Netflix’s Adolescence: Behind the camera that won’t look away

During a special session to shine light on “immersive cinematography” at the Waves Film Bazaar at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, Matthew and Lee shared their experience of shooting the four, roughly one hour-long, episodes of Adolescence in one take, known as a ‘oner’. The series, which won eight Emmy Awards, follows the story of a 13-year-old boy, Jamie, who is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl. Featuring Owen Cooper in a breakout performance as Jamie and Stephen Graham as his father, the Philip Barantini-directed show unfolds as every parent’s nightmare and examines the impact of social media and misogynist content on some teenage boys.

Matthew Lewis and Lee David Brown at IFFI 2025.

Matthew and Lee had their tasks cut out for them before the shooting began. They went back and forth over the script before it was finalised; carried out extensive rehearsals; and worked out the coordination between them. “The show deserved underlying tension and that was what a one-shot episode gives. So, there were a lot of revisions (in the script) to make sure it actually made sense to do this as a one-hour,” says Matthew, who won an Emmy for the series.

Lee believes that the shoot demanded “mental and physical endurance” to last an hour. To physically prepare themselves for such a unique shoot, they even went running. Matthew lets it out that he started running nearly eight months before. “Then, ironically, just before the shoot I gave myself a knee injury from running. So, clearly, it’s not meant for me,” he says. However, Lee believes that they were kind of strength training as they were rehearsing with the cameras. “If we were to do this again, I’d probably train a bit harder,” says Lee, who has worked on Jellyfish and Lobster (2023).

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They had to choose the right camera for the ambitiously crafted show. They discovered a lightweight DJI Ronin 4D camera, which was also a much less expensive piece compared to many other cinema cameras, that they could pass between them easily. “We were trying to prioritise camera movement and this small camera seemed perfect,” says Matthew, who is the cinematographer for Boiling Point (2021), Malpractice (2023) and upcoming Enola Holmes 3.

Nearly two weeks of rehearsals preceded the shooting of each episode. They shot each episode a minimum of ten times and the best one of them was picked. “The actors were going through it every time, an hour-long shot, twice a day. So, it was a huge effort from everyone – actors and crew. There are some takes where maybe Owen’s reaction is a little bit smaller, or, there are other variations. It meant choosing the one that had a bit of everything we wanted,” recounts Matthew.

Between Matthew and Lee, they had to develop a lot of trust, understanding and intuition, apart from deciding who was going to do which bit. During the shooting, they had no headsets and there was no way of communicating with each other. “I had to relinquish control, I had to let Lee make decisions. I had to be okay with not being a control freak. We spent a lot of time talking about how we wanted to move in these scenes. So, he became, in a way, a really amazing co-DoP with me. When I couldn’t be there, he could go off with the assistant directors and look at another scene,” recounts Matthew.

Creatively, the hardest one to shoot was Episode 3 in which Jamie meets with a psychologist. “It was limiting. It’s all in one room. So, I was slightly terrified of that one, because I was careful about not making it about the camera and instead focus on the story,” says Matthew. Technically and arrangement-wise, however, it was Episode 2, in which the action takes place at Jamie’s school, that was most challenging. “That episode had all sorts of stunts and actions. We used a drone and jumped out the window. There were also a lot of going up and down the stairs at the school which had around 250 kids. We had assistant directors acting as teachers with radios on, which were hidden. It was all coordinated perfectly but the hardest, definitely,” says Matthew.

A still from Emmy-winning limited series Adolescence.

While the whole experience of Adolescence turned out to be creatively fulfilling, it was “quite nerve-racking” during the preparation stage. Even though they had chosen this format of storytelling, they were not sure if it’s going to be any good. That doubt was put to rest after the actors were brought in and they started trying out the scenes together. “This was like a giant puzzle and we were trying to make it work. It felt better once we knew it was working,” recalls Matthew.

To do his job effectively in Adolescence, Matthew had to think like a director. “Philip got a lot to do with the cast and he let me always be part of those conversations. It had to be this immense collaboration and he trusted me a lot because we have worked together for years. He knew I had good ideas and leaned into that in the same way I leaned into my camera team,” says Matthew.

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There have been speculations about a possible season 2. “This story is definitely finished. We’ll probably be making another one in the same format down the line, but not just yet. We’re going to let it breathe. We don’t want to saturate the market with one shot, because everyone’s going to get really bored of it eventually,” says Matthew, who is on his first visit to India and is impressed by how passionate are Indians about films.