MARK O'CONNELL

Writer, Author, Bond Fan

Tag: Eon Productions (Page 8 of 8)

PENS MIGHTIER THAN SWORDS – Reviewing BOND BY DESIGN – THE ART OF THE JAMES BOND FILMS

September 21, 2015 /

With a growing archive of at least 15,000 illustrations, famed Bond creative hub EON Productions has collated a celebratory [and of course timely] coffee table look at 53 years of 007 design. Written by EON’s Archive Director Meg Simmonds, Bond By Design – The Art of The James Bond Films is a lavish 320 page tome – as much about the unnoticed artisans of cinema as it is James Bond 007’s glorious design legacy.

Straddling the various artistic strands feeding into the onscreen Bond – costumes, sets, graphic design, props, cars and stunts – Bond By Design explores the 007 design palette chronologically from Dr. No through to SPECTRE. As Archive Director at EON Productions, Meg Simmonds not only contributes to countless 007 books, articles, DVDs, auctions and documentaries, she has also helped curate, launch and maintain a triumvirate of Bond exhibitions. Designing Bond (which has just finished a summer run in Madrid), Bond In Motion (now parked up for a successful run in London’s Covent Garden) and the lesser known Exquisitely Evil (at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC) are all must-see branches of this ongoing project to mark and celebrate Bond’s production, sociological and cultural history.

As the lushly reproduced storyboards, charcoal sketches and hand-drawn illustrations evolve into rich marker pen interiors and beautiful water-coloured vistas before making way for the new era’s digital schematics and pre-vis imagery, Bond By Design is as much a document of late 20th century movie entertainment design as it is 007 – an opulent tribute to the lost heroes of movie design. The painted ponderings of costume designer Julie Harris (Live and Let Die) are as rich and relevant as any Cecil Beaton drawing for My Fair Lady. Anthony Mendleson’s costume paintings for 1965’s Thunderball equal any Edith Head etching for those balletic frames and never-ending legs. Donfeld’s watercolour illustrations for Diamonds Are Forever’s Tiffany Case are as luxuriant and era-pinning as any Vogue Paris cover or Robert McGinnis Matt Helm poster from the same time. And check out Barbarella’s Jacques Fonteray and his Moonraker suits and “Breeder” gowns! It is telling too how the ‘house style’ for Quantum of Solace, Royale and Skyfall ‘s digitally produced designs still hark back to that pulp fiction style of paperback cover art.

Of course the creative endowments to Bond and cinema from the likes of designers Ken Adam, Peter Murton, Syd Cain and Peter Lamont go unchallenged. Yet Meg Simmonds and the EON archive go further with Bond By Design. The end result is a rich reserve of those sleek sketches, languid watercolours and the vital scope of ambition EON and Danjaq afford these designers. But, Bond By Design also underlines the furnishing, decorative and architectural savvy these designers had [and continue to have]. The detail and notes Peter Lamont assigns a fairly incidental set and his clear awareness of materials, light, manoeuvrability and tone is as striking as any triangular ceiling of Ken Adam’s. And this is before the internet, online libraries and catalogued furniture archives. It is not enough for these designers to know their production and construction restraints. As this book testifies, they have to be ahead of fashion, erudite with what they know about the history [and future] of interior design and what will let all the global audiences into the story. And that is before you factor in the final challenge that twenty-four Bond films and their design teams increasingly come up against – originality.

“My job is to give them sets to work in that will surprise and amaze an audience”

Peter Lamont

Of course these designers are all sketching for the good of Bond and cinema. But Bond By Design lays bare their own characters. Ken Adam’s thick, dark and angular images for The Spy Who Loved Me and Goldfinger perfectly highlight just how he was indeed “the man who drew the Cold War” (The Daily Telegraph, 2008). Bond By Design sees those filmic and real life influences of his – The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Alexander Korda, that Germanistic penchant for precision and cavernous industry and a post-war, Space-Age renaissance of new materials and substances. Likewise, Peter Lamont’s career as a set draughtsman cannot be missed when you witness the mathematical precision he puts into each set, walkway or even doorframe.

“Never a dull moment working on a James Bond film, I can tell you!”

Syd Cain

The devil is naturally in the detail with this collection. It is as much about what we never see as what we do. So costume sketches contain reminders that stunt teams have to wear wet-suits under Lindy Hemming’s red dresses for Casino Royale’s Vesper Lynd and notes hint at how Blofeld’s coat of arms from OHMSS must be technically wrong.

 

The what nearly happened clues are nearly as rich as what did make its way up onto the screen. Close scrutiny of the artists notes and thoughts betray that Solitaire might well have worn an afro wig in Harlem in Live and Let Die (with a possible early thought that Diana Ross was in the running for that film?), the scarlet hues and hanging bling of The Man With The Golden Gun’s Bottoms Up Club are now a VIP room norm, that Willard Whyte in Diamonds Are Forever may have had an unused office complex to end all office complexes, that Whyte was first called ‘Graves’, Tomorrow Never Dies’ antagonist was once called Harmsway and that OHMSS’s Syd Cain designed an abandoned dog fight for GoldenEye. Very little is creatively wasted in the Bond franchise.

“What the Bond films did, they stimulated my imagination. I felt the sky was the limit. I could do anything.”

