The most creative long takes in music videos
What you will discover: the music videos that pushed the long take to its creative limits and what makes them so effective, from the first to the last.
Summary
Why the music video is the ideal playground for the long take
The pioneers, those who laid the rules
OK Go, the undisputed kings of the long take
When the body replaces editing, dance and long takes
The long take as a narrative weapon
The fake long take: cheating to impress better
What music videos teach filmmakers
FAQ
Conclusion
1. Why the music video is the ideal playground for the long take
Four musicians on eight treadmills. Budget: $4,000. Zero cuts. Result: a Grammy and 50 million views. The OK Go video proved what cinema has taken decades to admit: the long take doesn't need millions to be spectacular.
A music video lasts three to five minutes. The perfect length for a single, continuous shot. No need to maintain tension for two hours like in 1917 or Birdman. The short format allows for total audacity.
And above all, the music video doesn't need to tell a linear story. It can rely on raw emotion, choreography, and theelement of surprise. The long take becomes a radical artistic choice, not a constraint, but a weapon.
The result: some of the most inventive long takes in the history of cinema do not come from film. They come from music videos.
2. The pioneers, those who laid the rules
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy (1991)
It was the music video that started it all. Directed by Baillie Walsh, it was shot in a single Steadicam take on the streets of Los Angeles. Singer Shara Nelson walks, the camera follows her, passes her, then comes back behind her. No script. No fabricated sets. Just a woman walking through the city.
The crucial technical detail: the team crossed the Atlantic solely to hire Dan Kneece, an American Steadicam operator. The group made it clear: "There weren't enough people in the UK capable of holding a Steadicam on their back for five minutes." The other reason for the trip was the golden light of LA, impossible to replicate anywhere else.
The filmed journey runs from South New Hampshire Avenue to West Pico Boulevard. It's partly choreographed, partly improvised. Some of the passersby who appear in the shot are real residents of the neighborhood.
Pro tip : Unfinished Sympathy proves that a single-take video doesn't need spectacular technical feats. A walk, a street, a talented cinematographer, and a song that sets the rhythm of the steps are enough to create an iconic music video.
Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song) (1994)
Directed by a young Spike Jonze, this video is a single Steadicam shot in slow motion. The band plays on stage, stray dogs cross the set, technicians walk through the frame. No cuts. The camera glides between the musicians with hypnotic fluidity.
Spike Jonze would go on to become one of the most inventive music video directors of his generation. But here, everything is about simplicity: a blue set, a Steadicam, a pack of dogs, and zero editing.
3. OK Go - the undisputed kings of the long take
It's impossible to talk about long takes in music videos without dedicating an entire section to them. OK Go made the continuous long take their trademark and they pushed it further than anyone else.
Here It Goes Again (2006) - The music video that changed YouTube
Four musicians. Eight treadmills. One shot. 17 takes to get it right. Total budget: $4,000.
The choreography was designed by Trish Sie, the sister of singer Damian Kulash. The band rehearsed for a week in Trish's living room. The treadmills? Bought secondhand with an agreement to resell them if no one broke them. Capitol Records wasn't even aware of it; the band secretly filmed the video during a break from touring.
Result: Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2007. YouTube Award for Most Creative Music Video in 2006. And Time Magazine ranked it among the 30 best music videos of all time in 2011.
The Writing's On the Wall (2014) - The Giant Optical Illusion
A single-shot sequence filmed through a warehouse filled with 20 optical illusions. Two months of preparation. 65 takes to get the timing just right for each illusion. The camera had to be in the right place at the right time for each trompe-l'œil to work. A logistical nightmare transformed into a wonder.
Upside Down & Inside Out (2016) - The weightless long take
The music video was filmed in a parabolic flight aircraft, the same type of aircraft used by NASA to train astronauts. During the freefall phases, the group floats weightlessly and performs choreography impossible on the ground.
Each zero-gravity phase lasted only 27 seconds. The team used a series of parabolic maneuvers to create the illusion of a continuous shot. The nausea was so intense that some members of the technical crew had to be replaced during filming.
Pro tip : OK Go reminds us of a fundamental lesson: the long take isn't just an exercise in camera virtuosity. It's a contract with the viewer. When there are no cuts, everything that happens on screen is real. No cheating, no special effects. This authenticity is the source of the thrill.
