The Chef (2021) sequence shot

June 30

Film title : Boiling Point (French title: The Chef)
Year : 2021
Director : Philip Barantini
Screenplay : Philip Barantini and James Cummings
Country : United Kingdom
Starring : Stephen Graham, Vinette Robinson, Jason Flemyng, Ray Panthaki, Hannah Walters, Alice Feetham
Director of Photography (and Camera Operator) : Matthew Lewis
1st assistant camera (focus puller) : James Woodbridge
Chief machinist (grip) : Will Anderson
Chief electrician (gaffer) : Max Hodgkinson
Camera : Sony Venice in Rialto mode (sensor head separate from body)
Lens : Zeiss Supreme Prime 29mm
Filter : Pancro Mitchell, diffusion D
Recording format : Sony X-OCN 6K, Sony AXS-R7 external recorder worn on the back
Stabilization : Easirig rig + 2-axis Flowcine Serene
Monitors : two Transvideo Starlite HD monitors tilted at 45°
HF transmission : Teradek Bolt 3000 XT
Total weight of the rig : 10 kg
Shot duration : 92 minutes (the entire film)
Filming location : Jones & Sons restaurant, Dalston (East London)
Filming period : March 2020, just before the first British lockdown
Rehearsals : 3 weeks in total (1 week camera alone with the director of photography, 2 weeks with the actors)
Number of takes filmed : 4 (out of 8 planned), the 3rd one was selected
Color grading : Tom Alexander, Technicolor

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A chef crosses Dalston on the phone with his ex-wife. He pushes open the door of Jones & Sons, his restaurant, and runs into a health inspector who has just downgraded his establishment from five to three stars. This is the start of the most disastrous evening of his life, two weeks before Christmas. The camera will relentlessly follow Andy Jones (Stephen Graham) and his team for 90 minutes. Without a single cut. Halfway through, a customer with a peanut allergy will have an anaphylactic reaction while a racist diner insults the waitress, a new cook will try to Google the recipe for hollandaise sauce, and sous-chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) will single-handedly manage a brigade on the verge of collapse

Why this scene is iconic

The technical gamble could have remained a mere exercise in style. It never is. Matthew Lewis's camera doesn't dwell on the agility of its own apparatus: it follows the argument between two waitresses, crosses the threshold to see a busboy crying, then returns to the dining room to check on table 7. The long take doesn't impose itself as an effect; it recedes into the background, allowing the service to take center stage. This is precisely the effect Barantini sought, openly acknowledging the difference with another recent single-take film: "It's not 1917; we were looking for something more raw and more real. The single take serves only to amplify the tension" (Philip Barantini, Zavvi, 2023)

The absence of music makes a big difference. Barantini tried adding some during editing. He found that the score reduced the tension instead of increasing it, and removed it. What remains is the sounds of service: clattering pots and pans, mingling voices, the spitting of a ticket, and Andy's breathing. It is this orchestrated silence that transforms the viewer into an embedded witness, as if they had joined the service mid-way and could no longer leave

How they filmed it

The project's origins date back to 2000, on the set of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, where Barantini, Stephen Graham, and producer Bart Ruspoli all acted. Twenty years later, these connections have made the film possible. The filming window was timed to coincide with Graham's availability, between Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Peaky Blinders. If Stephen Graham had requested a week off between the two, the film would never have been made, Ruspoli told Screen International in March 2022.

The choice of camera setup took months to finalize. Matthew Lewis, then 23 years old and already director of photography on Barantini's previous film, Villain (2020), initially opted for the lightweight ARRI Alexa Mini. He realized in practice that the weight distribution was causing back pain during 90 minutes of continuous carrying, and that no solution allowed for recording 90 minutes straight without changing media. The Focus24 team suggested he switch to the Sony Venice in Rialto mode, with the sensor head alone on the rig, a 2-axis Flowcine Serene gimbal to absorb movement, and an external Sony AXS-R7 recorder strapped to his back. This setup allows for recording in X-OCN 6K and hot-swapping cards without interrupting the shoot. The final rig weighs 10 kg. First assistant camera James Woodbridge remotely controls the focus using an ARRI WCU-4 unit.

Filming was scheduled over four consecutive nights, with two takes per night at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., for a total of eight takes. Lewis had planned a 20-minute back and shoulder massage after each take to avoid stiffness. The schedule didn't hold. The first take was ruined by a faulty memory card, and the second was more of a dress rehearsal than a usable take. At 2 a.m. after the second night, the producers learned that the country was going into lockdown and that there was only one night left to finish. Several crew members left the set to self-isolate. In total, four takes were filmed over two nights instead of eight over four. It was the third take that became the final film. "The fourth was technically the best, but the performances were off because everyone was exhausted," Barantini recounts

Three weeks of rehearsals preceded filming. The first rehearsal brought Barantini and Lewis together alone in the restaurant, walking the film through step by step, with the director taking turns playing each role in front of the camera to fine-tune the narrative. The script itself is almost entirely devoid of dialogue. "There was no written dialogue, just bullet points listing what needed to be said at what point," explains Barantini. The final dialogue emerged in workshops with the actors, then was incorporated into the script, with room for improvisation maintained right up to the set

