That’s How They Filmed Special Effects In Bond Movies

By FizX on April 1, 2016@fizx

The New James Bond film Spectre, It was the grossing movies of 2015. It was Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as the iconic British 007 agent and he will definitely go down in history. Here we take you back to some of the most amazing visual effects of these Bond movies and tell you how they were filmed.

This Seven-Storey building collapsing under Bond isn’t all effects. The real scene took place in a mockup in Pinewood studio and took an astonishingly three months to build, film and edit into this great scene that graced our screens.

Spectre (2015) – TOP: a building collapses around Daniel Craig as he falls floor-by-floor to the ground in a scene created to look like Mexico City BOTTOM: Actually a scaffold-supported structure built at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire created the illusion.

The MI6 building in London goes up in flames. But what did the visual artist have to work with in real life? Just a small model building to superimpose the graphics on. The building was later superimposed in the backdrop.

The Aston Martin DB5 is Bond’s famous car used in many of the films. Here it is all in flames. Did the studio blow up an actual Aston Martin to show it? Of course not, they used an old model of a BMW and layered a one-third scale miniature of DB5 over the car. Smart, huh?

In Spectre, the evil lair of Blofeld is destroyed in the end thanks to efforts of James Bond. The nice dome and everything! How much of it was real? Well, this scene shows all as a track for the actors and some stage marks were the only things that were real. So what blew up in the sky then? Probably a miniature or just pixels.

Spectre (2015) – James Bond (Right) with Bond girl Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) approach Blofeld’s desert lair. Filmed in Erfoud , Morocco Special Effects and computer graphics provide the entire domed roof of Blofeld’s Observatory

Give me some adrenaline! This stunt was slated to be performed in reality but authorities banned it and eventually it was filmed in an aerodrome. However, the aircraft is quite real and so was the crazy rotating motion.

Spectre (2015 film) – Special Effects to create a spiralling helicopter fight scene seen in the film as above a crowded Mexico City.

A lone helicopter in a remote area was flown and then afterwards, special effects were done to show it flowing over Mexico city itself.

So this helicopter crashes into the building and therefore, it must have cost a fortune. But, it didn’t, okay? Both were large scale replicas and the explosion was superimposed here as well.

Skyfall (2012) – Skyfall Lodge – the childhood home of James Bond is seen in model form (see man on right for scale during filming) before explosively attacked by enemy helicopter.

The spectacular train chase in the Skyfall was quite real as it involved an actual claw mechanical digger. But visual effects created the feeling of the claw crunching the train bogey into bits right under the feet of 007 himself.

Skyfall (2012) – Viewers watched in amazement in the opening sequences as James Bond (Daniel Craig) took on a rampaging digger mounted aboard a moving train – the image below shows the CGI (computer-generated imagery) being added to footage to achieve the dramatic effect

This scene was filmed in Morocco. Madeleine and Bond oversee a huge explosion at Blofeld’s base. It was quite real as well. Except for them witnessing it part!

Spectre (2015) – (TOP) James Bond (Right) with Bond girl Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) watch the demse of Blofeld’s base – filmed in Erfoud , Morocco (BOTTOM) The 24th Bond film features the largest film detonation of all time, with 70 tons of TNT used. The explosion lasted 7.5 seconds. /

This background of buildings was mostly visual effects. Only the base of these structures was real.

LEFT: Final film sees a full background of buildings / RIGHT: Special Effects later add the street scene behind using green screen filming / Bérénice Marlohe) walks (2nd Left) with Daniel Craig as James Bond through a set designed as the lair of Silva (played by Javier Bardem) /

These articulate expensive classical buildings only existed in a computer.

Spectre (2015) – TOP: James Bond (2nd Right) approaches Blofeld’s (played by Christoph Waltz) desert base – filmed in Erfoud , Morocco but the Observatory base entrance is seen BELOW filmed with barely a simple door frame (with guards)

Spectre (2015) James Bond is led to his next clue in the hunt for Blofeld by a mouse which crawls along the floor to a secret room within an apartment ‘Who sent you?’ Bond asks the mouse – we see (BOTTOM) entirely the mouse was computer trickery

The never-ending ceiling of the dome is not that high. Just high enough to give it a feeling of continuity.