Ken Adam

Bond-by-Design-The-Art-of-the-James-Bond-Films-2It is the staggering specifics that go into these drawings – and ultimately on-screen – that makes Bond By Design such a valuable document for all film lovers, let alone Bond fans. The thought and notes jotted down for a simple flower-covered pillar in a party scene in A View to a Kill or the in-depth measurements Lamont makes for the flower elevations in OHMSS lay bare the commitment to quality first pioneered and bankrolled by the likes of Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and now well and truly continued with Barbara Broccoli and the man with the most producer credits on Bond, Michael G Wilson. This is the tireless effort going on behind, in-front and beside the scenes as hardened fans panic about gun-barrel logos infinitum on 007 forums. So much is actually designed for a Bond film beyond physical sets and theatrically-minded interiors. Gold bars, the front of Baron Samedi’s train, Bond’s MI6 logo, casino chips, Martini glasses, what ornaments a villain owns, is it to be a headscarf or a necklace a panicking tourist wears are all elements that viewers will never see and yet have to be factored in, designed, made and duplicated. This writer has always been a tad partial to a good villain’s logo. And those faux-corporate emblems are lovingly presented too including Zorin Industries’ try-out logos.

“I go with my instincts on every aspect of how I design films. It’s all emotional response to things”

Dennis Gassner, production designer on SPECTRE

SPECTRE is understandably not explored in too much depth this time round as a great many of its design and visual tricks are tied to its plot and story surprises. However, designer Dennis Gassner’s discussion of director Sam Mendes’s urge to explore “hot and cold” in the film makes utter sense for a Bond movie as does the use in Mexico City of those prime 007 colours – “red, black and white”.

As if it needs endorsing any more, this new champion of Bond production books also comes with a pair of glossy Ken Adam designs and a foreword contribution from Adam, Lamont and Gassner. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

 

Bond By Design – The Art of the James Bond Films

by Meg Simmonds

Dorling Kindersley

Published 1st October 2015

 

With thanks to Dorling Kindersley and EON Productions.

 

 

SHAKING AND STIRRING – Belvedere Vodka named as 007 and SPECTRE’s new drinking partner

December 16, 2014 /

I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.”

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, 1954

Under the apt PR guise “PROJECT TUXEDO”, the world’s luxury vodka brand Belvedere has announced its new global partnership with James Bond 007 and 2015’s SPECTRE.

“We are delighted to announce that when it comes to his martini, Mr Bond Knows The Difference” says Charles Gibb, President of Belvedere Vodka.

First created in 1993 when the taboos and trade boundaries of Cold War Russian vodka were lifting (and 007 was of course about to enter into an officially sanctioned marriage with Smirnoff – his and the Bond image’s on/off vodka of choice since 1962’s Dr. No), Belvedere Vodka has hit the ground running in its two decades tenure. Generating a new standard and thinking around vodka and its side industries and variants, Belvedere has quickly established itself as a bespoke vodka striving for excellence and distinctive character. Made in Poland from Dankowskie Rye and blended with water, Belvedere’s taste profile is a must for premium restaurants, eateries, bars, hotels and clubs. And now Bond fan gatherings, birthday lists and – yes, I asked – bachelor party libations.

In total, James Bond orders 19 vodka martinis and 16 gin martinis in Fleming’s work.

But as much as this is a cracking marketing angle for both Bond and Belvedere, there is more to this new relationship than sheer profile. Belvedere’s chief of mixology Claire Smith is ‘the first lady of vodka’. At a private demonstration of Belvedere and vodka martinis in an equally private Armed Forces private members club in London (and one with its own Ian Fleming links, of course), Smith proves not only her passion for vodka – and of course Belvedere’s new relationship with 007 – but that she wants the revival of the vodka martini to continue. According to Smith there is a momentum of interest in vodka martinis (no doubt revived by 2006’s Casino Royale and its presentation of the Vesper cocktail). People are wanting to know more from their barman, they are wanting to get that martini and their drinks right just for them. Like our evolving food tastes and knowledge, we are all wanting to know what is in our drinks. We are also moving away from that 1970s and 1980s menu of cocktails and spirits (there was no Babycham at the bar of this particular club).

SPECTRE cast banner 8

This new promotional pairing between SPECTRE and Belvedere is also about democratising the vodka martini – forever a perceived requisite of out-of-reach high-end establishments or disappointingly bad office party Bond nights with some bloke in a corner mixing drinks like Tom Cruise in Cocktail . Treated by bar consultancy and drinks wizard Joe Stokoe to three stunningly realised standards – a Dry Martini (stirred, not shaken), a Wet Martini and a Reverse Vesper – I was instantly able to discern the differences created by preparation and experience. My preference would be the Reverse Vesper (1 part Vermouth, 1 part Tanqueray and 3 part Belvedere vodka). A twist on the iconic Vesper (which is not necessarily the onscreen vodka martini Bond has always had), this Belvedere imbued cocktail was a saucy strapless dress of a glass – attention grabbing but refined with a whisper of Lillet and lemon rind.

“One medium dry vodka martini mixed like you said sir, but not stirred”

Dr. No, 1962

Claire Smith’s engaging and easy passion for mixing, presenting and augmenting vodka is all about creating “a dialogue” between the consumer and bartender. Smith spends time opening up the consumer’s confidence. She wants us to build relationships with our barman. How many of us have wanted to be James Bond and take our place at the bar with that just arrived poise only to fall at the first hurdle – confidence. One of the mainstays of Belvedere and tenets of Smith’s approach is to arm the consumer with the realisation that there are no rules. Bond’s own iconic shaken, not stirred vodka martini is itself an alleged faux-pas of ingredient-bashing excess. Some gin and martini scholars would have you believe stirring and not shaking is the end goal – that shaking can excessively aerate the core components. But Smith and Stokoe are quick to encourage “there are no rules”. What is one person’s martini foible at the end of the working day is another’s starting pistol or refreshing interlude before dinner. Know Your Martini is a recent mantra of Belvedere Vodka and one that equally applies to its marriage with Eon Productions and James Bond. The renowned vodka house wants more than just a fiscally beneficial union. “Vodka is so often overlooked as being neutral, anonymous. And vodka is so much more dynamic than that.” notes Smith. “The future of bar-tending lies in trying to find elegance and beauty and simplicity and making that compelling for the consumer to really get involved with. That’s really what I’m interested in.” Belvedere teaming up with Bond is more than commercialism. It makes bespoke, aesthetic sense.

