Is Adolescence filmed in one take? How episode 2's drone shot was filmed

17 March 2025, 23:21 | Updated: 18 March 2025, 14:57

By Katie Louise Smith

How does the camera fly in Netflix's Adolescence? Here's how they did the drone scene in episode 2.

Wondering how Netflix's Adolescence managed to film each episode in one continuous take without any cuts or edits? And how they made the camera "fly" at the end of episode 2? Here's your answer...

The critically acclaimed drama series, starring Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper, has left viewers flabbergasted by the incredible camerawork that helps to tell the gripping real-time story behind what led 13-year-old Jamie to kill his classmate Katie.

Episode 1 includes Jamie's real-time arrest and police interview, episode 3 is an intense back-and-forth between Jamie and Briony (Erin Doherty) and episode 4 follows Jamie's family.

But it's episode 2 that seems to breaking viewers brains because not only does the camera end up flying through the air, but it also passes through a glass window. People cannot comprehend how they actually did it. Now, the crew have explained everything.

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Episode 2 takes place at Jamie's school as DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) speaks to students in an attempt to dig deeper into what could have possibly prompted Jamie to kill Katie.

At the end of the episode, a big chase sequence occurs which follows Bascombe running after Jamie's friend Ryan.

The camera goes from inside the classroom, through the window (!) and outside into the school grounds before Bascombe eventually catches Ryan. The final shot of the episode then takes a spectacular and breathtaking turn...

Once Bascombe leaves the scene, the camera captures the school kids walking around before focusing on Katie's friend Jade. It then takes off into the air, flies over the houses and gives viewers an aerial shot of the site where Katie was murdered.

Obviously, there's no human attached to the camera as it begins flying, so how the hell did they manage to do it? Here's your answer...

How did they do the flying drone shot in Adolescence?

Netflix have now shared a behind-the-scenes clip of how the production team and camera crew managed to perfectly execute that show-stopping final moment in episode 2.

Originally, the scene was supposed to see Bascombe chase Ryan to the murder site and the camera was meant to slowly make its way back to the school. Instead, they found a way to "make the camera fly" which changed the entire ending.

"If the camera could float away by itself, then it couldn't possibly be attached to a person," Matthew Lewis, director of photography, explained. So, they attached it to a drone.

If you watch the episode closely, the camera momentarily stays in one fixed place while focused on Jade. This is where the camera crew carefully attached the camera to the drone, before it flew up into the sky.

From there, the camera and drone is then controlled by a pilot on the ground.

"It was an example of the technical meeting the story and finding a fusion, which was actually better than anything the story had come up with on its own," Jack Thorne said in the behind-the-scenes video.

In an interview with Variety, Matthew revealed the team used a specific camera that was lightweight enough for someone to be able to carry it without attaching it to themselves, pass between operators, switch to handheld at the click of a button and attach to a drone.

How did the camera go through the window?

Well, that part was a little more complicated. Matthew Lewis confirmed to Variety that VFX was used to create the illusion that the camera was passing through the window.

"The VFX is stuff for when we went through a window in one of the episodes, We couldn't do that in real life," he explained, before confirmed that the take itself was not edited.

"But there was no stitching of takes together – it was one entire shot in its entirety, whether I wanted it to be or not."

Watch Netflix's Adolescence trailer

To make things even more impressive, episode 2 featured over 300 extras. It took three weeks to rehearse the episode, walking through the script scene-by-scene as well as tech rehearsals and filming run throughs.

The final shot of Stephen Graham at the end of the episode was also a last minute request that required the camera team to bring the drone back down to focus on close up on his face.

"The last week we get 10 chances, two a day, at shooting one take,” Ashley Walters explained to Tudum.

Episode 2, including the drone shot, was captured on the very last take.

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