Long shot Last Night in Soho (2021) - Mirror dance at the Café de Paris
Film title: Last Night in Soho
Year of release: 2021
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
Director of Photography (DP): Chung Chung-hoon (ASC in 2023)
A-camera Steadicam operator: Chris Bain
Choreographer: Jennifer White
Production Designer: Marcus Rowland
VFX (Visual Effects) Production Supervisor: Tom Proctor
VFX Studio: DNEG
1st Assistant Camera: Lewis Hume
Format: 2.39:1
Camera: Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 (35mm cinema camera) for the 1960s scenes
Lenses: Panavision B and G Series anamorphic
Film: Kodak Vision3 250D 5207 and 500T 5219
Set design: Café de Paris entirely rebuilt in a studio (the real London club, now closed, could not offer the necessary control)
Music from the scene:Wade in the Water - The Graham Bond Organization (live at Klooks Kleek, 1965)
Shot duration: approximately 2 minutes
Number of invisible stitches: 1, confirmed by the director of photography
Main sources: American Cinematographer (December 2021), SlashFilm, befores & afters, The Hollywood Reporter, AlloCiné
Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) descends the stairs of the Café de Paris in her pajamas, invisible to the dancers. On the dance floor, Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) twirls in Jack's (Matt Smith) arms, wearing a fuchsia pink dress, her hair blond, a radiant smile. The camera glides over to them to the rhythm of " Wade in the Water." Jack spins Sandie around, and when she reappears, it's no longer Sandie but Eloise dancing with him, in her pajamas, dazed. A pirouette, a turn around the floor, and Sandie is back. The two women exchange partners four times in two minutes. No visible cuts. The camera didn't blink.
Why this scene is iconic
The film's central theme lies in this dance. Eloise inhabits Sandie's body when she dreams of the 1960s; the mise-en-scène must make this possession visible without ever emphasizing it through dissolves or slow motion. Wright chose the most challenging path: real-time substitution within the frame, without the viewer understanding how. The result produces precisely the desired effect, a gentle, almost pleasant dissonance, before the vertigo sets in
Where traditional editing would have segmented the exchange into shot-reverse-shot sequences, the long take imposes on the viewer the same experience as Eloise: she is Sandie for the briefest of moments, without transition. Anya Taylor-Joy told The Hollywood Reporter that her preparation with McKenzie aimed precisely at this: becoming the other, in shared silence and mutual anticipation of gestures. The long take is not a gratuitous feat here: it is the only form that allows the film's central idea to be contained in a single image.
How they filmed it
First, the set. The real Café de Paris, the legendary Coventry Street cabaret, still existed at the time of filming (it closed during the pandemic). Wright and his production designer Marcus Rowland nevertheless chose to rebuild it entirely in a studio, encountering the same problem as with the three identical "double sets" built for the mirrored scenes: the actual location didn't offer them the physical control necessary for the choreographed exchanges
The music was recorded before filming. This has been a constant for Wright since Baby Driver : the crew lays down the soundtrack first, then every action, every camera movement, and every actor's position is timed to a precise beat in the song, according to American Cinematographer. Taylor-Joy praises this method: Wright directs, she says, "in beats,and always knows which song will accompany a shot before filming it.
For the actual filming, the Panavision camera was operated by Chris Bain using a Steadicam (a stabilization system allowing the camera operator to follow the actors on foot with constant fluidity). Chung gave Bain control of camera A, an unusual choice he justified by the density of Steadicam work on this film, preferring to reserve camera B for his own shots. Choreographer Jennifer White spent days rehearsing with the three performers and the extras surrounding them
The second layer of the technique: the substitution choreography. When Jack turns his partner, the actress who steps out of frame dives under the camera to make way for the other. It's a dance within a dance; the extras, for their part, must continue their own steps without ever breaking the rhythm or obstructing the exchange. McKenzie told AlloCiné that the scene was performed for her "in a single take," with the added difficulty, once on the recreated set of the Café, of integrating the dancing extras around the central trio.
Third layer: the invisible stitch. Sandie's initial transformation into Ellie couldn't be achieved through simple choreography; Jack spins Sandie around, and she reappears in a fraction of a second as Eloise. Too fast for a practical switch. The solution was to shoot two separate takes, one with Taylor-Joy, the other with McKenzie, and then merge them in post-production with a digital cut hidden within Matt Smith's body at the moment of the pirouette. Chung Chung-hoon confirms this in American Cinematographer : "That looks like motion control, but it isn't. " Motion control (an automated system that allows for the identical repetition of a camera movement) is absent here: it's Chris Bain who maintains the fluidity of the shot, and it's a stitch (an invisible digital cut between two takes) that handles the transition.
