Mini update #2 - Re-setting a dinner sequence

 Sometimes in the development of a film, you'll find changes being made on set to the script. Naturally, such a situation has occurred repeatedly during the production of Diamonds Reimagined with its animated scenes.

In my post on the deleted scenes of the original Diamonds Are Forever, I said that I would not include the scene of Bond's dinner with Plenty O'Toole at the Dome of the Sea as it would not fit into the story of Diamonds Reimagined.

But I have since changed my mind - I feel bad about not giving Lana Wood more screentime as Plenty in the script, so it will be slotted back in its original intended placement.

Here's the problem with making that change though - I already have an animated scene where Bond converses with the other Bond girl Tiffany Case over a meal, which takes place later in the story.

And this animated scene has a setting which was deliberately made to look similar to the Dome of the Sea. I called it the Atlantic Dining Palace, and in the script I implied it was part of the Whyte House.

Thing is, I've never been completely happy with it. Aside from some good lighting, the background and layout never quite looked as impressive as I wanted it to be.

I had tried adding in things like dancers performing in the background, but this just looked too distracting. You're supposed to be focused on Tiffany in this sort of shot, not the dancers behind her.

Since this scene is vital for progressing the plot however, it had to stay in. But upon tweaking the dialogue, I decided I also had to change the scene's setting.

This way, it wouldn't look quite as unfair for Bond to be having a meal with another woman not so long after he'd done so with Plenty O'Toole.

Instead of a fancy restaurant setting, the scene would be in a private lounge which has a bar.

The name of this lounge comes from a line of dialogue in the original film, which mentions that the Whyte House has a 'Starlight Lounge' at one of its highest levels. This would put it a floor or so below Williard Whyte's Penthouse.

Rather than this being a situation where Bond and Tiffany are going out for a meal, the scene now has a slightly less glamourous tone to it. 

Tiffany has ordered Bond to come to "talk shop" in this lounge, where although they both dress fancily, the topic of the conversation is supposed to be more businesslike.

Not that James Bond would miss an opportunity to put on the charm of course! It's all part of his usual attempts to seduce the film's main Bond girl.

Bond's outft in the scene is partially inspired by a chocolate brown pinstripe suit made by Anthony Sinclair for Sean Connery. It was intended for him to wear it in the original Diamonds Are Forever film, but ultimately went unused.

Although Moviestorm does have a black pinstripe suit I didn't personally feel a brown pinstripe suit would suit Connery's Bond. Hence why I chose to just colour the suit brown, so it therefore is more like the ones that Connery's Bond has worn before.

Tiffany Case wears a red evening gown with a pretty necklace, which I felt suited her with her red hair and her objective of gaining the real diamonds from Bond's possession.

It's worth noting that this will technically be the first time the viewer sees the animated version of Tiffany in Diamonds Reimagined. 

Like in the original film, there will be a gap between when she last appears at Los Angeles International Airport when she and Bond went their separate ways, and when she reappears on behalf of her superiors.

So naturally, I wanted her to make an impression in her reappearance. First things first though, it's absolutely true that the hairstyle of her 3D character model does not match that of Jill St John's in the original film.

Unfortunately, the character models in Moviestorm just don't have available the kind of hairstyle that St John has. 

It's the same reason why I couldn't replicate Lana Wood's hairstyle for the Plenty O'Toole character model.

I am no 3D modeller, and since the Moviestorm software is barely supported these days, I decided to compromise and pick a different hairstyle that suited the character models.

With the set for the Starlight Lounge though, I'm very happy. As you can see in the screenshot below, I was able to add a backdrop of a lovely sunrise over Las Vegas to be seen from the windows.

I also added a glass dome on the ceiling with a star-shaped pattern of colours. It only will appear in a few shots, but I thought it added some character to the setting.

That's all for now - I am continuing to tweak and re-shoot small scenes here and there that I have previously worked on. 

But the long phase of re-shoots is nearly over, and with the next major sequence update I hope to discuss the work on the animated Penthouse scenes.

Till then,

- The Retro Captain

 

Big Scene development post 11 - Completion of the Journey to Whyte Tectronics sequence

Finally, the last major sequence of what I have dubbed as 'the long re-shoot phase' of the project is finished!

