Jason Reitman’s “saturday night” opens with a single shot of approximately 3.5 minutes, where the camera quickly pans through Studio 8H, capturing the chaos and energy of the now-iconic NBC series “Saturday Night Live” as it prepares to go “live from New York.” 11 October 1975, premiere.

“The biggest consideration when approaching all the visuals in this film was what it felt like to be there,” says cinematographer Eric Steelberg, who used a moving camera and guided the viewer through the meticulously crafted set in long takes. “We thought this was the best way to make people feel like they were there every minute, every minute in the 90 minutes before we went live.

“The reason we did this (opening) shot in particular was because this was our first exposure and introduction to space, and we wanted to bombard the audience with all the sights and sounds and chaos that was happening. “We didn’t want to break away from it, we wanted to move through it,” he continues. “There is so much detail and nuance. “It’s like information overload, and that’s how it should feel.”

Preparation was key as the team created this careful choreography that involved the camera, actors, extras and props moving in and out of the frame. “We kept pushing people around because we could only afford so many background actors,” Steelberg recalls.

“We had extras running down the corridor at the beginning of a shot off set, and then they would go into the studio, and then these people would run out and back into the corridor.” Other members of the crew were off-screen, pushing props and set pieces in and out of the frame.

“Saturday Night” was shot on a Kodak 200T-stock Arriflex 416 Super 16mm film camera to define the period look. For the opening shot, the camera sat on a distant head on a dolly. “(Dolly Grip Darryl Humber) along with (camera operator Matthew Moriarty) were maneuvering the camera in a remote position throughout the entire set because we had to be as small as possible,” explains Steelberg. Dolly Grip more or less had to dance with all the lead and background actors.

Lighting the scene with the camera constantly moving was no small feat, and the shoot relied on practical lighting placement. “There may be a few hidden lights in the ceiling, but it’s practically on by all accounts,” Steelberg says, adding that in preparation, he sat down with production designer Jess Gonchor and set decorator Claudia Bonfe “and tried to figure out how to do it.” “I light the sets in the studio with built-in lighting that illuminates the scenes (and actors) the way I want them to.”

After a full day of rehearsal, the team shot this video on the first day of shooting and returned to shoot on the last day of production. “We thought if we could get that shot on the first day, that would set the pace and the tone for the crew and the cast,” Steelberg explains. “As the movie progressed and everyone became a well-oiled machine, we realized we could probably have done a better job on this shot. So we tried again on the last day.” One of these last shots took place in the movie.