Update #2 on (mostly) completed animated scenes

Some good progress has been made since my inital post on this subject, but this time I'd like to share some production stills that give a little more insight into what the scenes are about:

SCENE 1

"I don't know James, I think that's taking it a bit too far..." - Felix Leiter

Yes, it's Bond and Felix Leiter! Clearly having a heated conversation in a hotel room, which happens to be Bond's luxury suite in the Whyte House. 

In my original visualisation of the scene, Bond was still wearing the three-piece black suit he wears during his visit to Slumber Inc in the original film. You can see this in this test image I created before animating the scene:

But I later decided to have Bond just wear his shirt and tie for the final scene as it seemed more appropriate for the mood that the characters were in. Also, Bond is going to change into his white dinner jacket for the Casino scenes so it makes sense to show that he's going to change out of the black suit!

On a side note, you may notice the background paintings on the walls behind Felix and Bond. These are a deliberate stylistic choice to reflect the theme of The Whyte House hotel.

Obviously we can see in the original film some subtle details reflecting the way the Hotel themes its areas around different US Presidents (hence the "Lincoln Lounge" where Shady Tree does his comedy act being an obvious reference to Abraham Lincoln). 

My intention here was to extend the theme slightly by showing paintings of battles from both the American War of Independence and the American Civil War (both events involved a famous US President!) to suggest there are multiple hotel suites in the Whyte House that are designed this way.

SCENE 2

"Say, why don't we go someplace and have a drink?
" - Plenty O'Toole

This is a new sequence taking place directly after the original film's famous Casino sequence set in the Whyte House gambling halls where Bond meets Plenty O'Toole. Now the original scenes were shot at the Riviera Hotel and Casino (which was torn down in 2016) so I looked at some reference photographs of that hotel's hallways to inspire the set you see here.

Fountains, pillars, a patterned floor and even a nicely textured wall seemed to do the trick, but just to make sure that it still seemed a part of the Whyte House I added a white ceiling and some white walls near the stairs and the lift you see in this still:

SCENE 3

Tiffany: "You say you're some kind of secret agent?"

Bond: "Oh, just a civil servant."

In my last post on this subject I showed that I'd recreated the Bridal Suite from the original film to redo the sequence where Felix Leiter visits Bond and Tiffany after the Las Vegas car chase. The same set was re-used for this scene where our two lead characters have a personal chat about each other, albeit with slightly more moody yet intimate lighting.

One of the challenges with this sequence was selling the characters' emotions without overdoing them. My script gave a fair bit of detail on this but I decided to focus heavily on as many gestures as possible throughout their conversation. 

Their posture, where their eyes move and especially their facial expressions had to change whenever the tone shifted, but I was also careful to ensure none of these details went out of character. Take Bond for example: I was adamant that the emotion he shows had to be subtle yet noticeable. In the words of On Her Majesty's Secret Service director Peter Hunt; "James Bond doesn't cry!".

SCENE 4

This scene is pretty short but a more recent addition to the fan-edit that does not actually appear in my script. It's based off some deleted footage that's not found anywhere on any home media release but does kind of appear in a few documentaries, including the BBC's Looking For Mr Bond, which can be found online. It's shot from behind the film crew in 4:3 however, and not taken directly from the film cameras themselves.

From what I can tell it's a scene showing Bond and the CIA (now accompanied by Willard Whyte!) returning to the Whyte Tectronics facility and meeting Tom (played by the late Shane Rimmer). In the original film this footage seems to have been removed in the edit and starts the scene at a different point.

But I thought it looked pretty neat so I plan to reinsert it via this animated version into my fan-edit. Here's the current version of it if you're interested, also including a reaction from Sean Connery to the cameraman after the end of the take: