Big Scene development post 6: Sets for Salt Mine sequences are now completed! (AND HAPPY 50TH DAF!)

First of all, I just want to say Happy 50th Anniversary to Diamonds Are Forever! Amazing to think that this diamond in the rough came out half a century ago, delivering one of the most unique and interesting Bond films you could see.

And of course it with its potential and creative ideas it also sparked off inspiration for me in 2018. The inspiration for me to make this still on-going project.

I still maintain that I will do my best to preserve a considerable amount of the original film's spirit. Without sacrificing the On Her Majesty's Secret Service sequel angle that is the whole point of Diamonds Reimagined, of course.

And I believe it's safe to say I've reached a pivotal point of said project. Over the course of this week I have begun animating the sequences set at a salt mine in Mexico. Where Bond and Blofeld shall have their final confrontation; a fight to the death!

There are three main sets built for this scene. The first is the beach set, where Blofeld's Bathosub stops at and the villain discovers Bond hanging from a weather balloon. Not a particularly complex set, as it merely uses false perspective to make it look as if there's a salt mining operation in the distance.

Below is a piece of raw footage of one of the shots filmed on this set for the sequence. It features a take of Blofeld emerging from the Bathosub and then turning around.

The second set is the biggest one of all three; it's a re-creation of the existing salt works operation near the town of Guerrero Negro in Mexico. A little artistic licence allows me to add more enormous mounds of salt that Bond and Blofeld can run up and jump off.

And then there's the third set, arguably the most important of all. 

It features the footbridge where Bond and Blofeld will engage in hand-to-hand combat, ending with Blofeld being thrown down into a salt granulator.

On the conveyor belt below the granulator will be some oddly reddish pink coloured salt mounds, which will mysteriously emerge after Blofeld is killed..

I have no idea how long it will take to animate these sequences (especially the fight, which shall have to be carefully choreographed), but I believe this whole segment will be one of the crowning achievements of this project.

In the meantime, happy returns once again to the original Diamonds Are Forever. May its sparkle lustre on!

- The Retro Captain

Putting the "edit" into "fan-edit" #3 - Main edits to made to scenes kept from the original film

The new animated scenes of Diamonds Reimagined are shaping up to be the biggest part of the film, but production of them takes time. So for now, here's a look at the re-edits made to the main live-action scenes that are staying from the original Diamonds Are Forever film.

There are other live-action edited bits that are not shown in this video, because they're interspersed with animated scenes. So they don't count as full live-action scenes.

Anyway, enjoy!

- The Retro Captain

Small scene showcase: Blofeld's escape from the Oil Rig and the Weather Balloon pursuit

 "Camera follows up the rope to top: BOND - hanging onto base of balloon, hunched up several yards out in the water. CAMERA PULLS BACK to include BLOFELD. He smiles, pulls out a gun.".

- Tom Mankiewicz's 1st draft for DAF (24th Feb 1971) *

"Mary Poppins, I presume?" That's one piece of dialogue from Tom Mankiewicz's original draft for Diamonds Are Forever you won't find me using in this re-edit/animation project.

Certainly though, much of the "lost climax" to DAF that I am busy reconstructing will take inspiration from the broad strokes of Mankiewicz's ideas. But with key changes to make it more suitable for an OHMSS sequel's grittier tone.

The original

The whole situation with the weather balloon pursuit that I have concocted is a little more ambitious than what Mankiewicz wrote. In his version, Bond tails Blofeld into a hidden passageway from the Oil Rig's control room.

The passageway has a hatch that Bond can't enter, but he sees Blofeld through the hatch's window getting into his mini-submarine with water rising around it. Bond then goes up some stairs to a platform which has a weather balloon attached.

He quickly unties it, jumps into the water behind the submarine, then attaches the rope of the balloon to the back of the craft.

The script then does not describe much of the journey of Blofeld's submarine to the salt mine and simply cuts to him arriving at the Mexican coast and then spotting Bond hanging in mid-air behind him (see the above quote).

The "Re-Imagined" scene

The final print of Diamonds Are Forever, of course contains the sequence with the crane which Bond hi-jacks to ram Blofeld's Bathosub into the control room. This is of course will be removed in Diamonds Reimagined.

Whilst I could've written a scene similar to what Mankiewicz envisioned for Blofeld's escape, I instead decide to modify the crane sequence into a scene that now has the weather balloon/Bathosub pursuit.