Back in March, I briefly posted about the work being done on the set for a drive-by shot. And today, I will detail the work that has gone on since then.

To do this, I'm including five clips from the scene.

Opening the scene

Let's think back to the original Diamonds Are Forever film for a moment. 

Following the Circus Circus scene, we cut to Bond waiting anxiously at a car rental, and then Felix shows up to inform Bond that they've lost Tiffany.

In the new version of that particular scene I have animated, Bond is instead waiting in the car park outside the Whyte House.

He is of course, in his Aston Martin DBS (which as you'll see, I had to modify to put the steering wheel and dashboard on the opposite side).

Instead of Felix and the agents driving up to him, Bond is informed of their failure by Felix via walkie-talkie.

The reason for this is that in the moments after the clip below, Bond actually sees Tiffany driving past in her car, and will pursue her.

A large part of the set you see in this clip is actually cannibalised from the gigantic exterior set for the Las Vegas Country Club sequences. 

I basically deleted everything from that latter set except for the parts of The Whyte House that I had built.

Then I turned that part around so that I could build the front of the Whyte House, with its car park. 

This enabled me to have a nice establishing shot where I could pan the camera directly down to Bond in his car.

The rest of the set, as we shall see later, was built to include a roadway for a drive-by shot later in the scene.

The Airport

In clip two is the scene where Bond arrives at McCarren International Airport, a location which also appeared in the original film. 

But rather than being there with Tiffany, the new version has him see Tiffany hand over the smuggled diamonds to Bert Saxby.

This is a scene which went through some re-shoots to improve the cars. Originally, they had cartoon-like blacked out windows, which was done partly to save memory by not showing the driver.

Although I still use that technique for some cars throughout the project, it just doesn't really look good when the car is in the foreground. So you need to see the driver somehow!

By now, I have figured out a way to get the driver into the car. But I still need a shot of the car reversing, and my car prop is not designed to do that. 

That's why I need a second car prop on the set, which I use when the first one is hidden. How then, do you save memory for a shot without duplicating the character model of the driver?

The solution was simple - I simply create a stationary dummy prop like the one in the image below to replace the driver.

Using a dummy driver like this is a technique I hope to replicate for future scenes featuring characters driving. After all, it will be useful for wide shots on complex memory-heavy sets.

Pursuing the Minibus

Now for the third clip:

In the last big scene development post I already talked about the petrol station scene. So I won't go over it again in detail here.

The only new thing of note as seen in the clip is how I faded into the next shot. 

I didn't want to have to build more details into the set just for another angle of the station. 

To remedy this, I kept the same viewpoint of the petrol station and had the DBS drive off-screen, passing right by the camera.

Although I originally intended the petrol station set to be built on the same set as the one with the Whyte House visible, I again had to scrap that idea to save memory.

Getting into the Tectronics complex

The fourth clip above is a scene which proved especially tricky to animate. 

I needed Bond to infilitrate the Whyte Tectronics complex in a manner similar to the original film. But since he's not in Metz's minibus, how is this possible?

I decided that conveniently, another vehicle would enter through the gates, which Bond could get into the back of.

You might be able to tell from the image that the Ford F100 I used, with its very large trailer, could barely fit through the gates!

Therefore, I had to alter the set just to have the gates open wide enough for it to just squeeze through. 

Even then, just animating the damn vehicle's path to drive through was a chore.

Funnily enough though, this proved to be to the scene's advantage. It actually improved on the way I originally scripted it!

In the script, I simply had Bond come up to the trailer and silently open the doors. I couldn't do this in the Moviestorm animation software as the doors were too high up.

Although I had already conceived of the Ford F100 slowing down, having Bond jump onto the back meant I could create an explanation for why the driver doesn't suspect something's up.

In the clip, you see him reacting to the sound of Bond jumping onto the back of the trailer. I have him look first through the driver's mirror as initially he might think that the trailer had scratched against the gates.

Then of course, he looks through the window behind him into the trailer. By this time though, Bond has already quickly climbed out of view.

Ending the sequence

Finally, let's examine clip five.

This one is relatively simple in conception. Bond is in the trailer of the Ford F100, which is now parked in the underground car park of the Tectronics facility.

I had to rebuild the F100 to have it on this set, so I could animate the driver closing the door. But then, he has to insert a card into a slot to go through some double doors.

