The editing in this was phenomenal
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — 1917
God is a transwoman — 5 years ago(May 17, 2020 05:13 AM)
It would be impossible to make a film of this budget and caliber in one take, but the editors did a fantastic job at making the cuts look seamless!
There's one scene about 25 minutes in, when Will and Blake are walking through the trench, and the camera follows them downhill through the water, and I thought, "if the cameraman slips, they'd have to start the whole movie over from scratch!"
There is only one self-evident cut in this entire film, and that's when Will passes out after being shot, when the camera fades out for a few seconds, before Will wake's up, and it's night time. This is the only passage of time in the entire story. Everything else takes place in real time.
The challenge was finding the right places to cut the shot making them indiscernible; so there were no likely no cuts during the daylight walking scenes.
Cuts I noticed:
When Will and Blake walk into the dark mine (before the explosion) the screen goes dark as the enter for a second. Perfect time to cut.
The explosion itself.
When the plane scene, the camera spins away from the characters through the inside of the barn, where Will enters the frame.
Plane crash, the screen fills with smoke and the characters disappear briefly from the frame, only to reappear again to rescue the man from the frame.
When will hides in the house where he meets the French woman, the room is pitch dark at first.
When Will enters the house (after Blake had been killed) the camera spins around the exterior of the house, where Will comes out from the other side.
The ending waterfall scene: Will goes underwater for a few seconds and we can't see him, then the camera passes through a rock, where Will comes up from a different section of the water.