I always felt the weather balloon idea would've worked amazingly as a real stunt (if it were even possible to do), so why not expand on the idea a little and present more of it in the scene?

For this I wrote the new scene to be something like this:

One of the Oil Rig's legs has already been detonated via limpet mines. This has left parts of the Oil Rig covered in smoke.

Blofeld emerges from a secret passageway under an oil derrick tower. He catches the eye of the crane operator, who is hiding from the withdrawing Unione Corse men.

One Helicopter is still on the Oil Rig. Bond, Felix and Marc Ange Draco are supposed to get on it but they suddenly hear the crane moving behind them.

They look over and barely see through the smoke that the crane is lowering Blofeld in his Bathosub towards the ocean.

Bond gives chase, with Draco giving him his blessing to kill Blofeld once and for all. Bond then climbs up onto the crane and tries to reach the winch at the top.

The crane operator tries to shake him off, but Bond manages to hold on for dear life and attach to the cables an inflatable Q branch weather balloon (with a rope) he takes out of his pocket.

Blofeld gets angry when the crane operator ignores his orders and keeps pulling him out of then onto the water (he doesn't know this is to shake Bond off the crane!). He switches on the engines of the submarine and eventually this snaps the cable/rope connected to the crane.

Bond jumps off the crane, and allows the travelling Bathosub to pull him along as the weather balloon keeps him up in the air. As in Mankiewicz's draft, the submarine heads to the Mexican coast.

A shot of the Bathosub travelling underwater, Blofeld not realising Bond is right above him...

And so that's the new weather balloon sequence I've devised! A somewhat complex scene to construct technically, but I think it will look fun and Bondian on the screen once the project is finished.

I like to think of it as the calm before the storm. The storm that is, being Bond and Blofeld's climatic confrontation at the Mexican salt mine, which will be the next major sequence I will tackle...

- The Retro Captain

* Credit to this fabulous website for details on Tom Mankiewicz's original DAF draft:

https://www.commander007.net/2016/diamants-eternels-scripts-originaux/

Putting the "edit" into "fan-edit" #2 - The Deleted Scenes of DAF

Some Bond fans may have checked out the deleted scenes for Diamonds Are Forever on the Ultimate Edition DVD or Blu-Ray special features, and wondered what might have been if any of them had stayed in the final print.

Because Diamonds Reimagined is of course partly a re-edit of the original film, I did script the project around including a few of the deleted scenes to improve or add to the story. But which ones did I decide were eligible for inclusion? Let's go through them one by one...

Most of the deleted scenes can be viewed online from this YouTube video:

Scene 1: Sammy Davis Jr's cameo

One of the more unusual deleted scenes of the lot, this cameo from Sammy Davis Jr was not liked by Director Guy Hamilton due to Sammy's performance and its irrelevance to the overall plot.

Whilst I can see where he's coming from in that regard, I personally don't mind the scene because Sammy's reaction to Bond highlights the idea that James Bond is considerably more classy than Las Vegas in the 1970s. Not only that, but I think it adds a little authenticity to the film's world since Sammy Davis Jr was a famous performer in Las Vegas casinos.

So it is eligible for inclusion? Maybe so, but I'll go into more detail why with this next scene...

Scene 2: The death of Shady Tree (Extended version)

This scene is fairly morbid for the way in which Wint and Kidd dispatch of Shady Tree, and perhaps it might not have gotten past the censors' if the editors decided to keep it in.

Whilst I do like that the film makes Tree's death a bit of a surprise for Bond to discover, as a fan of Wint and Kidd I just have the urge to give them this little bit of extra screentime. 

Also, since the aim of this project is to make DAF a little more serious in tone so that it works as an OHMSS sequel (some of the humour will remain though), something grim like this I feel would help to sell that tone.

I might indeed include this scene in the re-edit, though one consideration I have made is whether I want to release a slightly longer Director's Cut in addition to the main re-edit. But that's something for me to sort out in the future, so for now let's say yes to the scene's inclusion.

Scene 3: Dinner with Plenty

Credit to Thunderballs.org for this production still of the deleted scene.

This scene from what I can tell was filmed at The Dome of the Sea restaurant, which was part of the Dunes Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. 

