312
von danielcc
00-Agent
Jede Menge Spoiler bzgl. Sets, Actionszenen und der vielleicht erste Dialog aus Skyfall:
Wer es lesen will, solls lesen...
...
A big part of the Bond movies have been the exotic locations where they've shot them, but for Skyfall they're staying fairly close to home, both in terms of creating those exotic locations on the Pinewood soundstages, but also doing something that seems unheard of in a Bond movie by having part of the movie take place on and under the streets of London proper. The production would be heading off to Turkey soon for a couple more weeks of shooting before they wrap in late May, but they still had a lot of work to do at the studio.
On arrival our first day, we were taken around to the sets, beginning with one that had already been torn down at what is called the "Paddock Pool," a large outdoor water tank where they had built the exteriors of a casino in Macao, China. We were told they had put lily pads in the water and hanging red Chinese lanterns above it, plus there was a blue screen on the wall behind the tank to enhance the environment. In fact, this was a similar water tank as the one at Universal Studios where Steven Spielberg shot a lot of Jaws. All that was left were two giant colorful dragonheads in their full glory, which they haven't figured out quite what to do with just yet.
On one of the large soundstages, they were in the process of building the interiors of the casino on one of the soundstages and we wandered around to check out this work in progress. It was mainly colored in red and gold with golden dragons coiled themselves around the pillars, continuing the motif from the casino's exteriors. We were told that they had imported some of the materials from China to be assembled on the stages and on the lower level, we spotted two giant Asian lions holding up one of the levels. The casino tables were still wrapped in plastic in an area safe from construction and they hadn't been broken out yet, but we could definitely imagine what the place would look like bustling with activity.
Next, we walked through the Pinewood backlot where they had built an abandoned ghost town, which is meant to be a part of Hashima Island in Japan, the location where Bond first meets Silva in the movie, though we weren't told what the context of that meeting was. Again, mysteries, mysteries… The entire complex was made to look like it was concrete, mostly crumbling with rubble everywhere and the multi-paneled glass windows had many of their panes smashed in. As we walked through the empty streets, we came upon a town square in a similar state of destruction with a giant statue of some Japanese emperor or other guarding over it, though its head and torso had already been pulled down, either by the townspeople or by whatever drove them out of town. They were ready to tear this set down and they had already pulled out all of the set dressing and props that littered the streets behind the set - rusted shopping carts and bicycles, signs that used to adorn the doorways. Presumably, this stuff would be used again down the road for other productions.
Finally, we were brought into Pinewood's 59,000 square foot 007 Stage, the largest soundstage in Europe, where they had reconstructed part of the London Underground for a chase scene with Bond going after Silva, although again, they only told us the bare minimum, so we didn't know where in the movie this would take place. Apparently, Silva escapes from Bond by running onto a train and Bond runs after it and then chases him into the catacombs underneath the London Underground. This was where they were filming today, and we peered behind the large safety curtains to see a large cavernous structure made of concrete and brick, looking very old, as one might assume the tunnels below the tube might look, with large circular portals between the different tunnels and pools of water on the ground where it was flooded. Although we didn't see it, in another section of the massive stage they had built a replica of the Temple Station platform, and we were told the production had been in London over the past couple weekends shooting in an abandoned portion of the Charing Cross tube station.
Special Effects Supervisor Chris Courbould, who had been working on Bond going all the way back to Moonraker (!) and who has since become Christopher Nolan's main effects man, had spent a good deal of time rigging up what would be one of the movie's bigger set pieces, in which an actual tube train would crash through the cement roof of those catacombs, a stunt that literally could only be done once, because it would take them an entire week to rebuild the set after doing the stunt. They had brought in two authentic looking London tube cars, which were sitting on a track high above the other sets that was indeed pointed straight towards the top of the catacombs set. Sometime the next day, once they had cleared the stage of everyone, they would power up that train and send it barreling forward and crashing though the roof.
Our small group of journalists was brought over to the monitors where we watched them finish up Roger Deakins' meticulous lighting on set for Craig and Bardem's stand-ins before they got in position for their scene. Unfortunately, this was a long shot and both of the actors were in shadow, but we could see that Bardem was dressed up as a London policeman with blonde hair--we couldn't tell if that was a wig or he really had blonde hair--and he was climbing up a ladder in the foreground.
In the scene, Bond catches up to Silva as he climbs the ladder and fires two shots with his Walther PPK at the villain, as sparks fly off the ladder near to Bardem.
"I won't miss next time, Mr. Silva," Bond state confidently, to which Silva responds, "Not bad, James. I'm a physical wreck. Now that you got me, here's your prize, the latest thing from my local toy store, it's called a radio."
Yeah, it's a rather strange thing for a Bond villain to be saying, but apparently, right after that bit of dialogue, a giant explosion goes off in the tunnel, presumably right above Bond where the derailed train would come crashing down. Unfortunately, we missed this part, but it didn't take a dummy to figure out that Silva's radio must have set off the explosion that derails the train allowing Silva to escape.
"It's been a long time - and finally, here we are"
