"The Studio" Episode 2: How They Filmed "The Oner" To Be One Take

What is your favorite one take tracking shot? The club scene in Goodfellas? The Shining? Children Of Men? 1917? The BIrdman? My personal favorite is in Snake Eyes when Nicolas Cage walks in the arena to the boxing match. Some one take scenes are really one take while others use whip pans to hide cuts.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s The Studio has built buzz for its daring approach: every scene plays out in real-time, in a single take. But Episode 2, titled “The Oner,” goes all in—an ambitious, seemingly 25-minute continuous shot that immerses the audience in the chaos of a fictional crew trying to shoot their own oner.

Shot at the stunning, all-glass Silver Top house in Silver Lake, the episode’s production was a logistical nightmare. With no flat surfaces for gear, no space for lighting rigs, and only a narrow window of “magic hour” light, the team had to rehearse each 10-page segment all day, then shoot between 5:00 and 6:30 PM over four days. “The Oner” may look seamless, but some creative stitching was necessary to compress a 90-minute real-time arc into a 25-minute episode.

Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra revealed that while parts were shot handheld to capture the urgency, the Ronin gimbal helped manage more complex transitions—especially car shots. Yes, Rogen actually drove. And yes, resetting that car between takes took 20 minutes.

Blocking was painstaking. Unlike the rest of the series, which allowed for actor improvisation, every movement in Episode 2 was pre-planned. "We were just telling everyone exactly where to stand," said Rogen. It wasn’t just about aesthetics; it was about survival under pressure.

Layered with a mock Sarah Polley film inside the episode (shot in maximalist contrast), “The Oner” plays with form and function, chaos and control—making it one of the most technically challenging and artistically rewarding episodes of the year.

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Source: Indiewire

Photo Credit: Apple TV+