Guy Hamilton once explained in an interview with On The Tracks Of 007 creator Martijn Mulder (which can be accessed here for those interested; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS7PsvXL9MA) that the idea of the scene was that it was sort of a "getting to know you" date.

However, because of how small Plenty O'Toole's role is in the story, Hamilton felt the scene was pointless. The audience most likely already figures that she will go to Bond's Hotel Room with the intention of sleeping with him, so why include this scene anyhow?

When re-writing Diamonds Are Forever's plot, I thought along similar lines and didn't include it. What I have included however, is a similar scene in a setting that I have named 'The Atlantic Dining Palace'.

This animated scene of course, has Bond dining with Tiffany Case rather than Plenty. Exactly why I've done this becomes clear when we consider the other Plenty O'Toole deleted scene..

UPDATE: I have since changed my mind on this deleted scene, and have planned to include it in the final edit. This has meant I have had to change the setting of the animated scene mentioned above. More about this will be included in a future post.

Scene 4: Plenty returns!

This is one of the most infamous of the film's deleted scenes, and perhaps because it's one that a good deal of fans feel deserved to kept!

Without this scene, the reveal of Plenty O'Toole's death sort of comes out of nowhere as it's not entirely explained what she was doing at Tiffany's home where Wint and Kidd drowned her in the pool.

Despite that, you may be surprised to learn that I will NOT be including this scene in Diamonds Reimagined. 

Why? Because in the process of re-writing the screenplay, I have changed Plenty's role in the story a good deal to have her not get thrown out of the window by the gangsters from the Slumber Inc mortuary.

So there's no need for this scene in my re-edit whatsoever. Nevertheless, I'm afraid to say that Plenty is still a sacrificial lamb in the re-written story. Though the circumstances of her death are a little different, and you'll have to find out why once the project is finished..

Scene 5: Alternate take of Ford Mustang on two-wheels stunt

I don't think there's any doubt about it, this scene definitely deserves inclusion in Diamonds Reimagined. In fact, I've already edited it into the Las Vegas car chase as well as a couple of alternate takes/angles of other shots from the chase that you can find in the film's special features.

My edit of that moment combines both the unused and used take of the Mustang coming out from the alleyway, with a shot to bridge the gap between them. Why the editors and Guy Hamilton didn't think of something like this, I will never know..

Scene 6: Bond and Tiffany in the Bridal Suite (Extended version)

This is a scene I've not seen a lot of support for keeping in the film, perhaps because it's a little excessive in some places. And not to mention the awkward and unflattering shot of Connery at the end..

It certainly has its problems, and doesn't really advance the plot. Tiffany already knows by now that Bond is not Peter Franks, so in that sense why include it?

Well here's why I have decided to keep it; in my screenplay I've connected it to a new scene where Bond and Tiffany have an introspective discussion about each other. 

This is a way of exploring Bond's grief over the death of Tracy, and how Tiffany may feel sympathy for him. The Fleming novel gives Tiffany a darker backstory of having been gang raped as a teenager, which accounts for her cold demeanour towards Bond at the start of the book.

I thought this may be a good fit for an OHMSS sequel where Bond is similarly troubled by his past, and can find solace in the fact that Tiffany has been through difficult times as well.

I also want to state that I'm a fan of Sean Connery and Jill St John's chemistry in the original film. They clearly got along very well behind the scenes and their dynamic stands as one of the stronger parts of Diamonds Are Forever.

So like with the extended death of Shady Tree scene giving Wint and Kidd more screentime, I honestly would love to see Bond and Tiffany do a little more together in the re-edit.

That being said, I have made some edits to the deleted scene. Not only has the awkward shot of Connery at the end been removed, but I've taken out the part where Tiffany informs Bond that she knows he's not Peter Franks. I think that justifies its inclusion a little more.

Scene 7: Unused footage of Frogmen swimming towards Oil Rig

Not exactly a full deleted scene as it was never completed (see my post on the "Lost Climax" to DAF; https://diamondsareforeverre-imaginedproject.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-lost-climax-planning-re-creation-of.html), but it's unused footage anyway.

I've actually already included this in the re-edit, where it forms part of the modified Oil Rig climax. The idea behind this is that Bond told Willard Whyte that he was going to go aboard Blofeld's Oil Rig to distract him before a US Marines helicopter attack force arrives.

However, when Felix arrives on the Oil Rig to join the battle he informs Bond and Marc Ange Draco that Whyte has also got re-inforcements on the way. And those of course are the Frogmen!

