Hype's Now Playing: 15 Popular Music Videos That Were Filmed In One Shot

We love one-shot music videos and there simply aren’t enough to go around. Perhaps it’s because a lot of work goes into pre-production, production, and post-production. Well, more pre-production and production than post-production, we reckon.

What are one-shot music videos?

A “one-shot” music video is any music video which consists of action, continuous in time and space, from the perspective of a single camera. More often than not, it’s done in a single long take. But in order to be able to make one-shot music videos, several special techniques are used. And in order to not screw up, everything has to go according to plan.

Basically, all it takes is for someone to sneeze at the very last minute of the take and the entire thing has to be shot all over again. It’s safe to say that one-shot music videos are tedious!

One of the most famous music video directors for this genre is French film director Michel Gondry, who has done many of his videos in this style. He has previously worked with the likes of The White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, and Radiohead for one-shot music videos.

Other artistes that Michel Gondry can boast about (although not necessarily because of one-shot music videos) are such as The Chemical Brothers, Björk, Kanye West, The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, and Sheryl Crow, just to name a few.

But enough about Michel Gondry. Here are some of our personal top 10 picks for what we think are some of the most popular one-shot music videos of all time. The songs alone are pretty good too, of course!

And yes, when we say “all time”, we mean everything old and new from pop to folk, alternative to rock, and even K-Pop. Just remember not to blink 😉

1. Lisa Loeb – Stay (I Missed You), released in 1994