Tanya Roberts, who played Stacey Sutton in A View To A Kill, has died suddenly at the age of 65. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said: “We are saddened to hear of the passing of Tanya. She was a very lovely person and shall always be remembered by Bond fans as Stacey Sutton in A View To A Kill. Our heart goes out to her family and friends.”
Roger Deakins awarded knighthood
Skyfall cinematographer Roger Deakins has been awarded a knighthood in the New Years Honours List 2021. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said: “Roger is truly a great visionary of our time. His cinematography always brings depth and humanity to the screen. His uncompromising commitment to the work is unparalleled, he is a wonderful collaborator. We feel incredibly privileged that he created the stunning visual identity of Skyfall. Many, many congratulations to a great master.”
The Ultimate James Bond Quiz
Do you think you’re brainier than Q? Then it’s time to try The Ultimate James Bond Quiz. Perfect for a lockdown family quiz! Simply download the PDF and then all you need to do is decide who’s going to be Quizmaster.
Download here: UltimateBondQuiz
Daniel Kleinman’s Top Five Title Sequences
A prolific commercial and music video director, Daniel Kleinman has designed the title sequences for eight of the last nine Bond films including Casino Royale, Skyfall and the upcoming No Time To Die. We asked him to select his favourite title sequences from all 25 films in the franchise…
You Only Live Twice
“I think it’s my favourite sequence because I love the Japanese imagery. Directed by the legend Maurice Binder, I think it’s so clever with the parasols making these amazing patterns, and the colours are really spectacular with the geishas and the volcanos. There is something just very cool and very sexy and slightly of its time. I love that era of imagery, so it’s nostalgic for me as well. It’s such a great song and Nancy Sinatra does it so well – it’s a great sequence, I love it.”
Goldfinger
“This was created by Robert Brownjohn and not Maurice. I loved the idea of projection onto bodies. There’s the marvellous shot of the rotating number plate on teeth and I just think those sorts of ambiguous images he did really well. It’s very Sixties but it’s got a sexy sort of otherworldliness about it. I can imagine when you first saw it in the Sixties it just transported you to a world of exoticism, beauty, mystery and excitement. I think it’s a real classic, that one.”
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
“It’s classic Binder – silhouettes used in collage to create unusual juxtapositions. Time is the theme, I love the Harold Lloyd-type clock face and the use of the hour glass with images falling through it as a way of depicting what has gone before, reminding us of the heritage despite the new Bond. Then silhouettes create an hour glass shape, it’s very inventive, quite beautiful and evocative of the era. Interesting that the theme is instrumental so the images have to work extra hard. It was a great film as well.”
Skyfall
“I was very pleased with Skyfall. I thought, ‘OK, this sequence is what’s going on in his mind, you’re almost going inside his head as he sees his life flashing before him. He’s getting sucked under, it asks the question is he going to the other world because he’s died or is he not?’ I felt out of the title sequences I’ve created it’s the one that’s got closest to the vision I had in my mind to begin with. I suppose what most people don’t realise is the actual physical process of creating the imagery at such a high resolution is very time-consuming and very complex. These days it requires a lot of people. It’s very easy for it not to turn out how you want, and for things to be not quite right or go off in directions you didn’t imagine.”
Casino Royale
“The cover of the original book, a playing card, was actually designed by Ian Fleming himself. I thought that’s so great how the iconography of playing cards and the graphics of roulette and money could be made into patterns. It was so unusual and different and it was quite fun to do. It was my first one with Daniel Craig and originally we were filming his stunt double, but Daniel came down to the shoot and he was watching what we were doing and he said, ‘Look, I’d really like to do this because I think I move in a slightly different way.’ So quite a lot of the figures we rotoscoped and animated are actually him doing the action. I didn’t think he’d want to do it, but he was very up for it. He is a perfectionist so it was great to get him to be part of it.”
Remembering Peter Lamont (1929-2020)
One of the world’s most renowned production designers, Peter Lamont has died at the age of 91.
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said: “Peter was a much beloved member of the Bond family and a giant in the industry. Inextricably linked with the design and aesthetic of James Bond since Goldfinger (1964), he became Production Designer on For Your Eyes Only (1981) working on 18 of the 25 films including nine as Production Designer. He was a true success story proving that with talent and hard work you will achieve your dreams. He won the Academy Award for Titanic in 1998 as well as nominations for Fiddler On The Roof (1971), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Aliens (1986). Our hearts go out to his family and all those who worked with him over many years. He will be very sorely missed.”
Peter Lamont was born in 1929. Having left school in 1946, he landed a job at Pinewood Studios where he spent two years as a print boy runner. Following two years in the RAF, he returned to Pinewood as a junior draughtsman. In 1964, Lamont was asked by art director Peter Murton if he wanted to join the art department of Goldfinger as a draughtsman. Lamont had just seen From Russia With Love and was “knocked out by the film”. Production designer Ken Adam tasked him with drawing the exterior of Fort Knox as his first assignment.