And so those are all the deleted scenes from the original film, and as you can tell I've had to give the screenplay a lot of thought when deciding what to keep for the re-edit.

Story structure and pacing are all important when it comes to film-making. So I'm doing my best to ensure that remains the case with Diamonds Reimagined, even if the final film may end up being a similar length to On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

- The Retro Captain

Big Scene development post 5: Oil Rig sequences almost complete...

 Woah, it's been quite a while since the last post, hasn't it? Truth be told, although I've not updated this blog since May there has been an immense amount of progress made since then. 

What else was I doing in the meantime? 

I've been interacting with the Bond community on Twitter, re-watching various Bond films to put myself in the right frame of mind and made key alterations to the script to tighten dialogue and action up.

And yes, I did hear that No Time To Die might finally come out. So I'm quite excited for that too! But anyway, there's a lot of ground to cover in this post about what I've completed for the project, so here goes...

1. The Oil Rig battle sequence is finished!

Yes, the first major set-piece of the finale is done. It took me roughly 3 and a half months, but the end result I think is decently satisfying. 

 This is your You Only Live Twice/On Her Majesty's Secret Service style battle with a good guy army (in this case Draco's Unione Corse are back!) against a bad guy army (SPECTRE henchmen).

It's required careful methods of filming to hide certain parts of the sets which don't contain characters when they should. 

But sometimes you need large numbers of characters on set at once, so you have to plan in advance to know which have been killed and must by lying dead. Or which ones you can place wherever you want to be doing things in the background.

I studied the style in which Bond Directors like Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert and naturally Peter Hunt would've shot these battle sequences. Which I hope adds a degree of authenticity to the finished scene. And I have every respect for those Directors because it must've been really tough to handle such a large amount of extras on set!

The editing was actually tougher than I originally anticipated. So much had to be reordered, cut and sometimes even re-shot to make it work. The key was to build tension to the final countdown, so that your audience doesn't lose sight of the stakes involved. After all, the battle musn't just become a mindless set of shooting and explosions.

2. Minor re-shoots performed on the Motorbike Chase + editing decisions made for the sequence

The escape from Whyte Tectronics + Motorbike chase scene as I originally animated and edited it totalled to about 9 minutes. And I wasn't totally impressed by some of the effects I had produced for stunts such as the Motorbike driving off a cliff.

That's because some of it was done with lots of chroma-key (greenscreen/redscreen..). And having learnt some new tricks that allowed me to move Helicopters diagonally in the Oil Rig scenes, I knew I could do better.

So these shots are among the improved ones I animated during the re-shoots, and they show the Motorbike actually moving up and down on the desert terrain. And I'm much more satisfied with these than the lacklustre original shots.

As I was working on these replacement shots, I also came to the conclusion that the sequence itself was far too long. Whatever you do with an action sequence (especially in Bond films) I don't think it should be too excessive.

That's the reason why I've made the tough decision to cut out 2/3 of the Motorbike chase, which contains a part on a desert road and a part with a dune buggy, for timing reasons. I feel this is for the best, especially since I'm keeping the Las Vegas car chase with the Ford Mustang which will come after the Motorbike chase.

3. The last scene to be set on the Oil Rig is currently being animated

The climax to Diamonds Reimagined is set to be quite big in itself, and it will take a while before I can do the Salt Mine chase + final fight between Bond and Blofeld. In the meantime, I'm working on a short sequence of Blofeld attempting to escape the Oil Rig while Bond pursues.

One key part of this has been finished, and it's a series of shots of the Oil Rig exploding. Yes, in proper classic Bond style I have to include a part where the villain's base is totally destroyed. 

So like John Stears or Derek Meddings would've done, I had to build a smaller scale Oil Rig model (albeit virtually, since this is an animated scene) with several pieces that could "breakaway" and look as if they're falling into the ocean.

Naturally, there had to be several smoke and splash effects to sell the destruction of the Oil Rig. One of the legs of the Rig had already been destroyed by limpet mines earlier in the story, and the rest detonate almost simultaneously as timed by Felix Leiter and the CIA. Then of course it begins sinking...

As of now, I'm getting close to finishing off everything on this damn Oil Rig set. Bond is climbing up the crane to attach a special Q Branch weather balloon to Blofeld's Bathosub, whilst the Crane Operator tries to shake him off.