That double doors shot was tricky for two reasons. One, the Moviestorm software doesn't have a card prop that a character can put into a slot.

I therefore had to animate one in my editing software by having it move in sync with the driver's hand.

The largest problem though, is that the double doors prop didn't wrap the texture for the 'Restricted Area' sign properly!

As you can see in the photo, the text on one of the doors got flipped. This is because the full texture wraps around onto the other side of the door.

Once again, this had to be fixed in the edit. I rendered two versions of the same shot, which each used a different texture for the door. 

This allowed me to have at least one door with the text not being flipped. 

In the edit, I then cropped one version of the shot, using the gap between the doors as a dividing line.

Finally, I could overlay the cropped shot on top of the non-cropped one. This produced the seamless effect you see in the clip where the text is not flipped on either door.

What next for Diamonds Reimagined?

The long re-shoot phase is nearly over now. So after making minor tweaks to some other previously animated scenes, I will then move onto animating the new versions of the scenes in Williard Whyte's Penthouse!

All will become apparent in the next post, which will be another mini update...

Till then!

- The Retro Captain

Mini update #1 - Progress on Las Vegas roadway set: Convention Centre dome

I'll be doing more of these smaller updates for a while, as most of the work on the project at the moment is on individual shots on complex sets for the sequence of Bond pursuing the Ford Econoline to Whyte Tectronics, which I talked about in my last post.

I've finished all the shots set at the petrol station, but now I need a shot of the Aston Martin DBS and Ford Econoline driving past the Whyte House and other buildings. The intention is for it to replace this shot from the original film:

The Ford Mustang will be replaced with the Aston Martin DBS

Here, you can see the work in progress re-creation of the Las Vegas Convention Centre dome, which as per usual with real life locations, I am basing off multiple reference photographs. It will only feature in this one shot, and simply in the background.

This is not the final camera angle - once the set is complete, I will likely choose
a better framing for the shot.

Furthermore, it has become apparent that the shots I originally made for the McCarren International Airport scene need redoing, in order to improve the car animation. Once this drive-by shot is completed, the Airport shots will likely be my next port of call.

Big Scene development post 10: Progress since 2022 and plans for the project in 2024!

Woah! I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog, but fear not - this project is still alive and well! 

Although I have made progress, most of the work has been re-doing or tweaking a number of scenes I'd animated earlier. 

Not because all of them were complete rubbish, but there are often minor details or specific chunks of scenes which I now know I could do better. After all, over the course of creating the animated scenes, I have become more experienced with using the Moviestorm software.

Take the Oil Rig climax for example - in many shots I used a low poly model of a Bell Helicopter, which unfortunately didn't render as well as I'd hoped. 

As you can see in the screenshot below, the texture of the bodywork is just plain white, and the glass of the window is not all the same opacity. 

So I decided to redo a number of shots featuring the white helicopters, and replace them with ones where I use a much more detailed model.

Furthermore, I made alterations to the various shootouts, particularly the one inside Blofeld's office. This was not just to improve the animation or even add special story beats, but simply to make the scene flow better when I re-edit it.

The main thrust of 2023 for the project, however, was of course the re-shoots of the Las Vegas Country Club sequence. As I went over in my last post, I've since become unhappy with the effects I used to bring it to life the first time around. So I decided to use practically no greenscreen, except when neccessary. 

I first re-did the cutaways to Bond and Felix, which are now set on the balcony of Felix's room in the Whyte House, rather than the golf course itself. This was relatively enjoyable to work on, as I naturally prefer animating simple dialogue scenes. The set was basic, but as you'll see in the video of the sequence at the end of this post, I added a few 'easter eggs' on the table. One of them is a reference to the scene from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) when Bond was in Gumbold's office, waiting for his safe cracking gadget to do its work.

I then moved onto building the sets for the golf course itself; both the exterior and the interior. My intention was to more or less replicate the real-life Las Vegas Country Club based on existing photographs from both the 1970s and now.

Credit to vintagelasvegas.com for the fantastic collection of
photographs they have of Las Vegas from this era. Without them,
I would not have had such good reference for building these sort of
exterior sets.