MONTAGE

 

Of course the panic-peddlers and naysayers will all have their headlines primed about 007 selling out and movie producers taking product placement too far. The Heineken usage in 2012’s Skyfall was scorned by easy headline makers, but when a secret agent is in a backpackers beach bar in Turkey I am kind of assuming ordering a “vodka martini, shaken not stirred” is not quite going to cut it as much as a cold beer. It is worth noting too that Ian Fleming himself would drop in names and products – because they were part of his world and hence 007’s, but also because there is an immediacy and westernised reality about labels. Our homes and daily technology are bound by labels and familiar monikers. Why should 007 the character be  exempt from that? And why should 007 the film franchise not seek out and align itself with the finer leanings of a house like Belvedere? Belvedere join a rich array of Bond beverage “co-stars” including Bollinger, Absolut Vodka, Smirnoff, Macallan and Finlandia.

Head of Belvedere Charles Gibb is a quietly proud man right now. “It’s the size and scale of everything that is James Bond” – he notes – “This union is unique because an integral part of our brand and Bond’s character meet in this wonderful intersection called the Martini. The fact that Ian Fleming and Bond are credited with re-energising the building of what is today the modern-day Martini – and the vodka martini – I think that’s a very unique partnership, you don’t often find something with such a unique crossroads.”

And there is no fear of this business fit not finding the same enthusiasm and knowledge within the Bond family camp. “They certainly know their history of vodka“, remarks Gibb. “They certainly know their history of the martini. And they certainly know their way around a vodka bottle”. 

Belvedere Vodka 007 Launch Day 15-12-14 (23) (c) Mark O'Connell 2014 (1)

Gibbs continues – “the thing for me is we’re going to create our own advertising around it. What that looks like, how that looks is at the moment probably subject to another discussion“. Of course Gibbs, EON and Belvedere are being tight-lipped about just how their vodka will be incorporated into SPECTRE and maybe beyond (I tried to ask of the long term relationship, but ex-Army officer Gibbs is not going to spill this particular bottle of insight and, to be fair, 007 and Belvedere are merely at hand-holding first base right now).

BV_007_Silver Saber

Belvedere will produce two custom-made, limited edition bottles to celebrate Bond’s shaken, not stirred vodka martini and this new partnership with SPECTRE. A 007 twist has been added to Belvedere’s quite beautiful Silver Sabre bottles (they have their own light switch and vague hints of snow-globe flakes inside – I know, right!). The famous Belvedere Palace blue bottles and emblem will be replaced by that of MI6’s Vauxhall headquarters and in February 2015 a marketing campaign will launch with a focus on “on-premise establishments and retail stores” across the globe. Dwight Caines, Theatrical Marketing for Sony Pictures says, “James Bond’s cool attitude and stylish sophistication have always gone hand in hand with his choice of vodka martini. Belvedere is a perfect match“.

MONTAGE 2

To officially launch Bond’s new bond with Belvedere, a “smart and chic” party was held at Covent Garden’s Bond In Motion exhibition in December 2014. With Charles Gibbs, the CEO of Moët Hennessy Christophe Navarre in attendance (Belvedere is part of the LVMH group – Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), representatives from EON Productions and more in attendance the night was a slick and charming way of toasting 007’s newest marriage to the Polish house of vodka. The music decks were manned by one Tinie Tempah and the likes of Douglas Booth, Pixie Geldof,  Kim Hersov, Lily Cole and this Bond fan lent some star appeal to proceedings (I didn’t lend star appeal at all, despite sporting a suit in DB5 silver).

Tinie Tempah spinning / clicking some tunes (c) Mark O’Connell / 2014

Joe Stokoe was also on hand again to keep an eye on three martini bars spread amidst Bond’s car heritage, and various plinth-proud bottles of Bond vodka stood tall. Each bar had a theme – Wet/Dry, Shaken/Stirred and Reverse Vesper. Glimpsed was a new SPECTRE edition of Belvedere as well as the rarest of the rare – edition number ‘007’ of Belvedere’s Palace bottle. In true Elliot Carver launch style, Gibbs and Christophe Navarre unveiled the bespoke bottle just as Tempah filled the room with Kanye West’s Diamonds Are Forever (Diamonds From Sierra Leone).

Moet Hennessy's CEO Christophe Navarre & Belvedere's Charles Gibb unveil the new MI6 bottle

Moet Hennessy’s CEO Christophe Navarre and Belvedere’s Charles Gibb unveil the rare ‘007’ edition of the equally limited MI6 bottle. (c) Mark O’Connell / 2014

Though one SPECTRE vehicle was sadly absent from Bond In Motion on the night. Resigned to the cloakroom for probable safety where it was surrounded by coats and satchels, SPECTRE and Blofeld’s Bath-o-Sub from Diamonds Are Forever was kept out of harm’s way and sadly didn’t get to see just how the new SPECTRE agents conduct themselves. Quite right too.

For more photos of the launch night and more go to Catching Bullets on Facebook.

With special thanks to Belvedere Vodka, Charles Gibb, Claire Smith, Remmert Van Braam, Joe Stokoe, EON Productions, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Mission team.

www.belvederevodka.com

BV-ECMB-300

 

 

Reviewing THE SILENT STORM – Neon Films / Eon Productions new drama

October 15, 2014 /

storm 5Balor (Damian Lewis) is an anachronistic reverend, ex-naval officer and turn of the century bible-thumper. Pitched in a post WWII world of revived gender, sexual and even atheist confidence, Balor is a defiant Presbyterian cart-horse charged with keeping afloat the dwindling Christian instincts of an unnamed Scottish island (though shot on the Isle of Mull) in an unnamed year. “To expect happiness in this life is a form of arrogance” says Balor to a life-weary parishioner. Married to Aislin (Andrea Riseborough), Balor is both stranger and religious drill sergeant to his kindly spouse. Recovering from the loss of their child singlehandedly, Aislin is dutiful but privately proud of her resistance to Balor’s sense of a God. Hers is a world of nature and nurture, of quietly ignoring her husband’s sense of Christ and the medieval guilt that comes with it. But such defiance comes at a price – and one Aislin has long assumed is her lot to accept in a world without friends and where leisure time and reading in the bath is heresy.

silent stormEnter Fionn (newcomer Ross Anderson), a strapping, ex-shipyard tyke assigned by mainland naughty-boy wrangler Mr Smith (a far too brief John Sessions) to possibly reform, or at best learn the error of ways he knows were never errors. Respectful and patient himself, the hardworking Fionn admits to sorting contraband for the dockers and shipmen of his orphaned youth whilst learning all about women along the way – an admission that betrays a quietly curious Aislin and her lack of decent male contact, be it physical or emotional.

Pallid and glacial in his emotions, Damian Lewis’s Balor is cut from a similar cloth as Stanley Baker in Zulu or Richard Harris in This Sporting Life – marked by a simmering and very British onscreen masculinity at increasing odds with a femininity and modernity he cannot control. Prone to bouts of [almost] Pythonesque martyrdom (almost because the hyperbole levels are deliberate) and Calvary-inspired physical acts, Lewis creates a crumbling bull of a man at odds with the modern world and the breakdown nailing him to his own cross. A cracking sequence sees Balor singlehandedly haul the contents of his austere chapel onto his own Ark – and one with no dove of peace or chance of salvation.

Riseborough’s Aislin is less clear-cut. Equally pallid yet not the indulgent witch she is painted as, Riseborough plays the God widow with a sympathy that avoids sentiment. With her abilities to cure an ailing ram through herbs rather than prayer, Aislin is at one with the nature of an island she equally loathes. As all her femininity is almost pared away, Riseborough’s wife holds an earthly wisdom and controlled sexuality that grates with husband Balor. Aislin knows that God is not found on the hard wooden pews of a remote chapel but the private herbs, fauna, flora and respect for others she surrounds herself with. Ross Anderson’s Fionn is possibly the soul of the film. Handsome, agile yet still the child who can be scolded, Anderson allows Fionn to become the audience’s entry point to a sad story of a couple that already feels over when the film opens.

Writer/director Corinna McFarlane forever steers the emotions of The Silent Storm (or clear lack of them) to various cliff edges of revelation or despair, but often pulls back from what is expected when telling the tale of such matrimonial decay (a rot that has mostly already set in before the film starts). The burgeoning friendship between Aislin and Fionn is loaded with preconceptions that do not always manifest where moments of reconciliation and hope are often swiped aside. The tonal upshot is ultimately one of emotional honesty and a romance not always dealt the obvious cards by the writing. At times reminiscent of the God/protagonist divide of Peter Mullan’s Orphans, The Silent Storm is never a sermon.

storm 4Cinematographer Ed Rutherford’s stark palette of pastel blues, enamel tea cups, grained chapel pews and ashened skies of course underline the film’s characters and McFarlane’s intent but never over-define it. Just as Aislin’s lot verges on a Dickensian misery, Rutherford and McFarlane refresh proceedings with rich burnt oranges, greenery and beautifully shot flora and fauna. A treasured book of poetry is prized by Fionn because of its contents, but McFarlane’s eye marks it out simply because it is blue in a palette of Calvinistic browns and greys.

Likewise, Sharon Long’s costume work is a sallow wardrobe of braces, reverend bibs, collars and hair ties holding back the emotions within just as long as things look in order to the outside world. Credit too must go to Alistair Caplin’s blustering, Calvinistic roar of a score. At times intrusive and almost too heavenly in its bombast it also reminds – like Riseborough’s Aislin – that God is in every cliff edge, moss-covered tree, cave nook and mountain stream. Providing a more contemporary Celtic sound than the film’s austere visuals, Caplin’s orchestral and choral work (he contributes his own vocals more than once) ably serves the film with a hope and religious scope The Silent Storm needs to work before it can pull it down. Or at least kneel before it with what it knows and wants us to know about the human condition and spirit.

Developed and produced by Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Eon Productions and producer Nicky Bentham, The Silent Storm is a sparse but progressively forceful work.

The Silent Storm – a Neon Films production in association with Eon Productions and West End Films.

The film opens in the UK on May 20th 2016.

The Silent Storm’s world premiere was held during the 2014 London Film Festival with Damian Lewis, Andrea Riseborough, Ross Anderson, Corinna McFarlane and Nicky Bentham on hand to introduce the film to the gathered crew, artists, executive producers and at least one James Bond.

Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014

Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014

Reviewing SHOOTING 007 – AND OTHER CELLULOID ADVENTURES

July 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

There is a refreshing honesty to Alec Mills’ writing and it is an honesty predicated on making no bones of not being honest. Part compelled by the books that have emerged from his film industry peers and pals, and part inspired by realising (and believing) his career as one of Britain’s key camera operators and directors of photography will have hold enough anecdotal momentum for the retirement project of penning a book, Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures pulls a compelling focus on one of the most interesting periods of British mainstream cinema.

The self-deprecating “young fool” that so many of Mills generation purport to be – the likes of Peter Hunt, Lewis Gilbert, Terence Young, Bryan Forbes and John Glen – are also key participants in some of British and Western cinema’s celluloid landmarks. Born in 1932, Mills’ economically details how his film and television career was a gem-specked array of luck, fortune and hard bloody work. From a clapper loader for John Huston in Moby Dick and Powell and Pressburger’s The Battle of The River Plate (both 1956) to focus pulling for Joseph Losey, Ken Annakin, J Lee Thompson and Michelangelo Antonioni (1966’s Blow Up) and then eventually becoming camera operator on The Saint, Where Eagles Dare, Carry On Cleo, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Gold, Shout At The Devil, Aflie Darling, The Awakening and Eye Of The Needle – Alec Mills has been either partly or wholly responsible for more than his fair share of iconic cinematic imagery. But like all folk fortunate enough to call this world their life, it is the relationships, dramas, learning curves (always check whether a “gelatin filter” has slipped or not) and friendships that mark the successes, not the box office tallies for the suits in Burbank and Wardour Street.

And it is not all Home Counties back-lots and camera dramas by the tea urn. Mills details working for Disney on such “fantasy land” pictures as Swiss Family Robinson (where Mills made the Disney football team under “team manager” John Mills), Greyfriars Bobby and The Prince And The Pauper – an era of photography one could argue is later evident in the rich, bright and near-Technicolor hues of the two Timothy Dalton Bond movies Mills lensed in the 1980s. And of course he was the camera operator on that barely noticed b-movie by the name of Return of the Jedi (1983). Mills uses that particular experience to kindly suggest none of us get on with everyone in life, and just how damning a cold shoulder can be on a film gig that can last for months. Likewise, Mills explores the tempers and “war of words” with director John Guillermin on the set of 1978’s Death on the Nile, only to be curiously called up again by the director in 1986 to lens his doomed King Kong Lives (“was he taking this opportunity to settle an old score and sack me?”).  For some reason the line “Linda Blair arrived from Hollywood to complicate matters” is an intriguing bon mot and indicative of the book’s honesty and swift ease in moving through its subjects.

It is around this point in Shooting 007 that Mills recounts the life luck of Bond director John Glen urging Mills to come out of semi-retirement to camera operate Octopussy in 1982. Having been an operator five times for Eon Productions and the Bond movie-machine, Mills was subsequently invited twice to perform director of photography duties on Timothy Dalton’s Bond bullets, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence To Kill (1989). It was an invite initially delivered by Ken Adam on the set of King Kong Lives and one Mills proudly notes, “I was lost for words; this had to be the most exciting time since I came into the industry in 1946”.

The encouragement and support of his wife Suzy does not go unnoticed – almost acting as Mill’s very own light meter, checking for a truth and a through-line of narrative. When Mills is in doubt at his own recollections and the need to even discuss close [and not so close] colleagues, a curious interaction between author and his use of stories peppers the writing. There are frequent junctions in Shooting 007 buoyed up by the author questioning why such and such a detail is even necessary. Intentional or not, it makes for an absorbing, almost too apologetic biography. From WWII childhood to dashing from afternoon trips to the pictures to make evensong and that first tea boy / clapper loading apprenticeship at Carlton Hills Studios (where Mills had already joyously worked out his first wage packet represented “twenty one visits to the cinema, sitting in the front seats!”) via an asthma-induced and maybe welcome “discharge” from the Navy in the early 1950s all to a subsequent and timely film industry fortune in the guise of a nine year apprenticeship under famed cameraman Harry Waxman BSC (Father Brown, The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone).

And of course it makes an apt requirement that a book about a director of photography should feature a rich array of photographs, with Mills’ metaphorical light meter checking throughout for matching anecdotes and prime conditions to discuss and highlight (including some of his own on-set photographs). From a great early snap of Mills standing in for Octopussy’s Kristina Wayborn with a jokily amorous Roger Moore (complete with Mills clutching the Faberge egg behind his back) to the rich roster of many an unseen Bond-on-set still from the Eon/Danjaq archives, globe-trotting camera gigs for Swiss Family Robinson, candid shots of Peter Sellers perched atop a king’s throne nursing a brandy and having an Aboriginal tracker whip in half a cigarette in Mills mouth whilst shooting Rank’s Robbery Under Arms, Shooting 007 is a personable tour of cinema peppered with what ‘Camera A’ doesn’t see. Or wouldn’t see.

A welcome addition to that generation of post-war film-makers and creatives who possibly bridged the old and the new, the old school way of making pictures versus the world of new technologies, new management structures and story needs, Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures is a brisk, upfront but detailed read about a very different time of British-based cinema.

Shooting 007 And Other Celluloid Adventures by Alec Mills is published now by The History Press.