This explains a point that seems contradictory in the interviews. McKenzie is telling the truth about his experience on set: the camera rolled continuously for each complete take, and each actress performed her part without a cut. But the final edit results from several takes assembled with an invisible cut, as in 1917 or Birdman. Wright plays on both levels: the actresses' performances are truly continuous, while the final image is a composite.
The other shot substitutions, however, are purely practical. Taylor-Joy explained the principle to SlashFilm: a good part of the work involved the two actresses running behind the camera, hiding, and then reappearing in the frame at the right moment. The next partner waits off-camera, slips under the lens the moment Jack blocks the view with a shoulder or a half-turn, and resumes the dance as if nothing had happened
Finally, there's the rhythm. The music played back (a pre-recorded soundtrack) serves as a metronome for everyone: extras, principal dancers, Steadicam operator—all synchronize to "Wade in the Water," a Graham Bond Organisation track chosen by Wright for its tight groove. Each musical beat triggers a gesture. Nothing is left to chance: neither the extras' steps nor the precise moment the exiting actress dives behind the camera.
What to observe when reviewing it
Matt Smith's position at the first switch. When Sandie becomes Eloise for the first time (around twenty seconds into the shot), her body is perfectly centered facing the camera and hides the entire background during the fragment of a second of the cut; that's where the stitch is placed.
Jack's hands during the following rounds. On the other (purely practical) exchanges, look at Matt Smith's left hand: it never leaves his partner's back, which allows McKenzie and Taylor-Joy to substitute without the woman's body "floating" for a fraction of a second.
The dancers surround the central couple. At no point does an extra obstruct the flow of movement. Their choreography was designed to maintain a constant corridor of visibility between the camera and the main trio, an invisible but monumental staging constraint to orchestrate with so many bodies on a small stage.
Did you know?
Chung Chung-hoon is the cinematographer ofOldboy. The film, which contains one of the most discussed long takes in Korean cinema, shares the same director of photography as Last Night in Soho. Chung became a member of the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) in 2023, two years after this film.
A method already proven by Wright. Baby Driver (2017) already relied on the principle of a pre-recorded soundtrack; each gunshot, each turn of the steering wheel coincided with a precise beat of a pre-selected song. The dance at the Café de Paris takes this logic to its logical conclusion: it's no longer the action that follows the music, but the camera itself.
The Weasley twins in the changing room. Just before the dance scene, when Ellie hands her coat to the attendant, the man and his "reflection" in the mirror are played by the twins Oliver and James Phelps, the Weasleys from the Harry Potter. Wright had two identical changing rooms built side by side to make the trick possible without digital effects.
Edgar Wright's visual references. For the 1960s aesthetic, the director cites three references: Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), William Wyler's The Collector (1965), and Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus (1947). The saturated red, the bottle green, and the bluish shadows come from these films.
A song with a dual purpose. "Wade in the Water," a gospel standard covered by the Graham Bond Organisation, appears twice in the film: first here, during the dance scene (around the 28-minute mark), and then in a darker variation as Eloise's dream begins to corrupt. The soundtrack follows this logic of musical degradation from beginning to end.
Two takes, two costumes, one dance. To make the stitch invisible, Matt Smith had to execute the exact same pirouette with the same markings, twice in a row, first with Taylor-Joy and then with McKenzie. This synchronization requirement explains the days of rehearsal with Jennifer White.
Sources
Jean Oppenheimer, “Last Night in Soho: The Looking Glass”, American Cinematographer, December 10, 2021.
Jake Dee, "Edgar Wright Relied On Practical Magic For Last Night In Soho's Most Complicated Scene", SlashFilm, April 10, 2022.
Ian Failes, interview with Tom Proctor, "Here's how those masterful mirror gags were pulled off in Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho", befores & afters, December 4, 2021.
Brian Davids, interview with Anya Taylor-Joy, The Hollywood Reporter, October 27, 2021.
Maximilien Pierrette, interview with Thomasin McKenzie, AlloCiné, October 31, 2021.
Last Night in Soho - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Milan Records, October 22, 2021.
Read also
The Baby Driver - Bellbottoms sequence shot : Edgar Wright's "music first" method, applied four years earlier to a car robbery. Same directing style, different genre.
The Oldboy sequence shot - The corridor : Chung Chung-hoon's first great sequence shot, where he himself handled the framing - the visual DNA of the DP who would film Last Night in Soho eighteen years later.
The La La Land highway sequence shot : another dance sequence shot to a pre-recorded playback, another faux sequence shot achieved through invisible cuts. The closest cousin to the dance at the Café de Paris.
Why the duration of a sequence shot changes everything : the in-depth blog article to understand the difference between a continuous shot and a reconstructed shot - an essential framework for understanding how to place this scene within the family of fake sequence shots.