The Jones & Sons restaurant wasn't chosen at random. It belongs to Andy Jones, a close friend of Barantini, where the director himself worked as a chef before moving into directing. Stephen Graham's character is named after the real owner as a tribute. The restaurant closed during the week for the three weeks of rehearsals and the week of filming, but continued to serve on weekends to remain financially viable. On set, the actors, none of whom had worked in the restaurant industry, were sent to shadow the staff at Jones & Sons and a nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, to learn how to handle a knife and move around in a smooth service environment

The invisible logistics of the single shot sometimes bordered on acrobatics. Barantini, unable to shout "Cut!" or intervene, hid behind a false wall, headphones on, monitor on his lap. When the allergic client feigned swelling, she was actually in the restroom getting makeup applied to create the illusion of swelling, then the makeup team ran behind an exterior wall to add another layer between camera takes, the director told Script Magazine. The lighting followed the same logic: concealed RGB Quasar tubes, Tungsten Fresnels through the windows, LED bulbs in existing light fixtures, and dimmable Tungsten softboxes above certain tables to create a subtle vignetting effect during key moments. Outside, Jem Balls illuminated the alleyway.

Four nights planned, two deliveries, three out of four usable takes, only one cut. Lewis retrospectively sees this as a stroke of luck: "I'm glad that we wrapped when we did, as I think I'd have been a wreck after four more takes," he told Cinematography World.

What to observe when reviewing it

Around the 25-minute mark, in the passageway between the kitchen and dining room, spot the peanut allergy ticket coming out of the printer. Andy handles it, then puts it back. This is the trigger for the anaphylactic shock that will occur half an hour later; the staging makes it seem like a harmless detail.
When Andy is in the kitchen, observe the light above the pass: the Tungsten softboxes on the ceiling dim imperceptibly, while the heat lamps remain at full intensity, to isolate Stephen Graham from the rest of the frame without anyone noticing.
In the final third, just before the ambulance arrives, follow waitress Andrea (Lauryn Ajufo) as she goes back inside to get a coat. The makeup team sees her off-camera behind the back door; that's where the allergic customer receives the final layer of swelling before returning to the screen

Did you know?

The restaurant bears the real name of its real owner. Jones & Sons, in Dalston, belongs to Andy Jones, a close friend of Barantini. The restaurant's name had been suggested to him by Barantini himself ten years earlier, over the phone, when Jones was looking for a name for his first establishment (Andy Jones, Time Out London, January 2022). Stephen Graham's character is named in homage to the restaurateur friend.
The first take was thrown away due to a faulty memory card. " The first take of the film was ruined by a defective memory card, and the second was more of a dress rehearsal," Barantini told Zavvi. Then, at 2 a.m., the director received the call that changed everything: the country was going into lockdown, and the film had to be finished the next day. The third take, shot on the last possible night, would become the film.
The film preceded a BBC One miniseries and another single-take experiment. The Boiling Point experience directly informed Adolescence (Netflix, 2025), a four-part, hour-long miniseries shot entirely in a single take, again directed by Barantini with Stephen Graham in front of the camera and Matthew Lewis behind it. The idea of the long-form single take became the trio's signature. Also worth checking out on the site: the entry for Victoria (2015) by Sebastian Schipper, the other European benchmark for feature-length films shot in a single take.
An entire score was composed and then removed. Barantini explains that he attempted to add original music to heighten the tension. The result had the opposite effect: it reduced the tension instead of increasing it, and the music was removed. Only the diegetic sounds of the restaurant remain.
Matthew Lewis was 23 years old at the time of filming. A graduate of the University of Portsmouth, he had already worked on Villain (2020) with Barantini. He has since gone on to work on the series The Responder (BBC, 2022), the series Boiling Point (BBC, 2023), and the miniseries Adolescence (Netflix, 2025), each time using long-take or similar techniques. To make the rig portable for 90 minutes, he had to abandon the ARRI Alexa Mini, which he had initially considered: the Sony Venice in Rialto mode, with the sensor body separate from the recorder, was the only combination that addressed both the weight and continuous recording time issues.
The actors learned to cook on set. None of them had ever worked in a restaurant. Stephen Graham, who plays a Michelin-starred chef, "could barely boil an egg" at the start of rehearsals, Barantini told the BFI. Two consulting chefs, Ellis Barrie (Lerpwl, Liverpool) and Tom Brown (Cornerstone, London), trained the actors in the cooking techniques they perform on screen.

Sources

Ron Prince, "British DP Matthew Lewis pulls-off a one-shot wonder for Philip Barantini's award-winning Boiling Point", Cinematography World, December 15, 2021.
Karin Lasthein, "Karlovy Vary 2021: Philip Barantini talks filming Boiling Point in one take", Screen International, August 2021.
John Hazelton, "How the Boiling Point team landed Stephen Graham and shot the film in one continuous take", Screen International, March 2022.
"Boiling Point: Phil Barantini on his one-take restaurant drama", BFI, January 2022.
Sadie Dean, "Interview with Boiling Point Director and Co-Writer Philip Barantini", Script Magazine, November 2021.
"Scene Deconstruction with Matthew Lewis", Sony Pro Cinematography, April 2024.
Jack Hawkins, "Director Philip Barantini Talks Shooting One-Take Thriller Boiling Point", Zavvi, April 2023.
Anna Bogutskaya, "The making of one-shot restaurant thriller Boiling Point", The Skinny.
“How Boiling Point was filmed in a real London restaurant”, Time Out London, January 2022.
Boiling Point (2021 film), Wikipedia (accessed June 2026).