What was done in Shanghai?

I saw the pics with the elevated neon highways and read that Mark Higgins was doing the stunt-driving, but Craig was not there...is it an action scene which features Bond, but really without Bond? :roll:

Has something like that been done before in an action sequence?

One I recall the most was Timothy Dalton during the car chase in TLD, with that horrible back projection.

IIRC, the the footage in the final cut of the QOS car chase has no footage of Daniel Craig on location. The shots of Craig inside the car were done on a blue screen at Pinewood. The ones looking in from the outside had Craig's head superimposed on the stunt driver's body.

Quote :

fxguide: There is a long list of exciting shots in this film, beginning with the fantastic car chase along Lake Garda (and then later at the marble quarry) at the beginning of the movie?

Kevin Haug: Visual effects wise the main challenge on that one was that Daniel was not available for that shoot. So we had to find a way to shoot all of those interiors without him being there on location. It was a bummer for him but the schedule just wouldn’t allow it. So what happened is Dan Bradley would setup a rig that would put the camera where he would want to put it in the car. and very carefully mapped out all those angles and shot them as backgrounds with the camera where it needed to be and later matched that on set at Pinewood with Daniel in an Aston Martin that was being flung around on a big steel floor in a bluescreen set, bashing into cars and doing all that stuff but in a controlled environment. The plates were shot on location and then we did all the foregrounds later on stage. We had to add windscreens in with reflections in a lot of case. We did also have a third Alfa Romeo at one point that had to be removed. The sequence was running a bit long. The editor had a bright idea of getting rid of the third Alfa which required taking out a section of it. There’s three places where we had to remove an Alfa or pretend that the Alfa that you are looking at is a different one by dusting it up in a particular way so it looked like there was a continuity issue.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/back_into_bondage/

Wow, they did a better job of hiding that than LTK, though maybe it's because the shots are so brief.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

I saw the pics with the elevated neon highways and read that Mark Higgins was doing the stunt-driving, but Craig was not there...is it an action scene which features Bond, but really without Bond? :roll:

Has something like that been done before in an action sequence?

DAD. I don't think Rick Yune or Pierce Brosnan ever set foot on location in Iceland for their car chase.

Thanks for the responses...I'll admit I didn't know Bond was subsequently 'shoe-horned' in where those other 007 movies were concerned....

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

I saw the pics with the elevated neon highways and read that Mark Higgins was doing the stunt-driving, but Craig was not there...is it an action scene which features Bond, but really without Bond? :roll:

We don't really know what, exactly, was filmed. We know that the scene involved cars driving along a highway, and that Higgins was there, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was a chase sequence. Any high-speed driving scenes would require a stunt driver - even if this scene is just Bond driving from the airport to his hotel (or the place where the scene in the first official photo is located; that's been confirmed as being shot at Pinewood and taking place in Shanghai).

I just did some googling and was surprised by the result.

Bond's competition in the spy genre, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol grossed over 100m in China alone...that is a monster size gross for an overseas territory. Check Box Office Mojo for confirmation. It grossed less than 25m in the UK.

If you combine China, South Korea and Japan, Protocol grossed over 200m in those 3 Asian territories. That is huge business in Asia.

Does anyone think China's role in Skyfall was deliberate, not just as a mandatory foreign locale but to cash in on BO potential there? As long as the film is not released late, reducing the risk for rampant piracy, Skyfall could have 150m potential (at least) in these 3 territories....

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

I just did some googling and was surprised by the result.

Bond's competition in the spy genre, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol grossed over 100m in China alone...that is a monster size gross for an overseas territory. Check Box Office Mojo for confirmation. It grossed less than 25m in the UK.

If you combine China, South Korea and Japan, Protocol grossed over 200m in those 3 Asian territories. That is huge business in Asia.

Does anyone think China's role in Skyfall was deliberate, not just as a mandatory foreign locale but to cash in on BO potential there? As long as the film is not released late, reducing the risk for rampant piracy, Skyfall could have 150m potential (at least) in these 3 territories....

It's possible the decision was made to cash in on the growing Asian markets, but EON has wanted to film in China as far back as 1987, when they were scouting locations for LICENSE REVOKED. Then they considered China again for TOMORROW NEVER LIES, but it was decided that the original draft, which concerned the British handover of Hong Kong to China in July of 1997, would be out-dated by the time of it's release in December of 1997 (instead, EON wisely decided to set the film in Vietnam and use Thailand as a substitute, seeing as how Vietnam is all practical and in the news these days). The third Dalton film was originally going to take place in Japan (and maybe parts of China??? Anyone remember?). So that area has been on EON's mind for some time.

