Bond is Forever: New 007 Exhibition in London
 One
of the highlights of this year’s celebrations of the 50th Anniversary
of the James Bond films is a new exhibition opening this July.
‘Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style’, which is about the craft
behind creating the Bond ‘look’ on screen, is opening to the public at
the Barbican, the famous arts and exhibition centre in central London,
on July 6. The Barbican has joined forces with EON Productions to create
a unique exhibition designed by Ab Rogers, curated by the Barbican, and
guest-curated by fashion historian Bronwyn Cosgrave and Oscar-winning
costume designer Lindy Hemming. With unprecedented access to EON’s
extensive archive, the new exhibition is being billed as a
‘multi-sensory experience’ where costumes, automobiles, gadgets, graphic
design, weapons and other Bond-related material will introduce visitors
to the creation and development of the iconic ‘Bond style’ over its
fifty year history. The exciting new exhibition will show-case the work
of such Bond luminaries as Special Effects experts John Stears, Syd
Caine and Chris Corbould, Production Designers Sir Ken Adam and Peter
Lamont, and costume designers Bumble Dawson, Donfeld, Julie Harris,
Lindy Hemming, Ronald Patterson, Emma Porteous, and Jany Temime. The
exhibition runs from July 6 – September 5, and its opening times will
be: 11.00am-8.00pm (Thursdays until 10.00pm). The Barbican is now taking
bookings for tickets, via: www.barbican.org.uk/bond
Filming on ‘Skyfall’ Now Complete
 Since
our last Newsletter in May, all the main filming on ‘Skyfall’ has been
completed and the new 007 movie has entered the post-production stage.
The last piece of shooting was carried out by the Second Unit in Turkey,
and was ‘in the can’ by Friday May 25. The Second Unit, which stayed
behind in Turkey after the Main Unit had completed principal photography
in Istanbul, had continued some stunt work in Adana with Daniel Craig.
The Bond star was filmed clinging on to the side of a moving train
carriage and hauling himself back on to the roof. Daniel then left
Turkey on the weekend of May 19-20. There was then about a week’s worth
of further filming carried out by the Second Unit, which also included
some location work in the picturesque Duzici district, a pretty location
in the Mediterranean area of Turkey. Duzici has some spectacular
landscape and, in particular, a popular waterfall.
The Long Haul
 The
filming for ‘Skyfall’ involved one of the longest-ever shoots for a 007
movie. Indeed, when Bond co-producer Michael G. Wilson appeared as a
guest on BBC Breakfast TV on Monday May 21, he commented at one point in
the interview that the filming had ‘been a long haul, but it’s going to
be worth it’. Bond star Daniel Craig flew out of Adana on Turkish
Airlines and headed straight for New York (where he has a home) for a
well-earned rest. He was next spotted on May 24 in New York City, having
lunch with his wife Rachel Weisz. Needless to say, some paparazzi were
quickly on the scene. Meanwhile, work has started on approximately five
months of post-production. One key (and eagerly anticipated) component
of this process will be the movie’s soundtrack and theme song, which is
now in the capable hands of new Bond composer Thomas Newman. Speaking at
the recent 2012 BMI Film and TV Awards, when asked about his upcoming
Bond work, Newman replied that he’s ‘just brainstorming right now’.
The Globe is Not Enough: Marketing ‘Skyfall’
 Another
major component of both the pre-production, shooting, and
post-production of a new Bond movie is the international marketing
campaign. As expected, the global campaign for ‘Skyfall’ promises to be
another epic in the best Bond tradition. Even though ‘Quantum of Solace’
was found wanting by some critics after the high standard set by the
acclaimed ‘Casino Royale’, the box office numbers still remained very
strong, helped considerably by the massive marketing campaign thrown
behind Craig’s second movie. ‘Skyfall’ will receive the same treatment
but, as far the JBIFC understands it, on an even bigger scale. In fact,
the campaign has already been months in the planning. In the UK, for
example, the ‘Skyfall’ campaign is based on the assumption that the new
Bond movie will be given a ‘12’ certificate, and the target audience (as
previously) will be men and women aged 13 to 59. As well as the teaser
trailer, which was released on May 21, we understand there will be a
major billboard and poster campaign in the centre of London (where key
parts of ‘Skyfall’ were filmed), including in London Underground
stations (where 150,000 people use the tube system every hour) and in
busy shopping streets, such as High Street Kensington. Media and
marketing campaign experts estimate that effective billboards can adjust
box office figures dramatically if you ensure there are eye-catching
posters.