Over the years, Lamont stayed within the Bond family, learning his trade and receiving promotions from chief draughtsman to set decorator to art director before becoming Ken Adam’s right hand man on both The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), for which he was Oscar® nominated, and Moonraker (1979). With Adam unable to do For Your Eyes Only due to a scheduling conflict, Lamont was asked to be production designer. He remained in that position on every 007 film, save Tomorrow Never Dies until Casino Royale in 2006. The latter won him the Art Director’s Guild’s Excellence In Production Design Award.
He created some of the series most iconic elements such as the titular weapon from The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) created out of the cigarette lighter, pen, cuff links, cigarette case) and most memorable sets such as the Kremlin war room from Octopussy (1983) or the ice palace in Die Another Day (2002). Yet much of his work remained invisible. His deft recreation of the streets of St. Petersburg on the backlot of Leavedsen Studios for GoldenEye (1995) allowed the team to create carnage with a tank without danger of damaging any historical buildings.
Outside of the 007 series, Peter worked on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) for EON Productions and Fiddler On The Roof (for which he received his first of four Oscar® nominations). He won an Academy Award® for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for Titanic in 1998.
Die Another Day Sword Duel
Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) duel it out in the corridors of the Blades Club in Die Another Day (2002). The sword fight was choreographed by former Olympic fencer Bob Anderson who also doubled for Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi’s lightsaber duels.
Destruction Of Skyfall Lodge
He never liked the place anyway… today’s clip is the destruction of Bond’s ancestral home in Skyfall (2012). Special effects supervisor Chris Corbould said: “We built a third scale model of the house and two-third-scale models of the helicopter.” The scene was devised with two explosions. A small explosion that creates debris which knocks the helicopter off course and sends it careening into the house. The fuel tanks then ignite, causing a massive second explosion. “We used 150 stacks of dynamite and a couple of hundred gallons of fuel for that one,” said Corbould proudly.
The World Is Not Enough Ski Chase
There’s going off-piste and then there’s going off-piste 007 style. This sequence from The World Is Not Enough (1999) was filmed in Chamonix, France. To test the special winterised cameras they were left in the British Airways refrigerator at Heathrow over night to make sure they ran and that the batteries were up to speed. Filming wrapped, five and a half days over schedule, due to heavy snow, overcast skies, diesel freezing in the trucks, and stopping for avalanche warnings.
theory11 Release 007 Playing Cards
Whether you’re playing chemin de fer or Texas hold’em, these new Bond playing cards are the perfect choice. Made by premium card creators theory11, the deck has custom artwork inspired by 007 history, from the gilded 3D embossed Bond family crest on the box, to the gadgets and weapons subtly woven into the card designs. Eagle eyes will spot the GoldenEye pen grenade, Bond’s trusty Walther PPK, The Spy Who Loved Me ski pole gun, Jinx’s knife from Die Another Day and more. Order now at 007Store.com.
How To Drive Like James Bond
Let’s get something clear right from the off, there is absolutely nothing on earth like driving the Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger Continuation. After 90 minutes at the wheel of a test drive that takes us from Stoke Park (the setting of course for Bond and Goldfinger’s legendarily testy golf game) to Aston Martin’s factory at Newport Pagnell, 007.com can confirm that it’s a car that elicits extraordinary outbursts of affection not just from the driver but in pretty much everyone who sees the car in action in real life. Afternoon drinkers sat outside a bucolic village pub pause their pints and wave as we glide by, an elderly gentleman doffs his cap, passengers take snaps from passing cars, truck drivers honk their horns and a cyclist coming in the opposite direction is so overwhelmed that he punches the air and whoops with childlike joy as he whips past us. The car is a celebrity itself and everyone seems to recognise it as “the James Bond car”. Ironically bearing in mind its enormous cachet as “the most famous car in the world”, less than 900 DB5’s were actually ever produced between 1963 and 1965 with the last one rolling off the production line at Aston Martin’s Newport Pagnell factory some 55 years ago.
Following on from the incredibly successful DB4 GT Continuation in 2017, the 25 DB5 Goldfinger Continuation models recently started production in association with EON, with the car’s array of extraordinarily impressive and fully-operational gadgetry created under the stewardship of long-time 007 special effects supremo Chris Corbould, who has worked on 15 Bond films since 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.