I wonder if the Chinese yuan, Japanase yen, and South Korean won are all individual, unique forms of currency, or do they all look the same.

I agree. I think the producers have wanted to go to a China for a while now, which probably influenced the decision to film there. But at the same time, I don't think they rushed to go to China simply because they could. They probably would have bided their time a little bit, and waited for the opportunity to present itself rather than rush into it.

I doubt there will be more than 20 minutes of the film set in Shanghai, with Macau and possibly some Japanese locations also potentially appearing in the middle act. Can't imagine there will be any major action scenes there. Bond will probably be just doing some espionage like he does in the first location he goes to after a mission briefing.

I disagree. I think a fairly substantial part of the film will be set in Shanghai. Perhaps less than London and Turkey, but I'm expecting at least half an hour - fifteen minutes in both Shanghai and Macau.

I don't think Bond will be going to Japan, though. IGN and ComingSoon both reported scenes would be shot on Hashima Island off the coast of Nagasaki, but I suspect that in the world of the film, Hashima Island will be somewhere off Shanghai or Macau.

New article in a Chinese paper about the filming in Shanghai.

Quote :

James Bond in the Lu Jia Zui financial center, running all the way into the World Financial Center, and pulling off an elevator chase ... in the 23rd Bond film "Skyfall", the audience may see such a scene. Reporters learned yesterday that "Skyfall" has been completed in Shanghai's framing, but because of the budget, the film crew shot clean background plates in Shanghai and the surrounding areas. James Bond will be composited in post-production.
.
To achieve budgetary savings, secretly completed filming
After the MGM producers released the film stills from the shooting of “Skyfall”, full of strong Shanghai elements, Bond holding a pistol in the night view of Shanghai highlighted its cold side. MGM's official website revealed that in this episode of the 007 film series, will once again appear scenes in which Bond travels to Shanghai to perform his tasks.
Reporter exclusively learned yesterday from the parties concerned that "Skyfall" has already completed secretly the shooting in Shanghai in mid-January this year. The insider revealed that the film's crew spent a a total of 5 days from January 15 to January 19 , 15-16 Jan was a test shot, 17-19 Jan was a real shot. Because funding is not very strong, the actor who plays Bond itself didn’t come to Shanghai, but the crew shot a number of empty mirrors, most of the shots will be synthesized with post-computer technology.
In fact, due to the mystery of the MGM towards the outside world, the mysterious Bond 23 film has been smoke and mirrors, not only the actor and Bond-girl a few changes of the people, there were several versions even of the title . Until late last year confirmation of Daniel Craig continuing to play 007, the title is "Skyfall". Has been revealed that Skyfall's budget is 150 million, that significantly reduced the budget by 50 million $ than the previous film of the 007 series, "Quantum of Solace" .

According to the informed source, it was revealed that in the shooting of Skyfall, via the Shanghai Port were imported goods with a value of 515,000 £ of temporarily imported goods. It also hit a new high value of the Shanghai Port Chinese - foreign cooperative film entry materials in recent years. The sources said that MGM to spend such high-priced introduction to Chinese goods, "Skyfall" especially aggravated the scenes of Shanghai.
Reporter learned yesterday from the parties concerned the filming route of "Skyfall" in Shanghai, what is surprising is that this route is consistent with the choice of routes and amazing attractions of Tom Cruise in "Mission Impossible 3" , framing Yan'an Road including the elevated, Pudong Lu Jia Zui, Yin Cheng East modern high-rise gathering place. Bond will make his first appearance in a place similar to the casinos in Macau in which "God of Gamblers" possessed him.
The casino, in fact, formed by the transformation of Shanghai wins strong base film, "Put on floor. Later, Bond encountered the enemy to kill, all the way to fled to the river, and jumped into a yacht. Bond escaped the open yacht , to the most prosperous Lujiazui area of Shanghai, along the Yin Cheng Road rushed into the diamond trading hall, this scene is located in the Jin Mao Tower, then he will stage an elevator chase on the side of the World Financial Center .
The reporter was informed that the crew had also planned the shooting in more venues, such as Xitang, but later, because of budget issues, only chose part of the attractions in Shanghai. Although Bond Daniel Craig in person wasn’t in Shanghai, in front of Hollywood's powerful film technology - these parts can be synthesized by computer technology - the audience can still see Bond in Shanghai's night sky to perform a variety of difficult secret tasks.