Multi-Media Bond
Historically, recent Bond movies have also heavily relied upon product
placement, and ‘Skyfall’ will be no exception. However, as ever greater
numbers of adults are spending time online, the Bond film-makers have
now also woken up to the value of ‘Viral Campaigns’, which are now
increasingly important in bringing in both an older and a younger target
audience. Younger people are particularly important for modern
film-marketing campaigns. This is because it is estimated that approx.
60 per cent of teenagers now spend on average 20 hours per week in front
of computer screens. As Bond fans may have already noticed, with the
launch of the official James Bond website for ‘Skyfall’ (including a set
of Production Videoblogs), the film-makers are now putting much more
energy into the ‘interactive’ and multi-media aspects of Bond film
marketing to ensure ‘Skyfall’ taps into this younger target audience.
Stuntman George Leech (1921-2012)
 There
was some sad news on June 19, when it was reported that stunt expert
George Leech, who performed many stunts on the Bond movies from
1962-1985, had passed away on June 17. Not only did the veteran stuntman
perform numerous dangerous stunts in the EON series, but he often
appeared on screen too, usually as a menacing henchman (as in
‘Thunderball’ and ‘For Your Eyes Only’), or as a member of the support
staff of Q-Branch (as in ‘Goldfinger’). He was very generous with his
time to Bond fans, including the JBIFC. He strongly held the view that
the key to the success of the Bond movies was, as he put it, ‘superb
action, good characters, good writing’. George had two daughters, and
one of them, Wendy, became one of the first major stunt-women in the UK
stunt industry. She is married to another Bond stunt veteran, Vic
Armstrong. In Vic’s recent autobiography, ‘The True Adventures of the
World’s Greatest Stuntman’, there are some interesting details about
George’s role as the stunt arranger for ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret
Service’, which many fans feel contained some of his best work. RIP,
George.
ITV Celebrate Bond at 50
 The
UK’s ITV network started a special season of Bond film screenings in
May, entitled ‘Bond: 007 at 50’. There are two reasons for the special
season: first of all, of course, it is part of ITV’s own tribute to the
50 th Anniversary of the iconic Bond series. But the second reason is
that it could be the last chance for British viewers to see the Bond
movies on the ITV network for some time, as the rival ‘Sky’ network
recently signed a deal to take over the rights to the British TV
showings from ITV. The ITV season commenced with ‘Dr. No’ on Saturday
May 12, followed on May 19 by ‘From Russia With Love’, and then a week
later by ‘Goldfinger’ on May 26. After a short break ‘Thunderball’ was
shown on June 16, ‘You Only Live Twice’ on June 23, and ‘On Her
Majesty’s Secret Service’ on June 30. The JBIFC understands that ITV
intend to screen the whole series during its special Bond season. Apart
from the usual annoyingly frequent advert breaks, all the prints so far
have been in mint condition.
Bond Was Back: The TV Tradition
 It
will be the end of what has become a bit of a ‘tradition’ in the UK.
The ITV network first won the right to screen Bond movies on British
television way back in the mid-1970s. When ITV premiered ‘Dr. No’ on the
small-screen on Tuesday October 28 th, 1975, it was something of a ‘big
event’ in the UK, which at that point still only had three (yes, three)
TV channels! Unsurprisingly, the film made number one in that week’s
television viewers ratings in the UK. The tie-in edition of ITV’s TVTimes magazine
from that week (featuring Connery and Andress on the cover) is quite
sought after by paper memorabilia collectors today, closely followed by
the ‘From Russia With Love’ issue (which featured a painted image of
Connery on the cover). The Bond movies on ITV went on to become a
regular feature at Christmas time and at Bank Holidays, and a whole new
generation of British Bond fans were introduced to James Bond via the
television. The latest information is that the Sky network, who take
over the rights to Bond on British TV from autumn 2012, will help
celebrate the Bond series with a special ‘Skyfall’ TV programme.
