After Adolescence shot to the top of Netflix‘s most-watched charts, the streaming service spent some of the weekend answering questions about how the searing Stephen Graham series was made.
Director Philip Barantini deployed his now-signature one-shot approach to each of the four episodes, meaning one camera follows the action continuously for the entire hour.
Barantini spoke to Deadline about the immense preparation that went into each episode, including choreographing hundreds of extras and intense rehearsals.
Netflix has now revealed which of the takes made the final cut of the story about a 13-year-old boy who is accused of brutally murdering a classmate.
Watch on Deadline
The streamer said producers used the second take for the first episode, set mostly in a police station. This was captured on the first of a five-day shoot for the episode.
The second episode, set in the frenetic environment of a school coming to terms with the crime, was filmed in take 13 amid a huge cast of 370 extras.
The third episode was filmed 11 times before Barantini was happy with the interaction between Adolescence‘s breakout star Owen Cooper, who plays the accused teen Jamie Miller, and a psychologist played by Erin Doherty (The Crown).
The final episode was captured during take 16 as the Millers wrestled with the devastating realities of their son’s situation. Like episodes two and three, the finale was shot on the final day of filming.
Netflix said the original plan was to film each episode in full 10 times (once in the morning and once in the afternoon) but a few attempts had to be abandoned, so some episodes had more than 10 takes. Sometimes episodes were halted because actors fluffed their lines, but on other occasions, they made mistakes and carried on performing.
In the Q&A on X, Netflix added that rehearsals were built up each day, starting with a segment of Jack Thorne‘s script and then adding five-minute blocks until the actors were eventually performing an entire episode.
During rehearsals, the cast would work through the choreography, allowing the director of photography to plan camera positions, as well as the movements of the crew. In some episodes, the crew are on screen but are in costume so they blend in with other extras.
One of the marvels of the series comes in episode two, when the camera glides from the school to the crime scene in one seamless take. The technical shot had people scratching their heads as to how it was achieved. “How on earth did they do that? It’s impossible,” asked Jeremy Clarkson, who described the series as “amazing.”
Barantini told Thorne to imagine that the camera could fly. “So we strapped a camera to a drone that took off over traffic lights and then suddenly you’re at the murder scene. Emotionally it kicks you in the stomach,” Thorne told Deadline.
Netflix explained: “A team attach the camera to a drone, which then flies a distance of 0.3 miles across the site to the murder scene, where it comes down to a camera operator and team of grips who smoothly catch the camera and transition into a close shot of Stephen Graham.”
Adolescence has quickly become a hit for Netflix, earning rave reviews and showing signs that it will be a rating smash. In the UK alone, episode one has been watched by 2.7M people after just two days.