Those Magnificent 007 Men in Their Flying, Driving & Diving Machines – CATCHING ‘BOND IN MOTION’

March 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments

BOND IN MOTION montage 1 d

BOND-IN-MOTION-32

“I’ve had some optional extras installed”

Aston Martin V8, The Living Daylights (1987)

From the opening shot of the opening Bond movie Dr. No (1962) where three “blind” assassins trundle on a mission of murder across traffic before cowering in a private members club car park, James Bond’s onscreen romance with automobiles was a given. Instantly part of the machismo, panache and kinetic pace of 007, these various fold-up planes, model trains and high-end automobiles are now Bond’s necessary co-stars, sidekicks and maybe even love interest. In 2012’s Skyfall, the fiery death of the Aston Martin DB5 was lent nearly as much impact as the onscreen death of Bond’s wife Tracy forty or so years before. It was certainly as shocking. Maybe. And an earlier reveal in a London lock-up got the biggest cheer in many a screening of Skyfall, including a right royal applause on premiere night.

“I hope my back end will stand up to this!”

Mercury Cougar XR7, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Mercury Cougar XR7, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (Photos © Mark O'Connell / 2014)

Mercury Cougar XR7, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

So it now makes perfect sense for 007 creative house Eon Productions to celebrate Bond’s various vehicular speeding bullets with the London Film Museum’s newly launched exhibition, Bond In Motion. A collaboration between both parties (following a highly successful and extended run at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu through 2012 and 2013), Bond In Motion is the largest official collection of original 007 vehicles and a rich pageant to some of cinema’s most iconic cars. And planes. And motorbikes. And jet packs. And speedboats. And underwater tow-sleds. And that crocodile submersible thing.

“No, some men just don’t like to be taken for a ride”

Thunderball  (1965)

Overseen by Raoul Silva, GOLDENEYE’s Aston Martin DB5 and the scale model of the same car as used in SKYFALL (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

Kindly invited by Eon Productions and the London Film Museum to a recent preview of Bond In Motion, the day quickly grew faster than an Aston Martin’s self-inflating tyre with surprise reunions, typical Bond glamour, some welcome bubbly and a possible nugget or two of news about October 2015’s Bond 24. Granted a quieter session of grace to fully take in the whole exhibition before the world’s press descended like Japanese ninjas, it was a welcome opportunity to chat to the gathering Bond alumni, particularly top Eon archivist and the ‘M’ of the various Bond exhibitions travelling through the globe, Meg Simmonds. Added to that production designer Peter Lamont, stunt driver and 007 fan Ben Collins (who currently doubles for Daniel Craig and took part in the frenetic Italian road chase in Quantum of Solace), Casino Royale‘s Caterina Murino (who does not have a fear of hammocks as I first queried but does admit they are awful for reading in), current Moneypenny and all-round car wrecker herself Naomie Harris, husband and wife stunt legends Vic Armstrong and Wendy Leech, 007 producer Gregg Wilson, special effects head Chris Corbould (who was able to answer another pressing query of mine – namely, ‘did we do our Christmas shopping last year at the same place?’ … we did), actress Maryam D’Abo (Kara, The Living Daylights), writers Robert Wade and Neil Purvis (Skyfall, The World Is Not Enough) and soon to be three-time production designer Dennis Gassner (following on from Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall).

© Mark O'Connell 2014

“Boy with toys” – Various souped up examples of Bond machinery from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and SKYFALL.
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

Amidst all the fantasy apparatus and Q-Branch hardware, this Bond author chose instead to not chat to Peter Lamont about his favourite Bond car or maybe even the prop that caused him the most design grief. No, this Bond film author chose instead to take the opportunity to chat about the Octopussy bed (all spray-painted polystyrene and destroyed not long after filming… criminal, I know). Cutting a far too youthful gait for someone in his eighty-fifth year, the now retired Lamont (Titanic, Aliens) was glad to have gone out on 2006’s Casino Royale, which he suggests is one of his best Bonds. That film’s presence is certainly marked in Bond In Motion by one of the Aston Martin DBS’s used for that film’s record-smashing multiple roll, and the curious magic-shattering add-ons necessary to make it happen.

The different phases of Bond production design – all perfectly underlined by Bond In Motion – have always held a fascination. Not just for me, but cinema audiences, design students, new directors and cineastes the world over. Ken Adam’s influence on design (and not just cinema) is immense. Globally renowned architects often cite him as an influence, his bombastic war rooms and HQs are no longer a retro fantasy (The Avengers Assemble and Inception certainly owes him a debt – or an apology), Apple’s flagship stores ape his style, and material contradictions and angular excesses are all over the likes of London’s Canary Wharf tube station.

Ken Adam’s iconic designs @ The Storyboard Gallery, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

To witness Mr Adam arrive – and equally cutting a far too youthful gait for his ninety-three years – to a warm welcome from Peter Lamont and current 007 designer Dennis Gassner was a moment to treasure. Clearly, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson couldn’t have been happier to mark such an exhibition with three generations of 007 designers in attendance and some of the most famous examples of all their work flanking proceedings.

(L) Artists Royale : a rare and special moment for BOND IN MOTION. 007’s top production designers (Dennis Gassner, Ken Adam & Peter Lamont) unite with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to prove the charcoal sketch pen is always mightier than the sword.
(R) “So how many Oscars have you got?” – Dennis Gassner, Ken Adam & Peter Lamont catching up in the BOND IN MOTION café.
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

And of course Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson were on hand to proudly talk up Bond In Motion for the press, the legacy of all these cars, their own favourites and what the likes of CUB 1 means to the Broccoli family and the history of Bond film production. Naturally the question of 007’s immediate future came up and the astute pair were traditionally coy. However, Wilson confirmed that Bond 24 – Daniel Craig’s fourth spin of the wheel – will feature a brand new Aston Martin. Writer John Logan is indeed hard at work on the script with Daniel Craig crucially inputting as before, the process of casting a villain will begin in earnest in the next few months, the production is based at Pinewood Studios and the film is based on an “original story”. Broccoli declared how this is “the fun bit” – where casting, story arcs, choosing the various creatives and heads of department, planning the stunts and feel of the film is debated and planned to get into enough shape for the commencement of principle photography in the Autumn.