Bowie’s Son to Direct New Fleming Biopic
 Interesting
news broke in May that the BAFTA-award winning British film-maker
Duncan Jones, who happens to be the son of singer David Bowie, has
signed up to direct a new biopic of James Bond author Ian Fleming, which
is due to start production in late 2012. As the son of a major rock
star, Jones knows just what it is like to live in the shadow of a famous
father. Known as Zowie Bowie, he began to use his birth name Duncan
Jones from the age of 18. Moreover, 41-year old Jones told The Times newspaper
that he sees interesting parallels between the Bond author’s life and
his own. Although he later developed a reputation as a devil-may-care
playboy, Ian Fleming also struggled to live up to an illustrious,
high-achieving father. As Fleming biographers have pointed out,
Valentine Fleming, MP, was a war hero who was adored and admired by all
who knew him, and was tragically killed on the Western Front in. His
obituary was even written by Winston Churchill. His son Ian struggled at
Sandhurst officer training college, and later as a stockbroker in the
City, the financial heart of London. Easily bored, his heart was simply
not in it. The real turning-point for Fleming actually came in World War
Two, when he was appointed as a British Naval Intelligence officer and
seemed to find his calling, devising elaborate ruses to fool the enemy.
Filming Fleming
Jones, who trained in film-making at the London Film School, directed
the acclaimed movie ‘Moon’ (2009), and his latest film was the thriller
‘Source Code’ (2011). He commented: ‘Fleming lived through one of the
most perilous periods in world history, in a position that allowed him a
unique vantage point of all the players, all the stakes. He witnessed
true heroism first-hand and he saw the evil men could do. Then, when the
war ended, he went off to write fiction. The essential question for me
is: where did Ian Fleming end and Bond begin?’ The new movie will be
produced by Stuart Fenegan, who said: ‘The opportunity to make a period
action film about the life of Ian Fleming and origins of Bond - a hero
we all grew up idolising - is too great for Duncan and me to resist’.
Although precise details about the film are still top secret, the JBIFC
understands that Jones and his team will draw in particular on Andrew
Lycett’s biography Ian Fleming (1995), and that the project has the support of the Fleming literary estate.
Role of Honour: Fleming on Film
 There
have been three previous made-for-TV movies about the life of the James
Bond author. ‘Goldeneye’ (1989), made by Anglia TV in the UK, starred
Charles Dance as Fleming, while ‘Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian
Fleming’ (1990), saw Jason Connery (son of Sean) starring as the young
British Naval Intelligence officer. While the Charles Dance biopic was
very much rooted in reality, the emphasis in the Jason Connery movie was
much more on 007-style movie escapism. More recently, the BBC made ‘Ian
Fleming: Bondmaker’ (2005), a more grounded and serious docu-drama
which featured Ben Daniels as the 007 creator. The James Bond author has
also briefly appeared in two other films in recent times, both
featuring Fleming in his wartime guise: James D’Arcy played Fleming in
the Sean Bean commando movie ‘Age of Heroes’ (2011), and Tobias Menzies
(the actor who was Villiers in ‘Casino Royale’) played Fleming in the
ITV drama ‘Any Human Heart’ (2010). Interestingly, the latter was
written by the recently appointed new Bond author William Boyd. There
have also been one or two other projects proposed about Fleming over the
years. In 2008 and early 2009, for example, unconfirmed reports emerged
that Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Appian Way’ production company had
commissioned a possible screenplay about the Bond author’s life.
Did You Know?
The
singer David Bowie was approached to play the villain Max Zorin in ‘A
View to a Kill’ (1985), but turned the role down. Bowie gave conflicting
reasons for doing so. At one point, he cited his lack of enthusiasm for
recent Bond villains. On another occasion, he commented: ‘I did not
want to spend five months watching my stunt double fall off cliffs’. The
role was also offered to the singer Sting, and eventually went, of
course, to Christopher Walken.
Bond Bits: Brief Items of News You May Have Missed
Alan
Cumming, who played the devious computer geek Boris Grishenko in
‘Goldeneye’ (1995), has been receiving rave reviews for his one-man
stage version of ‘Macbeth’, produced by the National Theatre of
Scotland...
British TV viewers had another opportunity to see a Bond-related episode
of ‘Celebrity Antiques Road Trip’ on BBC-2 April 18. This particular
programme featured Honor Blackman and Britt Ekland, who took to the road
in a classic Aston Martin DB5, as they teamed up with two experts in
search of antiques around the picturesque villages of the county of
Cambridgeshire...
Charlie Higson, the author of the ‘Young Bond’ series of books, who
recently turned his attention to a new book series about Zombies, had a
column in the Radio Times magazine on May 26, where he revealed
his delight at the astonishing 74,000 entries that children sent in to
BBC Radio-2’s ‘500 Words’ story competition. Higson, who was one of the
judges, said it confirmed his view that kids really love books...
