Labour in a Single Shot

Labour in a Single Shot is a video production workshop, ideated by Harun Farocki and Antje Ehmann, on the subject of labour: paid and unpaid, material and immaterial, rich in tradition or altogether new. Through a series of workshops in 15 cities around the world, the project sought to produce videos of 1 to 2 minutes in length, framed only in a single shot. The task as set led straight to basic questions of cinematographic form and raised essential questions about the filmmaking process itself. Almost every form of labour is repetitive. How can one find a beginning and an end when capturing it? Should the camera be still or moving? How to film the choreography of a workflow in one single shot in the best and most interesting way? Yet the workshop’s results showed that a single shot of 1 or 2 minutes could already create a narrative, suspense or surprise.