I did naturally use a bit of artistic licence in deciding what to add to the exterior; a dining area, a viewing balcony, etc. The real location may not have had them in the 70s, but I wanted to create good opportunities for interesting shots. I'm very fond of using low angles, not just for artistic purposes; they also allow me to hide the ends of the set.

Of course, the real Las Vegas Country Club is situated behind what used to be The Hilton Hotel (now known as Westgate Hotel); the location used for The Whyte House in the film. So naturally, I had to build a simple model of the WH for the background of the exterior set. I would like to think that Willard Whyte also owns the golf course, which could make it The Whyte House Country Club.

I am overall satisfied with the final result, even if it took an excruciatingly long time to complete the exterior set. I hope it looks pretty convincing to viewers, especially as I had to remove certain parts of it for specific shots just so I had enough memory to render them!

Anyway, having finished that sequence, I have since moved onto the final major scene I will be reshooting. This is the following sequence where Bond pursues first Tiffany, then Saxby and finally Metz through Las Vegas and then into the desert, leading him to the Whyte Tectronics facility. 

In the original film, Bond had already forced Tiffany to help him, so she was the one pursuing Metz to the facility, in her Red Ford Mustang. Bond of course, snuck into the back of the minibus whilst Tiffany stalled Metz at a petrol station. 

In Diamonds Re-Imagined, I changed things up so that Tiffany only learns that Bond is not Peter Franks until after the night-time car chase, so Bond is instead driving in his Aston Martin DBS (which returns from OHMSS!) to pursue Metz. Tiffany meanwhile, is in the minibus with Metz as a passenger, as she has only just passed on the real diamonds.

This is how part of the set for a roadway outside of the Whyte House looked when I started constructing it. Once again, background objects will be important for the creating the right perspective in the shots!

Whilst I am currently building a roadway set to show Bond in the DBS tailing Metz, I have also partially recreated the petrol station from the original film for a few shots. This allows me to replace the Ford Mustang with the DBS in the background.

The original version, with the Ford Mustang.

The animated version - notice Tiffany seated in the back of the minibus!

 That's all for now; the next time I post, I'll go over more of the progress on this scene as I continue building the roadway set. For now, enjoy the finished new version of the Las Vegas Country Club sequence, which replaces the original film's Circus Circus scene:

Till then.

- The RetroCaptain

Big Scene development post 9: The completed Salt Mine fight sequence --> And what's next?

Woo hoo! The scene that's been in my mind ever since I started this project has now been fully animated and a rough edit assembled. 

The climactic Bond V Blofeld fight, playing to a John Barry track that was only briefly heard in the climax of On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

Although I wanted to make it more fast paced, in the vein of the Bond VS 006 fight in Goldeneye (1995), I feel was able to make it work enough as a suitable climax to the film (and Bond's multiple films arc of fighting SPECTRE and its criminal leader).

In the end, it was another case of having to deal with the limitations of the Moviestorm animation software to produce a satisfying sequence.

I suppose in a sense the pace works for two reasons.

1. Both Bond and Blofeld are probably exhausted from the earlier chase (see my last post for that sequence). 

So while they're trying to throw themselves at each other in animalistic fashion, they don't have the energy to keep up the pace at every second.

2. I don't personally see Blofeld as much of a physical fighter, despite the physicality that Telly Savalas had in the role for OHMSS. 

His main focus is just to escape and outwit his opponent, and for the most part he's only fighting Bond when he feels he's cornered or sees a good opportunity.

Now, I should admit that a bit of artistic licence was used in this scene. Obviously there likely aren't multiple set of salt mounds at the real location, nor is there an incomplete footbridge towering above a salt granulator.

However, for the sake of increasing the dramatic potential of the scene, I thought having the fight take place high up to end with Blofeld properly falling into the crusher works nicely.

The reaction from Bond after he has finally killed Blofeld was partly inspired by a similar scene in Licence to Kill (1989). 

After Bond sets Sanchez alight and the villain is consumed in the explosions of the oil tanker, Timothy Dalton chose to play this moment with sincerity; as if Bond is totally exhausted but also relieved since a huge weight has been removed from his shoulders.

If you've just defeated your arch-nemesis, who took so much away from you, and you've been ruthlessly engaging in a no-holds-barred beatdown with them, then a reaction like this makes total sense.

