Long Takes
 

"Touch of Evil" - really does take the cake. It blows me away every time I see it. More modern films - "Children of Men" some incredible camera work there, a super long car chase take. It's just amazing.

I liked Van Sant's "Elephant" long slow drifty takes as well. Great film.

I watched the first 40 minutes, so far, of CHILDREN OF MEN, and you don't realize the awesome shot until it's almost over, because you feel like you're in the car!

heath

Another shot came to mind but maybe its more "odd" than "great"

Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" There's a long shot of a conversation in a car driving thru this Mexican town. One long shot of the car as the conversation goes on .. what's odd is that it is just an exterior shot of the car, we never get shots of the interior and the characters involved. Whether that was Altman's creative decision or budget restraints .. we'll never probably know

I didn't consider it a particularly good movie, but "The Invisible" has a pretty clever and long shot at the beginning.

When I first watched it I wondered if it was "real", because there was an obvious mixture of crane and steadicam. I guess they just put a steadicam operator on some sort of platform at the end of a crane so he could get on/off during the shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K06wDn3XsZE

theres the protector clip

been there, done that, many times...quite a few notable versions of Steadicam/crane stepoff, such as the beginning shot of "Boogie Nights", the end shot of "Much Ado About Nothing", the opening of "The Birdcage". It was actually done in the very first movie Steadicam was used for, "Bound for Glory" in 1974. I did one for the opening shot of the credits for "Big Love" currently on HBO.

Actually the coolest (and most dare-devilish) Steadicam/crane combo is the Strada, which has a 72 ft reach in this mode, where the operator is hung from the end and then can be released at the bottom via a sophisticated system. Watch this video to see my fearless friend Colin executing such a shot for a Tiger Woods commercial...

(nope, I haven't done that and probably never will, even if asked).

I dug out this thread because I just saw an amazing continous take that had not been mentioned here.
The movie is "Atonement" and the take is a steadicam shot about 5 minutes long. I guess many of you have seen it - I haven't watched it yet, just took a peak at this take. It's about 1 hour into the movie and it uses hundreds of extras and whatnot. Pretty amazing.

there is a good one in kevin beacons latest, I think it was called "death sentence" or something like that. he was being chased through a parking garage and the steady cam op ran along with him, and as kevin beacon ran up a flight, the cam op jumped on a lift that was on the outside of the garage and went up one floor and caught up with kevin on the next level, then ran clear across the level, jumped on another lift and went DOWN a level to catch up with the bad guys who were chasing him....or something like that, but you get the idea. pretty cool looking at least, it really makes you feel tired, which I guess is the idea since he had been running for like 10 minutes by then.

blimey Charles, that is amazing. And scary at the same time.

I will admit Im not a fan of heights...doing such a shot would be a little un-nerving :)

Yeah, I'm not a fan of them either. I'm not particularly fond of doing crane-stepoffs anymore since a colleague of mine was thrown off one a few years back and fell 15 feet, wearing the Steadicam. He was lucky to walk away from the accident but it took him 2 years to heal enough to be able to work as an operator again.