4. When the body replaces editing - dance and long take
The classic editing of a dance video breaks up the movement. Wide shot, close-up on the feet, return to a medium shot. Effective, but it fragments the energy. The long take does the opposite: it follows the dancer's body , without interruption. The effort becomes visible. The performance, undeniable.
Feist - 1234 (2007)
Directed by Patrick Daughters, choreographed by Noemie LaFrance. A warehouse in Toronto. Feist at the center, surrounded by dozens of dancers in colorful outfits. The camera follows the ensemble movement in a ballet of organized chaos.
The video required over 20 takes. Three minutes and three seconds of single-shot footage perfectly synchronized with the music. Each dancer had to be in their exact position at the precise second. One wrong move and they had to start all over again.
Kiesza - Hideaway (2014)
Filmed on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A single take. And a detail few people know: Kiesza had broken a rib a few hours before filming. The pain was so intense that she couldn't do multiple takes. Result: only two takes. The second one was the one.
The video was filmed by Kiesza's brother, Blayre Ellestad, and choreographed by Ljuba Castot. The singer dances in the street, joins groups of dancers, interacts with passersby, all without a single cut. The energy is raw, almost documentary-like.
Chet Faker - Gold (2014)
Directed by Hiro Murai (the same director as This Is America ). Skaters glide along a Californian road near Acton, filmed between sunset and sunrise. Choreography by Ryan Heffington.
Technically, it's not a pure single take; four shots were stitched together to create the illusion of a single take. But the result is hypnotically fluid : the bodies glide, the light changes imperceptibly, and the viewer never sees the seam.
Pro tip : In a dance video shot in a single take, the choice of focal length is crucial. A wide focal length (24-35mm) allows you to capture the overall movement without losing the surroundings. However, it requires the camera operator to get physically close to the dancers and therefore become part of the choreography.
5. The long take as a narrative tool
Some music videos use the long take not to impress technically, but to trap the viewer in an emotion from which they cannot escape.
Childish Gambino - This Is America (2018)
The most talked-about music video of the decade. Directed by Hiro Murai, filmed on 35mm film in a former Firestone factory in South Los Angeles. Six Steadicam shots stitched together to create a continuous take effect.
The choice of film stock was not insignificant: the crew could only do three takes per setup (the film was expensive and magazines were limited). As a result, every take had to be good. The urgency of the shoot, which lasted only two days, is evident on screen.
The single-take shot forces the viewer to see everything. Violence in the foreground. Joy in the middle ground. Sinister details in the background. No editing to select what you should look at. You are responsible for your own perception. That's precisely why the video has provoked hundreds of frame-by-frame analyses, because no one sees the same thing on the first viewing.
Radiohead - No Surprises (1997)
The spectacular anti-single-shot. Directed by Grant Gee, the video is a single, static shot of Thom Yorke encased in a Perspex helmet. For three minutes and forty-six seconds, water slowly rises inside the helmet until it completely covers his head. Yorke remains motionless, submerged, for over a minute. Then the water recedes.
A filming nightmare. Yorke could hold his breath for over a minute in calm conditions. Under the pressure of the cameras, ten seconds max before panicking. The director summed up the day in two words: "a repeated horror".
The technical trick to saving time underwater: speed up the music and double the camera speed to 50 frames per second, then slow everything down in post-production. After dozens of attempts, Yorke finally nailed a full take. The result is one of the most oppressive music videos ever filmed.
The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up (1997)
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, the music video is filmed entirely from a first-person perspective, with the camera mounted on the head of cinematographer Henrik Halvarson using a 35mm camera. The viewer witnesses a night of debauchery through the eyes of a character whose identity is only revealed at the very end.
The single-shot POV sequence creates an effect of forced complicity. You're not just watching the scene, you're experiencing it. The camera sways, wavers, stumbles. Your brain fills in the gaps. And the final twist overturns everything you thought you understood. Twenty-five years later, the video remains banned in most countries.
6. The fake long take - cheating to impress better
Not all music videos that appear to be single-take shots actually are. And that's not cheating, it's an art form in itself.