Toby
Stephens, who played Gustav Graves in ‘Die Another Day’, was among the
guest suspects in an episode of the crime drama ‘Lewis’ shown on the
UK’s ITV-1 channel on May 23...
The
ever-busy Mr. Stephens also played Thomas Edison in a historical comedy
for radio, ‘Tennyson and Edison’, which was transmitted on BBC Radio-3
on Sunday, June 3...
Former 007 star George Lazenby, 72, was reported to have voiced his
concerns in May about the Bond franchise’s decision to allow Heineken to
promote their beer in ‘Skyfall’, in a promotional deal worth about
£28million. Daniel Craig, defending the new deal, said: ‘This movie
costs a lot of money to make... It’s unfortunate but that’s how it
is’...
Some
sad news reached us on June 24 about a real-life figure who was a key
inspiration to Bond author Ian Fleming when he wrote the novel of ‘On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. It was announced that Robin Ian Evelyn
Milne Stuart le Comte de la Lanne-Mirriees, an expert in heraldry, had
passed away on June 23, aged 87. Mirriees was the man at the famous
College of Arms in London who helped Ian Fleming with his own research
into heraldry...
Fleming returned the favour by using Mirriees as the basis for the
character Sable Basillisk in his 1963 novel. In the later movie, of
course, this character was re-named Sir Hilary Bray, and was played by
the late George Baker, who himself sadly died last October...
According to the Daily Mail on
June 8, Rowan Atkinson, who played bumbling Foreign Office official
Nigel Small-Fawcett in ‘Never Say Never Again’ (1983), and also recently
reprised his role as Johnny English for a second time, is going to take
on a new stage role. He will star in Simon Gray’s ‘Quartermaine’s
Terms’, a heartbreaking comedy about a teacher at a Cambridge language
School who happens to be quite useless at what he does, but still
muddles on...
Leavesden Studios, in Hertfordshire, which was home to ‘Goldeneye’
(1995), saw a new £100m extension to the facility open on June 11, after
some new investment by Warner Brothers. It was another good sign of
American confidence in the skills available in the British film
industry...
Samantha Bond, who played Miss Moneypenny in the four Pierce Brosnan
Bond movies, played the guest role of a character called Kate Cameron in
an episode of ITV’s popular crime drama ‘Midsomer Murders’, screened on
June 13...
Interestingly, it has emerged that British newsreader Selina Scott, who
became something of fashion icon in the 1980s, was once considered for
the role of Miss Moneypenny, after Lois Maxwell lost the role. Selina
told the Daily Telegraph newspaper in a recent interview that
she even met with Cubby Broccoli at his office, but he changed his mind
after deciding she was too attractive for the role! It went to Caroline
Bliss instead...
A
round of applause, please: Mads Mikkelsen, who played the blood-weeping
villain Le Chiffre in ‘Casino Royale’, won the Cannes Best Actor prize
at this year’s festival for his role in ‘The Hunt’. In addition, the
talented actor has been receiving high praise for his new film ‘A Royal
Affair’, a classy Danish historical drama which was released in the UK
on June 15...
A
date for your Diaries: a new set of Ian Fleming Audio Books will be
coming out on September 6, the result of a new project backed by Ian
Fleming Publications. The new, unabridged readings will include ‘From
Russia With Love’, read by Toby Stephens, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, read
by Rosamund Pike, and ‘Live and Let Die’, read by Rory Kinnear...
Rory
Kinnear, who reprises his role as M’s assistant in ‘Skyfall’, has been
on stage recently in ‘The Last of the Haussmans’ at the National Theatre
in London...
Rory
will also have a role in ‘Richard II’, the first of a new set of four
Shakespeare plays, produced by ‘Skyfall’ director Sam Mendes, due to be
shown in the UK this summer by BBC-2. ‘Richard II’ aired on June 30,
with Ben Whishaw taking the title role of Richard. Whishaw, of course,
is the new head of ‘Q’ branch in ‘Skyfall’, although he is still keeping
very tight-lipped about the role...
Meanwhile, what’s next for Sam Mendes after ‘Skyfall’? Recent reports
suggest that he plans to return to the London West End stage with a
musical version of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. The talented
director has previously staged the musicals ‘Oliver!’, ‘Gypsy’ and
‘Cabaret’... |
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