The Model work of Bond.

Hello I'm Murdock and this is my first thread.

Special Effects in a Bond movie have always been important. It has to be fantastical but look realistic. One of the people behind that is Derek Meddings.



The Man was a legend who made some of the epic moments in James Bond history look real. His work will be sadly missed. RIP Derek.

So what do you think of Meddings and his Special Effects?

I'll take it over CGI any day of the week. Damn fine miniature work.

I saw the trailer for that new Washington-gets-attacked flick (apparently the one starring that extra from Tomorrow Never Dies wasn't enough) and it looks like half the movie is a video game. To be more Bond-centric, I think the overt CGI in Skyfall (komodo dragons, choppers above Silva's island) looked shyte and out of place. I don't mind CGI if I'm watching Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, but I'd like a live action film set on planet Earth to look real.

Welcome, by the way, Murdock.

I thought some of his GE stuff was his weakest, particularly when the jet crashes into the dish (I feel the same about the Batwing crashing in BATMAN). When the miniatures just look like miniatures, something's up. Still, I dig a lot of his work in TSWLM and MR, then there's his work in SUPERMAN that might just be his best, the highlight being the Hoover dam destruction.

Python wrote:

I thought some of his GE stuff was his weakest, particularly when the jet crashes into the dish

It wasn't the best, but compared to the cartoon helicopters in Skyfall seventeen years later, it looked damned good.

Sorry to whine about this, but I think CGI has basically rendered (no pun intended) action films broadly unwatchable.

I'm perfectly content with CGI as long as it's done well. In the case of those helicopters showing up, it's a brief moment and I give that more of a pass because in the end we do get that excellent helicopter crash at the end done by proper model work. I'm even totally fine with the komodo dragons because the whole scenario is inherently silly so I'm not easily put off, especially since I don't think the CGI is all that terrible. Truly bad CGI can be found in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, which makes even DIE ANOTHER DAY look quaint.

The worst model work in Bond is the crocodile spaceship in YOLT. Truly abysmal. If you want to see how good Meddings was take a look at Doppelgänger, made just a year later. Probably the best model work outside 2001 up to that point.

I don't think that miniatures necessarily need to look realistic, but they need to be well crafted. That's not the same thing: I can appreciate a well painted backdrop in a film even if it's obviously a backdrop. Plus you can't separate good special effects from the budget available. How much money did Meddings have to work with in GoldenEye?

As an aside, I sometimes wonder where the Bond films and British film industry would be without the late Gerry Anderson. He gave Meddings and Steve Begg their big breaks.

I think Meddings's work on SPY and MOONRAKER stand out - he probably also had the most $ to work on these, since the models (Liparus, Atlantis, Bell 206 JetRanger, Moonraker Shuttles etc.) were integral to the narrative.

Though of course the standout effect in Spy was Caroline Munro's wink. Amazing work.

I don't mind CGI when done right. If it's only used for a momentary purpose it's okay since it goes by fast, But if you use like George Lucas did for the Star Wars prequels then you lose all sense of reality.

Medding's work on SPY and Moonraker were probably his best, but I love his work on GoldenEye because it was the first Bond film I ever saw so it's really nostalgic for me.

Also whoever did the miniature effects for Tomorrow Never Dies did a good job too.

I think Indiana Jones 4 used it even worse than Star Wars prequels, especially the monkeys, the aliens and the UFO. Terribly done.
That said, I still love that movie.

Walecs wrote:

I think Indiana Jones 4 used it even worse than Star Wars prequels, especially the monkeys, the aliens and the UFO. Terribly done.
That said, I still love that movie.

I'm sure you can get help for that.

Walecs wrote:

I think Indiana Jones 4 used it even worse than Star Wars prequels, especially the monkeys, the aliens and the UFO. Terribly done.
That said, I still love that movie.

Actually, I didn't mind the CGI in Indy 4, what I DID mind was the hyper bright look of the film, nothing Slocombe's work except in general shot set-up. And yeah, I like the movie anyway too.
The crash in GE (and Batman, for that matter) wasn't all that bad, just clearly a model, but a GOOD LOOKING model, and I'll take that over cartoons any day. Flying models were done best by L.B. Abbott back in the day (Lost In Space, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, etc).

The picture at the top of the thread shows how crazy detailed Medding's stuff was- I really had no idea the whole scene at the dish was a model even last year, I had assumed the dish model was optically inserted into a real background. Just shows how amazing his stuff was.
Everyone here have "Special Effects Superman, the Art And Effects of Derek Meddings"? That's a great book.

chrisisall wrote:

The crash in GE (and Batman, for that matter) wasn't all that bad, just clearly a model, but a GOOD LOOKING model, and I'll take that over cartoons any day. [Snip] Everyone here have "Special Effects Superman, the Art And Effects of Derrek Meddings"? That's a great book.

Yeah, that's my take. If something's artistic or well crafted then that's enough for me.

I have Medding's book, 21st Century Visions. One of those presents that outlasted the girl.

Murdock wrote:

Also whoever did the miniature effects for Tomorrow Never Dies did a good job too.  

Here's the supervisor:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0179269/
Impressive resume'.

The best guys in the business today are Chris Corbould and Robert Legato.

Python wrote:

The best guys in the business today are Chris Corbould and Robert Legato.

Are they hiring? 

Am I alone in thinking that the model work in parts of Goldfinger is truly atrocious, as is the back-projection in many parts.

LICENCE TO KILL easily wins the award for featuring the worst back-projection in Bond films. Just adds to the cheapness of it all.

General Y Y wrote:

Am I alone in thinking that the model work in parts of Goldfinger is truly atrocious, as is the back-projection in many parts.

The Lockheed on wire during the climax is bad.

I believe like many other films, those wires were never meant to be seen on the Lockheed. Usually when it comes to wires, they're airbrushed or the projection is fixed in a way to obscure it. The Christopher Reeve Superman films for example normally had the wires removed/obscured, but the folks who did the DVD transfers neglected to airbrush them out so they were visible at times.

Either way, at least the blu-ray of GF removed those wires.

Python wrote:

LICENCE TO KILL easily wins the award for featuring the worst back-projection in Bond films. Just adds to the cheapness of it all.

The only Bond Blu-Rays I own are Craig's films, but I've read that the back-projection in the older films is even more noticeable and jarring on the format.

I am rarely bothered by back projection, the spirit of the intent is clear in these cases, its the oddly almost real but not real CGI I find more distracting. At the end of the day if the story is engaging you tend to go with the flow...if it isn't then a few studio shots aren't going to make a heap of difference.

I've not noticed many model shots since TND but this new team is doing a good job.

On the subject or Rear Projection, I think the people in this video did a very good job if not better job, recreating the close up shots during the Skyfall motorcycle chase.

Python wrote:

LICENCE TO KILL easily wins the award for featuring the worst back-projection in Bond films.

No way LTK's was worse than DN's. And anyway, isn't it front-projection by then? It was front projection in Superman II (1981).

chrisisall wrote:

Python wrote:

LICENCE TO KILL easily wins the award for featuring the worst back-projection in Bond films.

No way LTK's was worse than DN's. And anyway, isn't it front-projection by then? It was front projection in Superman II (1981).

I call LTK worse because by that point there had big improvements in how to do projection and it just looks cheaper than many contemporaries, especially doesn't help the way the whole thing is lit, whereas I can accept it in Dr. No because that was of its time and it had a much lower budget.