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony (1997)
Richard Ashcroft walks through the streets of Hoxton, London, never changing direction or deviating from his path. He jostles passersby, ignores everything, and keeps moving forward. The impression is of a relentless single shot.
In reality, the music video directed by Walter Stern contains over 50 cuts . But the genius lies in Ashcroft's constant movement, always in the same direction, at the same speed, creating the illusion of a single take. The director was, in fact, directly inspired by Massive Attack's " Unfinished Sympathy ."
The video proves that the effect of the long take sometimes matters more than actual technical prowess. What counts is that the viewer feels the continuity.
Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity (1996)
Jonathan Glazer 's music video appears to be a single continuous shot of Jay Kay dancing in a white room where the furniture moves on its own. In reality, it's four shots stitched together ; the cuts are hidden when the camera pans down to the floor or ceiling.
The real technical trick: it's not the furniture that moves, it's the floor. Jay Kay dances on a moving floor while the furniture remains stationary. The viewer's brain interprets it as the opposite. At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, the video swept four awards, including Video of the Year.
7. What the music video teaches filmmakers
Want to try your hand at long takes? Don't start with a twenty-minute short film. Start with a music video.
Here's why, and more importantly, how to benefit from it:
Four minutes, no safety net. The short format forces you to get straight to the point. No breathing room, no narrative tunnel to mask a lull. Every second must justify the absence of a cut. This is precisely the mental discipline required for a good long take in cinema.
Music structures your timing. In a film, the long take has to create its own internal rhythm, and that's often where things go wrong. In a music video, the tempo is set. The camera speeds up on the chorus, slows down on the verse. You physically learn the rhythm of a shot before you have to create it yourself.
The idea beats the budget. OK Go: $4,000. Kiesza: two takes with a broken rib. Radiohead: a Perspex helmet and a faucet. The most memorable music videos on this list are also among the least expensive. The recipe is always the same: a strong concept, hours of rehearsal, a trusted operator.
Pro tip : Film your first single-take shot to an instrumental track. With no lyrics to sync, you can focus entirely on the camera movement and choreography. Add lip-syncing once you've mastered the movement.
FAQ
the music video for OK Go Here It Goes Again really filmed in a single take?
Yes, completely. No cuts, no invisible seams. The crew did 17 takes to get it right. The total budget was $4,000 and the label wasn't even aware of the shoot.
What is the oldest music video shot in a single take?
One of the first major examples is Weezer's Undone (The Sweater Song) in 1994, directed by Spike Jonze. But it is Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy (1991) that is generally considered the foundational music video of the single-take shot.
What is the difference between a real long take and a fake one in a music video?
A true long take is filmed in a single, continuous shot, without any cuts (like Hideaway ). A false long take assembles several shots while masking the edits (like Bittersweet Symphony , which contains more than 50 cuts). The effect on the viewer can be identical; it's the feeling of continuity that matters.
What equipment is most commonly used for single-shot music videos?
The Steadicam is by far the most popular; it's been the preferred tool since Unfinished Sympathy. Gimbals (electronic stabilizers) are increasingly used for their lightweight design. Some music videos also utilize dolly or electronic dollies like the Grip Trix (used on This Is America).
On average, how many takes are needed to successfully film a music video using a single shot?
It varies enormously. Kiesza only needed two takes for Hideaway (limited by a broken rib). OK Go did 17 for Here It Goes Again and 65 for The Writing's On the Wall. Feist exceeded 20 takes for 1234.The more complex the choreography, the more takes are required.
Conclusion
The music video is the format that has pushed the creative boundaries of the long take the most. Not because it has the biggest budgets, quite the opposite. But because the four-minute constraint, combined with total narrative freedom, creates a testing ground that traditional cinema doesn't offer.
From Shara Nelson's walk through the streets of LA in 1991 to OK Go's treadmills in 2006, by way of Thom Yorke's terrifying breath-hold and Kiesza's broken rib, each video on this list tells the same story: the long take is an act of faith. Faith in the performance, in the preparation, in the fact that the viewer will remain hooked if they are given no way out.
The next time you watch a video clip, ask yourself: is there a cut? And if the answer is no, watch it a second time. You'll see things the editing would have hidden from you.
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