http://web.xwwb.com/wb2008/wb2008news.php?db=3&thisid=108177

Is it just me, or do the Bond films increasingly have too much globe-hopping for their own good? In the 60s most of the films focused on one locale (YOLT-Japan, TB-Bahamas). In the 70s, 80s and 90s there were usually two main locales (OP - India and Germany, DAF - Netherlands and Vegas) and if there were more than two main locations, they tended to blend together thematically - think Tangiers and Afghanistan in TLD (which were all filmed in Morocco anyway). So even though TLD had four locations (Slovakia, Austria, Tangiers and Afghanistan) plus the UK, the film divided nicely into two halves. The first half of TLD is the European section, and the second half is the Middle Eastern section.

It seems like, since DAD, the movies have become too eager to leap around the world in ways that don't tie together well thematically. How do you reconcile Cuba, North Korea and Iceland in one movie? Or Madagascar, the Bahamas, Montenegro and Italy? Or Haiti, Austria, Italy and Bolivia? I don't think you can (though at least CR arguably does with a tropical first half and a romantic European second half). QOS could have been similarly balanced, but there's way too much bouncing around (Italy to Haiti to Austria to Italy to Bolivia) for the movie to settle down in terms of what it's trying to do.

How are London, Scotland, China and Turkey going to work well together thematically? Will they work fairly seamlessly, or will we leap all over the place DAD or QOS style?

Is that you trying to hide behind a thin veneer of common sense, DC007?

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Is that you trying to hide behind a thin veneer of common sense, DC007?

How can one have a veneer of common sense? Either you have it, or you don't, in my experience.

If you're referring to me, then no. I've gone by this screename on other forums like CBn and MI6, but never other pseudonyms.

Right. It's just that the last person who suggested what you're suggesting took it to an extreme, claiming that things like story and characters and themes should be treated as a loose framing device for Bond to visit one or two glamourous, exotic locations over the course of a film, soaking up the local atmosphere and basically reducing the films to an extended episode of a travel-like show.

He was (and probably still is), however a first-rate idiot.

And a third-rate Sharky.

I was one the who first brought up at that point, over at MI6 at least.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Right. It's just that the last person who suggested what you're suggesting took it to an extreme, claiming that things like story and characters and themes should be treated as a loose framing device for Bond to visit one or two glamourous, exotic locations over the course of a film, soaking up the local atmosphere and basically reducing the films to an extended episode of a travel-like show.

He was (and probably still is), however a first-rate idiot.

Ahh, I see how my argument could be taken to that extreme. While I do think the Bond films ought to take more time to breath and enjoy the ambience of a location even if that location has some major plot point happening at it (I'm thinking of FRWL's use of the Hagia Sophia for instance), I think a travelogue would be inadvisable. On the other hand, I think a danger of too much globe-hopping is that each location becomes merely another place for more or less the same action sequences. One of the problems of the skipping about (and the bad editing) of QOS is that there really isn't any different a feel to car and foot chases in Italy or boat chases in Haiti. They're all the same action, just done in what we are told are different places.

I'd contrast this to OP, where the German and India sequences have a totally different feel (a bit too much so, but I digress). In Germany, Bond defuses a nuclear bomb and fights Sovet soldiers. In India, he is literally hunted by Kamal Khan and deals with crocodiles and leeches. I feel like the action in both locales have a slightly different pace as well. As an alternate example, the action in the European half of TLD is a bit more whimsical (cello case as sled, milk bottles as bombs) or least classic espionage (death of Saunders), while the Middle Eastern half is more intense (Bond vs. jailors, Bond vs. Necros).

This is probably one of the reasons I rate TWINE (which stays in the same mileu for the most of the film) so highly, especially compared to TND, which most people prefer. While I find TND entertaining, as the movie wears on it feels too much like they were just filming a script that said, "Bond goes to A. Shit blows up. Bond travels to B. Different shit blows up. Bond now goes to C . . .".

Sharky wrote:

I was one the who first brought up at that point, over at MI6 at least.

Yes, but you weren't insistent that character, plot and theme should be sacrificed in the name of Bond eating in five-star restaurants and sleeping in high-end hotels. You recognise that a film can be limited to one or two foreign locations and still tell a good stroy with interesting characters. DC007 can't.