The nerve: An amazing movie, produced in one take in one night in Berlin

Sebastian Schipper has worked in film for almost three decades, appearing in some of Germany’s most well-known foreign releases, including Run Lola Run, as well as writing and directing his own material. 

His fourth feature film, however, is unlike anything you’ve seen. “Victoria” is a heist movie filmed in one shot, in one take, with no cuts — the camera moves non-stop in an elaborately choreographed routine through the buildings and back alleys of Berlin. Adding to that feat, the film’s script, only 12 pages long, manages to bring out the kind of nuances you don’t normally see in action flicks.

“It seemed like a good idea,” Schipper says, “If I'm going to shoot a film in one take, why not also take the best of two worlds I love about cinema? For me, in independent movies, the characters get some space. We get to know them. They're not just two-dimensional, but they can be full, real characters. But on the other hand, I really like genre stuff. I want to be entertained. I want stuff to happen. So it is about a heist, but it's also about these people. … It's about friendship and falling in love and being young.”

“Victoria” opens with a scene of a young woman dancing in a nightclub, happy and carefree. The camera follows her out of the club and on to the streets of Berlin, where she quickly finds herself on an adventure involving a heist. At first it seems funny, then romantic, then harrowing and finally terrifying. And it all unfolds in a single shot filmed in real time. 

The logistics of filming this non-stop action was something that took a lot of planning, and even more pure luck. 

“Let's face it, that night there was a film god on watch,” Schipper says. 

The movie was shot in the middle of the night in Berlin. None of the streets were blocked off, and they had people with walkie talkies set up along various points of the pre-planned route. The only set they built was for the bar scene, but even that was an uncontrolled environment.” 

“It wasn't a classical film set — loud music, all the extras. I mean there were British tourists walking into our set and ordering a beer while we're shooting. Because they couldn't see it, of course, that somewhere there was a guy with a camera. They thought, ‘This is a club with a guy with a camera somewhere.”

The unconventional approach to creating a movie took its toll on Schipper. 

“Between the second and the third [shoot] there was like 48 hours, and those 48 hours — you know, I'm 47 now so I've been pretty much doing this for 30 years, and I'm telling the you, those 48 hours have been the worst time of my creative life,” Schipper says. 

His first take of the film came out stiff and stilted, with the actors too controlled and afraid of messing up the one-take shoot. He told them to “go crazy, don’t be afraid of mistakes.” But then the second take was even worse. Finally, the last take, right before they ran out of financing for the project, seemed to hit a magic note.  

“We stopped shooting at seven in the morning,” Schipper says, “And [we] watched it and only then did I, I mean, honestly, I was crying. You know, just out of pure nerve. I was overwhelmed, because, you know, [it was] a little bit like maybe I composed this music, or I was the coach and I defended this new kind of football or whatever you want to call it. But to see them doing it? That's a whole different thing…the craziness is, in all three takes, every single scene was the best I’ve ever seen in this last take.” 

Schipper is happy with the final version of the film, and says it has changed the way he will work on films in the future.  

“I think scripts are overrated. And of course that's a shock and that's a little cocky to say that, but I think there is too much. What is important is the story. And what I'm saying is, I think we can't neglect the process of filmmaking. It can't be eliminated by working on the book forever and streamlining it.”

This story first aired on PRI's Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen.