Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire,
England, is the home to one of the largest silent stages in the world.Created to support the making of James Bond
films after the success of a temporary stage was built at the studio in 1966,
this permanent stage has priority for Bond films but it is rented out for other
film making between Bond films.A unique
feature of this stage is its large floor space and accompanying huge water
tank.Currently this stage is named
after Albert R. Broccoli who produced many James Bond films until his death so
it is known as the “Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage”.
In 1976, the first 007 Stage was completed
by building an enclosed stage around an existing 5,528 cubic meter water
tank.The enclosure was 52,275 cubic
meters.A fire in June 1984 completely burnt
the stage to the ground.After seven
months of work, it was resurrected in time to support the filming of A View to Kill.This second version of the stage remained in
service for nearly two decades until it collapsed from a fire due to gas
canisters exploding days after the completion of the filming for Casino Royal during July 2006.Extensive damage required the stage to be
completely demolished.This was not the
end for the stage but a new beginning as it was rebuilt.New improvements included increased floor
space at 5,500 square metres, enclosed stairwells, a vehicle ramp directly into
the tank and aircraft hanger’s doors to the floor area.The 2007 version of the stage is currently
the largest stage in Europe.
The 007 stage was constructed to allow
production designer Ken Adam to break new ground for the filming of A Spy Who Loved Me.Ken needed a large stage with the capacity to
allow rapid change and adaption to support water scenes.He designed a huge stage with the heavy crane
lift capability around a large water tank at Pinewood Studios.This set allowed the creation of a super
tanker interior which had the capacity to hold a three submarine bay to create
a real bigger than life Bond scene.The
usefulness of this stage resulted in its continuous use for a portion of nearly
every Bond film since its creation.
How do you know if you have seen the 007 stage
on film?That is the advantage of this
stage, you really do not know if you have seen it.Perhaps the only clue is that fact that it is
used to create bigger than life scenes.In the recent Bond films with Daniel Craig as Bond, the 007 stage showed
up as the realistic Venetian villa which crumbled into the Venetian Grand Canal
in Casino Royale.Next, in Quantum
of Solace, the interior of Perla De Las Dunas Hotel which was the setting
of Bond’s violent clash with Green was the 007 stage again.This violent clash required 50 real explosive
charges to be set off within the stage.Most recently in the movie Skyfall
, the 007 Stage was used to make a London underground train crash into a
service chamber.Two 15 ton full-size
London underground carriages were hung within the stage and brought up to speed
before dipping down into the set to create a thrilling one chance stunt to be
performed flawlessly.Most recently,
Disney has discovered the magic of the stage making scenes bigger than life and
used the stage extensively in the films Maleficent and Cinderella.The next time you see a larger than life
scene in a film you may have to thank the Bond films for creating the one of a
kind, 007 Stage which brought the audience amazing action scenes.
Casino Royale is the first book in the Bond
novel series, known as the darkest and most literary of the Ian Fleming
novels.The movie rights to this novel
were restricted until recently and the producers Michael Wilson and Barbara
Broccoli decided that they could take on the challenge of this novel’s complex
story line about a Soviet operative who squandered money and needed to win it
back desperately.To make a relevant movie for the 21st century
required an effective total reworking of the plot into the modern world of
terror networks and terroristic finances.The storyline also presented both the opportunity and the challenge of
showing how Bond became a 00 agent.The
amount of change occurring with the Bond character in this script made the
produces determine it was time to get a new actor to play James Bond.After a long four year gap in Bond films, the
result was a new film with a number of changes and a complete rebranding of
Bond.
The screenwriters wanted to have a single
film capturing the spirit of the novel while focusing on the story of how James
became James Bond, Agent 007.Martin
Campbell the director of Golden Eye
worked with screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and scriptwriter Paul
Haggis to create the filmmaker group for this complex film.This group decided on a global reaching cast selecting
English actor Daniel Craig as Bond, French actress Eva Green in the very
critical role of Vesper Lynd, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre,
Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini as Bond’s liaison, and African – American
actor Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter.The filmmakers also chose sets from around the world to also make this
film appealing to a worldwide audience.Finally the stakes for the critical poker game were raised by bringing
poker expert Thomas Sambrook to the set to teach the actors how to play
intricate Texas Hold’em Poker convincingly on the big screen which showed much
more tense strategy than the original Baccarat Poker game found in the novel.
The strategy of telling the Bond story
required perfection from both the sets and the actor.Daniel Craig undertook three months of
training to endure the physically challenging and grueling shots required to
tell the story while getting a look of a lean and dangerous man.Set designers at Pinewood’s 007 stage created
the most complex set ever built for a Bond film to replicate the interior of a
Venetian villa that crumbles into the Grand Canal by using both a full scale
set and a 1/3 size miniature on the set.Car chases in the film also involved the use of rare and expensive Aston
Martin DBS super cars performing world record stunts.All this action climaxed in the gut-wrenching
torture scene leading up to Bond losing his girl.The results was a colder Bond with a bitter
taste in his mouth regarding the death and betrayal of his girl which was
reflected in the new theme song “You Know My Name” presenting the essence of
the new Bond character.
After
creating a high stake film, Casino Royale
premiered with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, in attendance at the 60th
Royal Film Performance in November 2006.From a “royal” start, this film was accepted
by audiences around the globe to become the highest-grossing Bond film of its
time and the first Bond film to surpass $100 million at the box office.Daniel Craig was nominated for Best Actor and
he set the new standard for Bond as a harder and colder Bond in a more complex
world.
Moonraker was the title of the third novel
in the James Bond series by Ian Fleming.Although Ian provided the title, the eleventh James Bond film of 1979
was not like the 1955 book of the same title.At the time, the mid 1970’s was a period in the middle of a science
fiction craze promoted by the huge success of Star Wars.In addition, NASA
was also getting ready to launch the first space shuttle.Both the producer Albert R. Broccoli and
United Artists wanted to cash in on the science fiction trend by taking James
Bond into space with science facts mixed with science fiction fantasy.
This film was planned from the start as an
extravagant film with many expensive scenes and ideas.The total cost of the film was twice as much
as any other Bond film but the profits of the previous Bond film allowed
filming to proceed.The opening sequence
of the film showed a spectacular scene to captivate the audience where Bond was
pushed from a plane without a parachute.Cinematic technology was designed using experimental cameras and lenses
and the scene was filmed completely with live action.Now nearly three decades later, that mobile
film equipment such as the Go Pro cameras are still available at a reasonable
cost to get the same shot.Many other real
scenes were filmed around the globe in an endurance test to pack as much action
as possible into the film.Broccoli had
to film most of the live action studio scenes in Paris using every available
studio to allow the film to proceed with parallel production of movie sets
required for this complex film.The
French film industry actually stopped to allow the film production of a British
based Bond film to proceed.
Science fiction resulted in the need for
special effects and a huge amount of work making realistic miniatures at
Pinewood Studios.Derik Meddings who was
very skilled at miniature work brought his complete team to work on this
film.There were dozens of models created
from space shuttles to the space station and even customized space debris made
for individual film shots made up of many exposures.Basically the effects were being made in the
camera and not in the edit studio to create the realistic feeling of the film
being made in space.The technology in computer
processing power used many decades latter to create similar effects was not
available at the time.To make the
effects of items disintegrating in space very realistic, Derik obtained
permission to have a closed set at Pinewood so he could blow up the miniatures
with real shotguns explosions while filming.There was no room for error as there was only one chance to get the
image when the miniature set was being destroyed as it was being filmed.There was one take and one change with high
risk.The resulting effects in the film
worked so well that Derik earned an Oscar nomination for his work. With all the technical achievements and use
of extreme live action, this film proved to be popular to audiences
worldwide.Numerous box office records
were achieved by this Bond film during the summer of 1979.Roger More took James Bond to new heights
both literally in the film and in popularity.Even so this film depended once again on John Barry to score the
supporting film music to match the technology of the film.Barry created a masterpiece during the Venice
boat chase sequence using the original Bond theme for one last time during a
major film sequence.Due to the huge
cost and work of special effects, this was also the last Bond film to extensively
use science fiction fantasy. Many
technical ideas did not make it into the final cut of the film but many of the
ideas were saved and reworked to show up in subsequent Bond films shot throughout
the 1980s.
The
name Walther is associated with a global leader in handgun innovation and
quality.A company with over a century
of operation by the time James Bond became a spy, the German heritage guns
produced came with a reputation of high quality craftsmanship and rugged
durability in the field.Carl Walther
started the company Walther Works in 1886.Almost every German officer during World War I carried one of the Walther
pocket pistols.Carl’s son Fritz
inherited his father’s company and passion for firearms.Fritz created the single/double action
trigger which became the famous Model PP and compact model PPK used by German
police officers and later the German military under Nazi rule.The Walther factory ended up totally
destroyed at the end of World War II.Fritz Walther had a few remaining design documents in his hands which
allowed Walther Guns to rise from the ashes into the global leader in
peacekeeping firearms that it is known today. James
Bond’s first choice for every day concealed firearm is the Walther PPK
7.65mm.He has used this gun in 21
missions to date.Bond started with a
Beretta in Dr. No but quickly changed
to a PPK after the Beretta jammed in the field.The weapon of choice for Bond quickly
spreads through both the spy and villain world. The PPK becomes known as his 00 license to
kill weapon of choice.Bond is not
afraid to use the PPK and it has been fired in nearly all his missions.Only in Moonraker is the PPK only shown and
not fired.There was a time where Bond
abandons his PPK for the newer P99 model but it was not long before he returned
to his beloved PPK in the latest two Bond films.
The
P99 is a semi-automatic, updated version of the PPK. The P99 is a large
capacity gun with ten to sixteen rounds verses the seven standard rounds of the
PPK but this increase in firepower comes with a larger size and harder ability
to conceal the weapon in the field.Bond
repeatedly asks Q for a P99 once it became available but he does not get one
until Tomorrow Never Dies where he is
seen using it with a silencer in an offensive role where more fire power is
needed.Q takes the P99 to a higher
level by adding a blinding flash mechanism in The World is Not Enough.The
larger size of the P99 is apparent when Q needs to hide the gun in a surfboard
saboteur kit in Die Another Day.The P99 gets Bond in trouble when he is
video taped shooting a terrorist with the gun.In Casino Royale, Bond finds
the P99 with a silencer that Q has provided in his Aston Martin DBS.In this film Bond carries the weapon in a
brown envelope but does not use the weapon.Perhaps at this time, Bond figures out that the P99 is too hard to
conceal in the field. Bond
has also used the Walther WA 2000 Rifle as his choice of an accurate sniper
grade firearm.This accurate firearm
uses the 0.300 Winchester magnum cartridges.This world class firearm is accurate to 1,000 metres. The accuracy of the rifle is used when Bond
shoots a rifle out of the hands of a female cellist forced to be a sniper by
the Soviet Government without ruining her ability to continue her chosen career
as a cellist.Recently, Walther has
formed a new company to supply the American Firearms market by grouping
together with Smith & Wesson.This
transformation of Walther may point to James Bond having more firearm choices
in future missions as he continues to use the PPK as his concealed weapon of
choice.
