The second-to-last take of the film, which lasts approximately seven minutes, called for the use of a special camera, a Canadian invention. I also tried other ways of getting the same idea, but all were shown to be less practical and more artificial. The problem was not so much getting out of the window, but panning the full semicircle of the piazza to end up before the window again. This was made possible by the use of a camera mounted on a series of gyroscopes. Inside the room, the camera moved hanging from a track attached to the ceiling. The cameraman pushed it with his hands on the large curving handles seen in the photo. Once the camera arrived at the wrought-iron grating, the worst problem arose. The grating was hinged, and swung open a second after the bars went off-camera at the sides of the shot. Obviously, I controlled everything-including commands for the zooms and pans-on a monitor that was in a van.
From here I gave orders to my assistant with a microphone, and the assistant transmitted them to the actors, extras, cars, and everything else which made the "movement" in the piazza. Behind the hotel there was a huge crane, more than a hundred feet high, from which hung a steel cable. Once the camera was outside the window, it left the track and was simultaneously hooked onto the cable. Naturally, the shift from a fixed support, like the track, to a mobile one, such as the cable, caused the camera to bump and sway while a second cameraman, experienced in this work, took over. This is where the gyroscopes came in: they completely neutralized the bumping and swaying. The shooting of this take required eleven days. There were other difficulties, primarily the wind. The weather was windy and stormy, and a wind storm soon arrived, doing much damage.
In order to be independent of the weather, this special camera normally operates in a closed sphere. But the sphere was too big, and would not pass through the window. Doing without the sphere meant exposing ourselves to the vagaries of the weather. But I had no choice. Furthermore, I had shoot between 3: 30 and 5:00 p.m. because of the light, which at other hours would have been too strong. You must remember we came from inside to the outside, and the ratio of internal to external light governed the diaphragm opening for the whole shot. Another problem: the camera was a 16mm one. After much discussion, the cameraman was persuaded to try 35mm. They asked me to mount a 400-foot reel, but, as I thought, it was not long enough for the sequence. To use a thousand-foot reel required a new adjustment of the whole gyroscopic equilibrium of the camera. The photos show the work we did to get the final result. A big crowd followed our efforts each day. When, finally, on the eleventh day, we succeeded in obtaining two good takes, there was a long and moving outburst of applause, such as, on the field, greets a player who has made a goal. (Michelangelo Antonioni on the seven-minute shot from Professione: reporter; excerpt from The Architecture of Vision: Writings & Interviews on Cinema)