Most films before this and many after, were not shot in this way. They will have a certain set up and ready to go, so they will shot any scenes that will need that set as a backdrop, regardless of its order in the movie. Spielberg's main reason for doing this was to keep the young child actors in suspense of what was happening. This also allowed their reactions to be filmed as real reactions, not staged acting reactions. There are two scenes in this movie that were done in the first take because of this. The first was when the older brother, Michael, sees E.T. for the first time. He has not been prepped for what he is going to see, therefore, when he turns around, the look of shock combined with surprise on his face is absolutely real. The second and more illustrative scene of this movie where this is shown is near the end of the movie where E.T. and Elliott are being worked on by medical teams, and they begin to separate sub-consciously, as E.T. starts to fade away. When they bring in the defibrillator to jump start E.T.'s heart, and the camera moves to Gertie (Drew Barrymore). When they shock E.T. with the paddles, you see her jump at the sound and then you see everything pour out of her. You actually can see the pain and the hurt on her face as she stands there crying and screaming. A child's real human reaction to a situation that touches them to the soul. When I learned that this shot was captured the first time out, I had no reservations about believing it. I do not think any child could act out that kind of misery. In that one close-up shot, she told us everything that she was feeling.
For being a film from the early 1980's, all of the shots used on this movie were amazing. Every shot in the book was used, along with some variations on close-ups. All adults in the movie, until the ending, were shot from the waist down, except for the mother. "I never wanted to show grown-ups in the movie until the very end.
