[A bit of an unorthodox way to open an article but I felt like starting with an in media res visual.]

Alfonso Cuaron and the Art of Long Takes: the ‘Children of Men’ Example

Alfonso Cuaron is a director with a unique visual style that I have been following since Great Expectations and who gained global fame when he practically ‘rebooted’ the Harry Potter series (aesthetically speaking) and when his dystopian sci-fi Children of Men came out, rejuvenating the genre.

Long takes have a key role in Children of Men and it turns out there are 154 of them, from 22 seconds up to 378 seconds! (The screenplay is part of the How Did They Write It free ebook, with 400+ examples of specific and technical scenes from produced screenplays)

Refocused Media published a great video showing back to back all the long takes lasting 45 seconds or more in Children of Men resulting in 16 scenes and 30 minutes of footage!

But here is more:

You can watch below a nicely done 7 minute making-of focusing on the 247 seconds car scene that forced Cuaron and his team to be creative and built a never-made before rig, as well on the how and why of the long takes.

I love that the long takes are blending so perfectly with the movie’s style and story that you don’t even realize that some of them are long takes, until you watch a video focusing on this fact.

I hope you enjoyed it and it inspired you, Refocused Media also pointed out that the opening scene of Cuaron’s next movie, Gravity, is rumored to be a 17-minute long take (!).