Flanked by the family wheels (CUB 1 - as seen in A VIEW TO A KILL, THUNDERBALL and CATCHING BULLETS), 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson chat to the press about all things BOND IN MOTION ( / Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014)

Flanked by the family wheels (CUB 1 – as seen in A VIEW TO A KILL, THUNDERBALL and CATCHING BULLETS), 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson chat to the press about all things BOND IN MOTION
(Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

Unfortunately, the gathered Eon ensemble will not be on hand when the doors properly open for the public. But rest assured, there are enough vehicular stars, shiny beauties and colourful flying co-stars on display to keep every Bond fan boy and girl, man and women completely happy. Oh, and the gift shop – don’t let me forget the gift shop! And the ‘get your own gunbarrel pose’ photo room (complete with tuxedos, oh yes).

One [not] careful owner : an Aston Martin DBS, a SPECTRE Bath-O-Sub & a Ford Mustang, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O'Connell / 2014)

One [not] careful owner : an Aston Martin DBS, a SPECTRE Bath-O-Sub & a Ford Mustang, BOND IN MOTION (Photos © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

Astutely situated in London’s Covent Garden (and a gearstick’s length from Bond director Sam Mendes’ current West End hit, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory), from the moment one steps off the street into the immersive and white gallery space of 45 Wellington Street, it is instantly apparent just how much thought and design care has gone into Bond In Motion. Multiple screens herald and celebrate 007’s car moments, Bond anthems are all around you and a 1/3 scale (but still sizeable) model of Skyfall’s Augusta Westland helicopter hangs very carefully on an equally sizeable hoist. Incidentally it was the same hoist that lowered each and every car into the exhibition space in what Bond In Motion’s very own Q – the London Film Museum’s Jonathan Sands – admits was a sweaty process as each car had its own weights, structural concerns and no doubt insurance premiums. And it is the very idea of logistics and planning that sees an upstairs gallery space dedicated to numerous storyboards and design thinking from Bond’s transport options over the last six decades. Including sketches and vehicle concepts by Bond production designers Ken Adam, Peter Lamont, Peter Murton and Syd Cain, the collection contains some top notch examples of 007 artistry from the Eon Archive – some of which has never been seen publically before, such as all that now remains of Thunderball’s SPECTRE yacht, the Disco Volante.

“That look like a boat stuck in the Sheriff’s car there, Eddie?”

Glastron V-162 Futura, Live and Let Die (1973)

Sgt Pepper’s lonely boat club banned….The Glastron GT-150 speedboat from LIVE AND LET DIE
(Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

With an optional tour guide cell-phone ably guiding those that opt for the pre-ordained flow, Bond In Motion takes off proper when one ventures downwards into an underground Aladdin’s cave of 007 delights. Filling a labyrinthine space that once housed a vast flower storage warehouse (serving the Covent Garden’s famed trade) this is now the London Film Museum’s chamber of 007 secrets, an apt underground garage housing the capital’s most expensive run-arounds. Flanked by Auric Goldfinger’s beautiful 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III (which Bond producer Michael G Wilson drove himself to the Skyfall premiere in October 2012) and the all-important Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II aka “CUB 1” from 1985’s A View To a Kill (which due to a familial link is one of the key players in my own Catching Bullets – Memoirs of a Bond Fan), this exhibition very quickly lays it cars on the table with a luxuriant bombast.

“Little Nellie got a hot reception. Four big shots made improper advances towards her, but she defended her honour with great success”

Wallis WA-116 Agile, You Only Live Twice (1967)

Little Nellie causing a big stir, BOND IN MOTION (Photo © Mark O'Connell / 2014)

Little Nellie causing a big stir, BOND IN MOTION (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

Of course the original factory-floor artistry of these Aston Martins, Lotus Esprits, BMWs, Cougars, Mustangs, Jaguars and Roll Royces speak for themselves. Most of the gathered vehicles here deserve their own pedestal whether they shared screen time with Sean, Roger and Daniel or not. Albert R Broccoli’s very own CUB 1 is a beautiful example of early 1960s car-tistry, regardless of her two Bond film appearances – a lush metallic zeppelin of curves, passenger head room and corners. Likewise, the various incarnations of Aston Martin’s famed relationship with Bond never ceases to amaze even the least car savvy of punters for their sleek aesthetic and low-lying finesse. Rest assured, Bond In Motion is not solely for Bond or film fans. This writer is no petrol head, but the way this exhibition presents itself, the way it allows itself and its visitors room to breathe and let these cars tell their own derring do tales is a key lure for the slightest of Bond geeks. Because this is Eon’s Bond and because their own filmmaking ethos dictates the real thing being real at all times where feasible, this collection is also a high-end reminder of the opulence and quality invested in each new film. There are no Smart cars or family friendly Skodas here. This is an A-grade ensemble of vehicles. The investment Eon pumps into its various filmic projects is no more apparent than in this exhibition.

“Ejector seat? You’re joking!”

