A darkened film set: crew in silhouette, lights rigged above, a monitor glowing on the right

Soupfor theAges

One take. One night. One building.

A dark comedy. LipkinFilms.

Wrap day

Three scenes left. Out by midnight. The gaffer has locked himself in the toilet.

Soup for the Ages is ninety-five minutes in a single unbroken take. Nobody winks. Every problem on set is the cue for the next one, and the camera rolls straight through all of them.

A film set: a woman in a bubble helmet, an actor in a roaring lion mask behind a clapperboard the crew calls it Kamikaze Broth

The drama makes the drama

  1. Three scenes left.Out by midnight. Not a minute past.
  2. The actors stop saying the lines.Improv is the point, they say. Alyon says it isn’t.
  3. The gaffer locks himself in the toilet.An accusation. No name.
  4. The DOP won’t touch the lights.Not his department’s mess.
  5. Three scenes become one room.Rewritten on the fly.
  6. The money calls.No last instalment. The house is already in the deal.
  7. The babysitter brings the baby and a letter.Child protection. Interview tomorrow.
  8. The actors go back to the script.Word perfect. Bodies somewhere else.
  9. The first AD packs her bags.So Alyon calls the money to set.
  10. The owner pulls the breaker.No power. Security on the way.
  11. Fifteen minutes. Tops.The rest happens in the take.
Crew in near darkness on set, one holding a tube light, a single lamp burning behind them with the lights we have

The dance

A man's open mouth, a small black bird standing on his tongue

Jazz is the process

Somebody calls cut eleven times. The camera never does.

The script is the chart. The night is the jam. Everyone in the building knows the changes; nobody knows what the next person is about to play. The camera trails whoever is carrying the problem, then picks up whoever they hand it to.

The camera's route: nineteen scenes moving between the plant room, the set and the toilets, without a cut. Plant Set Toilets

19 scenes. 3 rooms. 0 cuts.

Behind the set: a crew member at a cluttered gear desk under a hard light the plant room

Who’s in the room

Alyon
Director. Broke. Too motivated to stop.
Esele
First AD. The only one keeping time.
Hal
DOP. Wrong side of fifty. Won’t swing the lens.
MossBall
Gaffer. Six-five. End cubicle.
Bill, aka Bobby
Runner. Op-shop finest. Asks the question.
Screen Actor 1
Plays Alyon. Thinks that gives him a vote.
Screen Actor 2
Plays Leila. One improv idea ahead.
Souz
Babysitter. Brings the baby and the letter.
Saar
The money. Too many layers on.
Suliman
Owns the building. Never seen. Holds the breaker.
Street wall with a hand-drawn chicken and the words The Chicken of Truth
Through a gap in black drapes, a lone figure walks toward a lit room at the end of the set we trail him through the corridor

Cut.

and that’s a wrap

markl@lipkinfilms.com.au

lipkinfilms.com.au

Soup for the Ages © LipkinFilms 2026. Mood photography, not production stills. Includes work by Anthony Lim, Ras Jayamaha, Nick Fewings, Jon Tyson, Teo Zac, Rendy Novantino and Focal Insight Photography (Unsplash) and Gratisography.