One shot may refer to:

Technology

Literature

Film and TV

Music

Bands

A one-shot is a story created as a single issue found in comic books. They sometimes serves as a pilot to field interest in a new series.

United States

In the United States, one-shots are usually labeled with a "#1" despite there being no following issues, and are sometimes subtitled as "specials". On occasion, a character or concept will appear in a series of one-shots, in cases where the subject matter is not financially lucrative enough to merit an ongoing or limited series, but still popular enough to be published on a regular basis, often annually or quarterly. A current example of a series of one-shots would be Marvel Comics' Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius publications. This type of one-shot is not to be confused with a comic book annual, which is typically a companion publication to an established ongoing series.

Other countries

The term has also been borrowed into the Franco-Belgian comics industry, with basically the same meaning, although there, it mostly refers to albums.

A "one-shot" is any music video which consists of action, continuous in time and space, from the perspective of a single camera — a single long take. In order to be able to make one-shot videos several special techniques are used. Most commonly the stage props which are not currently caught on cameras are changed during the shot. For other videos some parts are filmed before the final shot and then replayed on screens in the video.

One of the most famous music video directors for this genre is Michel Gondry, who has done many of his videos in this style.

This differs from the meaning of two shot, etc.

Examples

Music videos by Michel Gondry

Other examples

Tin Machine were an English-American hard rock band formed in 1988, famous for being fronted by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. The band consisted of David Bowie on lead vocals and guitar, Reeves Gabrels on guitar, Tony Sales on bass, and Hunt Sales on drums. Guitarist Kevin Armstrong was an unofficial fifth member of the band, playing on both the first studio album and first tour. The group recorded two studio albums before dissolving in 1992, when Bowie returned to his solo career. Drummer Hunt Sales said that the group's name "reflects the sound of the band," and Bowie stated that he and his bandmates joined up "to make the kind of music that we enjoyed listening to" and to rejuvenate himself artistically. Over the course of their career, the band sold two million albums.

Bowie would later credit his time with Tin Machine as instrumental in revitalizing his career in the 1990s.

History

1987–88: Band genesis

The Never Let Me Down album and subsequent Glass Spider Tour had left critics unimpressed, and Bowie was aware of his low standing. Eager to return to making music for himself rather than the mainstream audience he had acquired following the Let's Dance album, Bowie began collaborating with Reeves Gabrels (who pushed the singer to rediscover his experimental side) and multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kızılçay on new material in 1988 (although Erdal Kızılçay would ultimately not join the band). Bowie and Gabrels met through Gabrels' wife Sarah, who was part of the press staff for the North American leg of Bowie's 1987 Glass Spider world tour. She had given Bowie a tape of Reeves' guitar playing, and after listening to the tape, Bowie approached Gabrels so they could work together. Bowie told fellow band-member Gabrels that he felt he had "lost his vision" and wanted to be in the band to get it back.

"Tin Machine" is the song from which the band Tin Machine took their name, a track from their debut album, also of the same name. It was released as a single in September 1989, as a double A-side with a live cover of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie's Farm”.

According to Reeves Gabrels, naming the band after the song was the idea of the Sales brothers, who reasoned "It’s like having your own theme tune". The track itself revisits several Bowie motifs, including withdrawing from the world into a room from the horrors of the world, and also featured the contempt for corruption evident elsewhere in Tin Machine’s output.

"Maggie’s Farm" and the other live tracks were recorded at the band’s gig at La Cigale, Paris on 25 June 1989. Both songs had videos – "Tin Machine" featured in an excerpt from Julien Temple’s promotional film as a mock performance where the fans stormed the stage, leaving Bowie with a nosebleed; and "Maggie’s Farm" was recorded live. Despite this, the double-A side entered the chart at its UK No. 48 peak.

Tin Machine is the debut album of Tin Machine originally released by EMI in 1989. The group was the latest venture of David Bowie, inspired by sessions with guitarist Reeves Gabrels. Drummer Hunt Sales and bassist Tony Sales formed the rest of the band, with "fifth member" Kevin Armstrong providing rhythm guitar.

The project was intended as a back-to-basics album by Bowie, with a hard rock sound and simple production, as opposed to his past two solo albums. Unlike previous Bowie bands (such as the Spiders from Mars), Tin Machine acted as a democratic unit.

Album and song development

The band prepared some demos in LA before moving to Mountain Studios in Switzerland and then on to Montreal and then finally to Nassau. The band did not have much luck recording in Nassau, finding it hard to record in the midst of the "coke and poverty and crack," which partly inspired the album track "Crack City." Bowie also claimed his own cocaine-addled past in the 1970s as an inspiration for the track. The songs on the album tend to stick to topics such as drugs and urban decay. All songs were a group effort, and the band recorded 35 songs in just six weeks.