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Special Effects Supervisor Chris Corbould talks
about creating the big bangs for Bond in "Quantum
of Solace"...
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Chris Corbould On 007's SFX
16th December 2008
Chris Corbould is a stalwart of the 007 franchise, “I
first started on The Spy Who Loved Me as
a trainee when I was 17, after that I left the company I was
working
for
and
got
my
first freelance job on Moonraker, I’ve been with them ever
since!”
Corbould explains how he works out the logistics
of organizing the special effects on an action film like Quantum
of Solace, “When
I first get the script, I go through it and identify where all
the effects are, then I split them between
the first unit and the second unit. This film has been particularly difficult
because at one stage we had two units filming in Panama, another unit prepping
in Chile, three separate units prepping in Italy whilst working on six stages
back at Pinewood Studios in the UK. Logistically, it has got to be one of the
most difficult films I have done in terms of the geography and making sure
the right crew are in the right place with the right equipment.
I have a team of
about 80 on this film but I always want to try to be there to see as much of
the testing and the shooting as possible, so it has meant a lot of travel for
me.”
Corbould and his team would usually start on
a Bond film at least five months before filming begins, “This
one was different because I had a commitment to another film,
so I only got two months to prep but I had a team working on
it and reporting back to me.”
During pre-production Corbould is part of the
team that work together to make the script come alive on screen,
Corbould explains, “When
you are presented with a script, what we actually end up shooting
is a lot different. The writers do their bit and then the creative
people come on board and it can change quite radically in the
few months before you start filming. I will pitch ideas for the
special effects so we try to do things that haven’t been
done before. Often I need to steer the team in a different direction
if they want to do something that I know has already been done
before and we would just end up copying.”
It is the first time Chris Corbould has worked
with director Marc Forster, “It has been interesting working
with Marc. I think one of the most interesting things is that
Marc hasn’t done much action before. It is nice to get
him involved and try to give him a liking and an understanding
for it. Marc has very definite ideas of what he wants to see
but at the same time he is very open to ideas. He’s a good
guy, I like him a lot.”
Corbould talks about his department’s involvement in the
boat chase sequence shot in Colon, Panama, “We were heavily
involved in tricks like hidden drivers. Daniel did a lot of the
driving himself but there are certain times where, for insurance
reasons, it would have to be a stunt driver. We needed to hide
a driver to do a particular stunt with Daniel at the wheel that
might have been a bit risky. We had boats going over other boats
and explosions knocking out out-boards. One of the boats somersaults
which took quite a while to get right; we had a big cable under
the water which, when the boat hit a certain mark, had a huge
twist in it and it pulled the cable back which pulled the front
of the boat down forcing it to flip over - there were a
lot of mechanics under the water and on the bank for that particular
sequence.”
To shoot the interior of the DC3 plane, when
Bond and Camille are attacked by gunfire, the special effects
department had to build the rig from scratch to simulate the
effect of the plane losing control. The rig was then shot against
a blue screen on Pinewood’s paddock tank. Corbould explains “We
tried to give the illusion that the DC3 was going through a dog
fight. The rig had the ability to go from horizontal to vertical
and revolve around within itself - that was a lot of fun working
with the hydraulics, I really like that sort of thing. Initially
we got a museum piece for the body of the plane which we were
going to mount within the rig but very soon it became apparent
that we were going to have to put lots of bullet holes in it
and cause other damage so we decided to build it from scratch
and it actually worked out better that way.”
The Quantunm of Solace production filmed all
the interior Perla De Las Dunas scenes back at Pinewood and Chris
and his team had a heavy schedule of explosions to achieve in
the final four weeks of filming, “We had a lot of explosions
on a lot of different sets. On the 007 stage there are five different
sections of the interior so quantity wise, there was a lot of
explosions and a lot of fire.”
However,
Special Effects is not just about explosions as Chris explains “It’s
explosions, atmospheric; wind, smoke, rain, fog, snow. It’s
gadgets; watches that fire darts, bag-pipes with flame throwers,
adapting cars like the Jaguar
and the Aston Martin in Die Another Day - we adapted them
to 4 wheel drive for the chase on the ice lake - and rigs,
really small rigs to four story sinking house rigs!”
Thanks to Sony Pictures Releasing UK.
Briefing
Produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli (Eon
Productions), QUANTUM OF SOLACE was released in the
UK on October 31st 2008 and is directed by
Marc Forster. Principal photography started on January
3rd
2008 at
Pinewood Studios and around the UK, and foreign locations
including Italy, Panama, Chile, Peru and Austria.
Paul Haggis completed the script based on a first draft
screenplay developed by regular scribes Neal Purvis & Robert
Wade, with later polish by Joshua Zetumer. The story
is a direct continuation of the events of Casino
Royale. 007 faces off against
villains Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene), Anatole
Taubman (Elvis) and Joaquin Cosío (General Medrano).
Olga Kurylenko (Camille) and Gemma Arterton (MI6 Agent
Fields) play the Bond Girls. Dame Judi Dench (M), Jeffrey
Wright (Felix Leiter) and Giancarlo Giannini (Mathis)
reprise their roles as Bond's allies. It is British
actor Daniel Craig’s second outing as James Bond,
following his debut film Casino Royale released November
16th 2006.
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