Adolescence’s moving aerial sH๏τ which ends up showing the murder scene and Stephen Graham laying flowers was one of four endings for the second episode and was only completed in the nick of time – with the whole episode under threat at one stage.

The ambitious technical challenge involved the camera going from filming people crossing the road at head height to flying over buildings and then coming down in a car park with police tape and flowers laid for schoolgirl Katie, who has been murdered in the Netflix story.

However, after an initial plan of just having a camera move at eye level, and then two other inferior endings being filmed – partly because it was too windy for a drone – “terrified” cinematographer Matt Lewis finally got what he wanted on the last afternoon of filming.

The time allocated to shooting each of the four episodes was only five days, with one morning attempt and one in the afternoon, and it was only on the Friday morning they were able to fly and film from the drone – leading Lewis to cry – and not until the afternoon where they managed to add the landing to show Graham’s character Eddie.

Speaking about continuing the show’s continuous one-sH๏τ camera style from the sky, Lewis said: ‘It was my idea.

‘It was a suggestion in order to replace an existing beat which was essentially that the camera move down a street at eye level. 

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The time allocated to shooting each of the four episodes was only five days, with one morning attempt and one in the afternoon, and it was only on the Friday morning they were able to fly and film from the drone – leading Lewis to cry – and not until the afternoon where they managed to add the landing to show Graham’s character Eddie

The technical challenge involved the camera going from filming people crossing the road at head height to flying over buildings and then coming down in a car park with police tape and flowers laid for schoolgirl Katie

‘I was a little concerned that that would read as a person moving.’

Of the switch to using a drone, Lewis said: ‘I didn’t know we could do it to be honest.

‘I thought it would be amazing if we could take off and fly away and use the motivation of someone crossing the road to fly us away over the crime scene.’

Lewis told The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that although they had a different less dramatic ending in the bag by the Wednesday, they weren’t happy with it, and it was then that a Netflix executive suggested having Graham – who plays the father of teenage murderer Jamie Miller – in the episode at the murder site.

The series director Philip Barantini said: ‘Instead of saying “No, we’re not doing that, it’s ridiculous”, I was like “Oh my God, Matt, Matt, we need to land the drone, we need to try it at least”.’

Lewis continued: ‘There’s not a lot of room for changes. 

‘Part of me wanted to absolutely freak out.

‘Wednesday morning’s take we replaced with rehearsal of the landing. The coming down was really tricky because a drone when it’s moving really fast can kind of cut through the wind and apparently Pontefract is a really windy place.

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‘When it slows down and it has to descend you start to feel that sort of – almost like a leaf falling from a tree – that sort of zig-zag it can create.

‘And we had the issue of the drone had to be controlled on a moving vehicle because the range wasn’t long enough from the school (where the camera sH๏τ most of the episode).’

Lewis and four others were tasked with driving to the car park and trying to catch the descending drone.

He said: ‘I was terrified because I was like ‘obviously it’s a gamble’. 

‘If it pays off it’s amazing, if it doesn’t I was a bit scared that the episode we wouldn’t get it, because it’s so critical. 

‘We’d done all the other stuff, we’d done stunts, we’d done kids having a fight.

‘It came down to the Friday because basically the Thursday it was super windy,

‘We couldn’t really take off I think. So we made like a little ending where Stephen was near the school. It wasn’t the ending that everyone wanted.

‘It came down to the last day. 

‘On the morning take I sort of slightly – I don’t know if I threw my toys out the pram or I put my foot down – but I was like “I think we need to get safety here”, like one where we just take off the drone but we don’t come into land just so that we’ve got one in the bag. 

‘Because the wind was still on the cusp of it being too much.

‘So we got that, so there is a take where that happens. That was when I cried, because I knew we’d got the episode at least!

‘But then we managed to get the second take of that day, the very last one we did, was the landing of the drone. And therefore it was the winner.’

The series starring Graham, who co-wrote it, follows the family of 13-year-old schoolboy Jamie, who is accused of the brutal murder of a young girl.

It has become the first streaming show in history to top the UK’s weekly TV ratings and has become the centre of national conversation on incel culture and misogyny, sparking discussion in Parliament.

Stream all four episodes of Adolescence on Netflix now.