So what exactly do you get for your two and three quarter million pounds (plus taxes)? Well, certainly nothing in the way of mod-cons. No power steering, bluetooth or even airbags – the car isn’t road legal (the model that 007.com got to drive is a specially adapted test car). But it does have electric windows and a boot full of star power. For starters there’s a rear smoke-screen delivery system, front and rear revolving number plates, a simulated oil slick delivery system (it uses a dye to make the water look like oil), twin front-mounted .30-calibre Browning machine guns (along with the tyre slasher, unsurprisingly also simulated), a bullet resistant pop-up rear shield (that was genuinely tested on a firing range), front and rear battering rams, rear smoke machines and once you’re in the cabin you’ll find the classic radar screen map (which simulates tracking one of Goldfinger’s henchmen with the radar beep sound effect taken from the film), a phone in the driver’s door, a weapons tray under the driver’s seat and of the course the legendary flip-top gear change knob that, sadly, doesn’t fire a working ejector seat – but at least the removable panel above it is indeed cut out from the roof. The extraordinarily powerful urge to deploy some of the gadgets as you bomb along is only resistible because all the special effects gubbins have been disabled until the car is stationary. At that point you can simply use the handy remote that comes with the vehicle to show off all its show-stopping secrets. And you will want to show them off.
The nearly-three-million-pound question is of course, what’s it actually like to drive this ultimate collector’s toy? Well, it’s a driver’s car in the truest sense of the meaning; it demands your unbridled attention and your absolute respect at all times. Corners will take slightly more toll on the forearms than you might be used to from driving modern cars; the driving position is best described as “cosy” for anyone approaching the six foot mark (though the cabin itself is breathtakingly beautiful) and the 4.0-litre naturally aspirated inline six-cylinder engine is no match for today’s road-tuned performance cars. None of which really matters though of course. Aston Martin have a true-ism that states that their drivers don’t use their cars to go from A to B but rather A to A, that is, they use them for the pleasure of the drive. And 90 minutes in the front seat of this beautiful piece of automobile artistry is ample proof of that.
Each of these cars is meticulously hand crafted by the world’s most respected and experienced Aston Martin engineers and creators, a process that takes around 4,500 hours to complete. It’s an extraordinary application of modern production techniques to a hands-on classic car build – an original DB5 was put though a millimeter by millimetre CT scan to identify historic micro-irregularities in the engine block and chasis – meaning the new car is vastly refined and improved using cutting edge technologies alongside traditional hand tools and techniques that you’d have seen being employed in this workshop back in the early sixties.
It was Bond production design legend Sir Ken Adam who is credited with coming up with the idea of having 007 drive Astons, and he was part of the original team who approached (the initially wary) Aston management with the idea of the cars being used in the films – they later relented and lent the production team two cars to play with. Special effects supervisor John Stears was tasked with turning one of the Astons into Bond’s full loaded vehicle of choice. Stears said the first thing he did was make the hole for the ejector seat: “I marked it out, and taped off the roof of this beautiful car. I looked at it, went away and had a cup of coffee, came back, and got the drill, and drilled the hole. It was terrifying.” Director Guy Hamilton claimed the revolving number plates were his input, saying it would be “absolutely marvellous to collect a parking ticket and then juggle the number plate and drive off.”
There is a clear line from the work these Bond film legends put in to that one screen-used DB5 more than half a century ago to this new Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger Continuation. Love, ingenuity, passion and even perhaps a streak of madness have been poured into both cars and you can’t help thinking they’d approve of this very special piece of Bond history.
New James Bond Video Game Announced
James Bond will once again be coming to a console and computer screen near you. IO Interactive (Hitman), in collaboration with MGM, EON Productions and Delphi announced today that they are developing the very first James Bond origin story with the working title Project 007. Project 007 will feature a wholly original Bond story exclusively as a video game.
“It’s true that once in a while, the stars do align in our industry,” said Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, “Creating an original Bond game is a monumental undertaking and I truly believe that IO Interactive, working closely with our creative partners at EON and MGM, can deliver something extremely special for our players and communities. Our passionate team is excited to unleash their creativity into the iconic James Bond universe and craft the most ambitious game in the history of our studio.”
Robert Marick, MGM’s Executive Vice President Global Consumer Products and Experiences, said, “James Bond has a strong legacy in the video game space, with some of the most iconic games of all-time based on the character. Working with our partners at EON and the talented team at IO Interactive, we plan to bring a new take on this legendary franchise to gamers and Bond fans around the world. IO Interactive are masters of crafting living, breathing worlds of immersive storytelling.”
The 50 Greatest Bond Cars Book
50 Greatest Bond Cars features unforgettable cars from all 25 of the 007 films, starting with the most legendary of them all – the Aston Martin DB5. From the Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me to the yellow Citroen 2CV from For Your Eyes Only, this is the ultimate selection of James Bond’s classic automobiles. Also featured in the book are vehicles driven by Bond’s allies and adversaries, including Vijay’s Auto Rickshaw in Octopussy and Goldfinger’s iconic Rolls Royce Phantom III.
Alongside images from the Bond archives, 50 Greatest Bond Cars includes brand new detailed illustrations of gadgets, weaponry and distinctive features of each vehicle, making it perfect for Bond fans of all ages.
50 Greatest Bond Cars is available now at 007store.com