Another thing to add, is that the final shots of Bond looking up to see Felix Leiter and Marc Ange Draco arriving in a Huey Helicopter was actually a last minute addition. As I originally wrote the scene, it just cuts off after Bond observes the bloodied mound of salt below him that Blofeld has been reduced to.

However, in Tom Mankiewicz's original script for Diamonds Are Forever, Blofeld's death in the crusher was in fact followed by a short scene of Willard Whyte landing his helicopter next to Bond, with this dialogue:

Whyte: Where is that bastard, Blofeld?
Bond: Bastard? He is the salt of the earth.

For those of you who don't know, this one-liner is a pun on the phrase 'to be the salt of the earth', which means to be a very good and honest person. 

I didn't think this joke would work well for Bond in Diamonds Reimagined, since Bond is hardly likely to compliment the man who killed his wife, deceased or otherwise.

However, I thought it a decent gag nonethless, so I've saved it for a separate epilogue scene where a different character says it in more jovial circumstances.

Either way, clearly Mankiewicz thought it wouldn't be right just to cut away without giving some indication as to how Bond was able to make his way back to the US from this Mexican salt works. 

It's a fair point, which is why I altered my script to include the Unione Corse Helicopter flying overhead.

So what's next for the project?

With the salt mine climax in the can, I intend to carry a long series of re-shoots of previously finished scenes. 

Though I may have been satisfied with some of them at the time, I've learnt a lot of new ways of animating and set-building within the Moviestorm software over time.

The Las Vegas Country Club sequence for example, which replaces the Circus Circus scene in the original film, used very small sets and backdrops to bring the location to life. Looking back at it, I find that it struggles to convince because of this. 

The heavy use of greenscreen to add more characters and the geography of the action just look cheap, so I essentially have to redo most of it from scratch.

Still, as soon as all the re-shoots have been completed I can get straight back to work on new scenes! This will include scenes set in Willard Whyte's Penthouse, of which I have partially completed re-creating the Ken Adam set for.

Then with most of the sequences set in America finished, I'll begin working on new material for the pre-credits sequence...

Till then!

- The Retro Captain

Many thanks again to the commander007.net website for their analysis of Mankiewicz's original script for DAF at https://www.commander007.net/2016/diamants-eternels-scripts-originaux/

Big Scene development post 8: Salt Mine chase sequence completed & animation of the climatic fight has begun!

The project is now at the crossroads folks! With the chase sequence completed, the suspense built up, and it must now come to a climax. James Bond must avenge Tracy by killing his nemesis Blofeld in hand-to-hand combat!

The fight is fully scripted, and it will be my biggest challenge yet to animate and edit it convincingly.

Now, I'm no stunt choreographer like Bob Simmons or George Leech, but I can certainly take inspiration from their style. 

Do I think I'll create a fight that rivals From Russia With Love's famous train fight? Or the selection of excellent brawls and punch-ups in OHMSS? 

Probably not, though I'll do my best to make this one brutal and memorable.

Here's an excerpt from the script I've written of the beginning of the fight;

The fight will eventually move to a high-up footbridge (that is still under construction), where the pair will continue to engage in fist-cuffs until Blofeld is knocked into a salt granulator below.

It's fair to say old Ernst has lost his marbles, so to speak...

One thing you can probably tell from the production stills above is that I am adding facial scars, bruises and blood to Bond and Blofeld's faces. In the early Connery films you do sometimes see a little bit of blood. 

Something like the fight in From Russia With Love does show a bit of blood, particularly on Bond's hand towards the end. 

So I intend to emulate a little of that, with a little more brutality similar to what's seen with Bond's injuries in films like Casino Royale and Licence to Kill.

And finally, the small but important touch I hope to add to this fight will be its animalistic nature, particularly from Blofeld. 

If you are to treat You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Reimagined as a trilogy, then this fight will feel like a culmination of a years long struggle between two bitter enemies. 

So it deserves to have a certain visceral quality to it, as Bond and Blofeld will no doubt pull no punches in a fight to the death.

To close this post off, I present you with a rough edit of the foot chase leading up to the fight. The audio is not final, and in one shot you can even hear a shout of "action!" by Guy Hamilton from a behind the scenes clip. 

I put that there partly as a joke, but also to give me an authentic feeling during the editing process. Enjoy!