Aston Martin DB5, Goldfinger (1964)

Of course a great many of these vehicles come with – as 1987’s Bond Timothy Dalton remarks – “a few optional extras“. An added joy is seeing just how the various special effects gurus and design heads over the decades have souped up cars that are so damn cool they didn’t need accessorising. Yet this is the world of James Bond and witnessing the fantasy of that up close is a major plus point of Bond In Motion. So of course the various added missile launchers, studded tyres, ski supports and revolving number plates mark these already special cars as being just that bit more special. Take your time to study the exhibits and props. The amount of detail put into a GoldenEye train, model helicopter or a nearly throwaway Brosnan surfboard is as important to this exhibition and understanding the effort spent on Bond as the smooth fender of an Aston Martin DBS or a Mustang’s red paint job.

One of these looks stunning emerging from the surf. The other is a Lotus Esprit from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

“Ever heard of Evel Knievel?”

AMC Hornet, The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

(Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

All delicately lit with aptly positioned montage screens and film friezes adding individual Bond film context, each car is often showcased with visitor access as key. Whilst petting the exhibits will no doubt be frowned upon, this is not an exercise in keeping the public at bay. With a loose theme for the various zones – water, the DB5s (there is more than one), bikes, ski-doos and Skyfall Honda bikes, the destroyed DBSs (the Daniel Craig Astons are invariably Royale-y trashed) and all punctuated with props, miniatures, random helmets, jetpacks and cool piton guns – this exhibition has its own natural flow with a breathing space between these four and two wheeled beauties and plenty of photo opportunities for everyone’s 007 fantasies. Museum head Jonathan Sands has a self-declared fondness for the Roger Moore era (good man) and there is a fun array of 1970s Roger-mobiles. Likewise, there is a lot of Connery kit, particularly showcasing the design alchemy genius of one Ken Adam. Like the quirky cousin that must be in every family photo, You Only Live Twice’s famed gyrocopter Little Nellie is of course in there too – taking pride of place in a spacious wing with various two-wheeled motorbikes, Octopussy‘s tuk-tuk, For Your Eyes Only’s canary yellow Citreon 2CV and The World Is Not Enough’s Parahawks.

“Lean over!”

Ford Mustang Mach 1, Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Yes, maybe the Lotus Esprit could have been more showcased (or showboated) in the layout scheme of things, but actually its not-obvious placement creates a great “oh my – is that the Lotus?” realisations for any kid of any age to suddenly make an eager beeline for. One of the feng-shui successes of Bond In Motion is how sizing up one car offers a nearby peek of another classic from yesteryear. It’s like being at a school reunion where every conversation is interrupted by someone better to veer towards. More than one sweep through and starting at the end and working backwards is much recommended. And yes – check out the gift shop, nicely sited in one of the underground flower storage catacombs of the museum and inadvertently echoing the “new digs” MI6 end up in 2012’s Skyfall. The ladies can traipse around town with their buff boy Hollister bags, but the Bond fan boys are going to be fighting for a Bond In Motion boutique bag stocked full of mugs, DVDs, prints, clothing and pencils (who isn’t a sucker for a museum pencil?). It also houses a neat case of vintage Bond car memorabilia. And just like how the rather snazzy and kid friendly Scalectrix set available in a canteen room for all to play demonstrates, Bond In Motion straddles a careful line of history, geekery and contemporary.

BOND IN MOTION - 18-03-14 - Jaguar XKR (DIE ANOTHER DAY) © Mark O'Connell 2014 (7)

BOND IN MOTION (Photo © Mark O’Connell / 2014)

And my favourite exhibit? Yes, the Astons are beyond lush and the mecha-flippered Lotus Esprit is always going to be the biggest Bond car toy made real. Diamonds Are Forever’s Mustang is – like Las Vegas itself – a bit weather-worn but still holding its sparkle and Blofeld’s Bath-O-Tub from the same film is possibly the campest exhibit in a subterranean world of machismo. But the one that kept catching this bullet catcher’s eye…? Diana Rigg’s Mercury Cougar XR7 from 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Complete with a vintage rack of White Wing skis, this car is simple in its own intent and that of the film it features. No bells. No whistles. Just Steve McQueen cool.

Like a 1970s double-taking Frenchman clasping a near-empty bottle of plonk as a Lotus Espirit motors from the surf, these cars make you pause. Strikingly laid out and physically choreographed by Jonathan Sands, Eon and their respective teams, the exhibition echoes Eon Production’s sister exhibition – Designing Bond – for its insistence on leaving space to let these metallic exhibits breathe. However, it might well overtake Designing Bond on a hairpin bend for the best current exhibition celebrating cinema’s favourite son and spy. Amidst the hardware, ammo and machismo of these cars and vehicles there is an unexpected grace to this collection. But as you shift down a gear for your final lap of the exhibits, there is a private and selfish joy in standing back and surveying the biggest Bond car toy box ever opened in one place. A highly roadworthy experience from lots of careful and not-so-careful owners, Bond In Motion passes its 007 fan MOT with flying (and driving and diving) colours.

“I love a drive in the country, don’t you?”

Citreon 2Cv, For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Bond In Motion opens on March 21st 2014.

www.londonfilmmuseum.com

BOND IN MOTION 2Tickets are £14.50 for adults, £9.50 for children and a family ticket is £38. The Museum is currently recommending booking ahead (especially in these early weeks) but also states how people are equally welcome just to turn up and try their chances.

With thanks to Jonathan Sands, Meg Simmonds, Barbara Broccoli & Eon Productions, Sam Fane & Sal Porter at Freuds and the team at London Film Museum. And to Remmert Van Braam, Ben Williams, Adam Bollard & Morten Steingrimsen.

For a whole car boot full of more photos of the exhibition and launch – check out Catching Bullets Facebook page.

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