10. There's Only 156 Shots In The Whole Film
With digital cinema extended shots are now a question of why, rather than how. The days of Touch Of Evil (a new camera system had to be made for the films opening tracking shot) are long gone and even the techniques that brought us Goodfellas' back door entry into the Copacabana feel a bit dated. With CGI and a complete lack of physical film the sky (or lower orbit) is the limit. Cuaróns previous film, Children Of Men, was an equally well received sci-fi with subtext worn front and centre that drew much of its plaudits from a creative use of long takes; three iconic shots (the most memorable for me being the road attack due to the sheer number of people present) all come in at or above the 200 second mark. And now even those look pretty small fry. You cant have helped but notice that Gravitys opening shot, starting with the wide view of Earth and ending with Ryan spinning off into the distance, was long, but you were probably so engulfed by the image that you didn't realise it went on for a whopping 17 minutes. Thats basically the length of a sitcom episode. There are reports that theres only 156 shots in the whole film, making the average length a whopping 30 seconds (few films rarely have one shot that long).