealing: “We’d shoot it twice each day, for five days. So we’d come in, we’d shoot it in the morning, then we’d have a three-hour break when I basically ran around giving notes to everyone and tweaking little things, while everyone was having fun in the sunshine, having a really long lunch.
“Then we’d come back in the afternoon and we’d shoot it again for an hour. Or however long it takes – each episode was slightly different. We’d do it 10 times so by the end of the week we’d have 10 takes. 10 episodes of the same episode. We did that for 12 weeks in total.”
Which resulted in a strange system where an early take was just as likely to be used as a late one, with Episode 1 utilising take two on day one, and Episode 2 breaking down multiple times, so-much-so that take 14 was ultimately used.
You can view the remarkable results on Netflix now, and when you’ve got through all four episodes, head here for our Adolescence ending explainer.
For more more drama, check out our list of the best thrillers on Netflix, and new shows on Netflix this month. While for more Stephen Graham, here’s our preview of A Thousand Blows, which is now streaming on Disney+.
