How Netflix’s new show Adolescence pulled off the ‘impossible’ drone shot

The new Netflix series Adolescence has received a wave of positive reviews since it was released on the streaming service earlier this month, stunning audiences with its impressive one-shot technique.

One scene, involving a drone, has left viewers particularly stunned.

The show, which stars Stephen Graham as the father of a young boy accused of murder, is directed by Philip Barantini who uses one single shot to tell the story in each of its four episodes.

Barantini, who previously used the technique on Boiling Point, pulled off a sequence at the end of episode two where the camera seamlessly transitions from a ground shot to an aerial shot as the camera travels from a school to the crime scene.

The magic of the scene has since been revealed by writer Jack Thorne, who told Deadline: “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.”

Netflix also shared a behind-the-scenes footage of the shot in progress, adding: “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.”

Part of that planning included two weeks of rehearsals – one week for cast and one week for tech crew. Thorne, who has worked with Graham on multiple projects, including This is England, was on hand to make changes to the script alongside the actor and director.

“[Tech rehearsals] would be an opportunity for the sound team to put the booms where they needed to be. And, we had all the support and the runners and ADs all dressed in police uniforms in the first episode and teachers in the second episode so they could be on camera and cueing things,” Barantini told The Independent. “It was technically challenging, but a huge collaboration.”

Barantini has previously explained that the one-shot approach to filming is an intentional device used to demand the attention of time-poor viewers.

He used the technique in Boiling Point, although the series posed a bigger challenge than the one-location backdrop of the restaurant in that movie. But beneath the clever directing and the scrupulous technicalities lies something far more terrifying. “Really what it's about is looking at male rage and looking at our own anger and looking at who we are as men,” says Thorne.

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Adolescence has quickly become a hit on Netflix since its release with episode one already being watched by more than two million people in the UK alone.