 So that's everything I can update you on now. The filming of the finale is in full swing, and hopefully by the end of this year I may have finished most of it. Once that's done, it's off to more re-shoots of earlier scenes.

So till then!

- The RetroCaptain

Big Scene development post 4: The Oil Rig climax (Part 2 - Helicopters V Oil Rig)

 At long last, I'm actually animating part of the expanded Oil Rig battle! Specifically the additional Helicopter sequences, which involve certain characters as described in my screenplay.

One of the main new Helicopter sequences of interest is that of a Helicopter getting shot by a turret gun from one of the Oil Rig's towers. Although this is seen happening twice in the original film, the explosion effect simply covers the screen and it cuts away before we can see what happens to the Helicopter.

Presumably this was due to the cheaper special effects the film used, or it was just a directorial choice by Guy Hamilton or whoever was responsible for directing the aerial shots. However, with this project I decided I would at least include one or two shots of a Helicopter crashing into the ocean:

A production still of the Helicopter exploding in mid-air!

Inside the burning cockpit, the pilot coughs due to the smoke
and loses control of the Helicopter...

Initially, most of the Helicopter shots were to be done with bluescreen/greenscreen effects as I did not have a method of getting the Helicopters to move as I wanted them to. However, now I do have a useful technique to enable them to fly not just forwards but vertically.

One of my favourite elements of the expanded Oil Rig Battle currently being animated is that the character of Marc Ange Draco (as well as the Unione Corse) is taking part in it!

Marc Ange Draco (right), Toussiant (second on the left) and Draco's chaffueur (first on the left and in background) come under fire whilst fighting in Blofeld's office on the Oil Rig.

Yes, and I've already animated most of the sequence where he makes his arrival via the Rig's Helipad. Like in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Unione Corse will be using white Huey Helicopters. This helps to differentiate them from the US Marines' Helicopters.

Draco's Helicopter comes into land on the Helipad of Blofeld's off-shore Oil Rig.

Draco charges into battle, ready to assist his son in-law James Bond and CIA Agent Felix Leiter...

In addition to the Helicopter scenes, I also have to finish off the Frogmen sequences, which were mentioned in my post about DAF's lost climax.

This involves them swimming towards the legs of the Oil Rig and then swimming away once they've attached the limpet mines. And of course, there'll be some explosion effects to simulate the detonation of the mines.

As you can tell, most of these are complex special effect shots that will only make up small sections (or even shots!) of the Oil Rig Battle scene. Once they're finished, the next part on schedule will be the main parts of the fighting on the Rig itself, featuring Draco's Unione Corse troops against SPECTRE henchmen!

 

See you next post for an update on the progress for that section!

- The RetroCaptain

The lost climax of Diamonds Are Forever: Reconstructing the Frogman sequence & the unfilmed Salt Mine showdown...

"I was, around that time, intrigued, because I had seen a few stills of a huge salt thing in Baja California, or the Mexican end. 

Miles and miles of white mountains and I rather fancied Sean in black, running around on these white mountains. 

And presumably, there'd be big machinery that would suck the stuff in. We couldn't get permission to go there, so that more or less killed that."
 - Guy Hamilton (Director of Diamonds Are Forever) *

A mock-up of Bond running around giant salt mounds as Guy Hamilton describes

What was the original climax?

Some Bond fans may have heard of the original concept for Diamonds Are Forever's climax, devised by the film's co-writer Tom Mankiewicz and its director Guy Hamilton. In addition to the CIA Helicopter attack on Blofeld's off-shore oil rig, there was to have been explosive-bearing Frogmen who would've demolished it. **

As we can see on the Ultimate Edition DVD special features, it appears part of the Frogmen sequences were indeed shot. Similar to the underwater battle in Thunderball, these sequences were rehearsed on the surface. ***

The released footage shows the Frogmen leaping into the sea from Marines Huey Helicopters with containers for limpet mines, then swimming in groups in the direction of the oil rig. 

Interestingly, there is no footage of the Frogmen reaching the legs of the rig and detonating the explosives. Perhaps because that part was never shot, which would appear to be the case as Michael Wilson's commentary over the footage says the scene was scrapped during filming.

I presume that the Frogmen would then have detonated mines on one or more of the Oil Rig's legs to destroy the control centre so that Blofeld's laser satellite would be stopped.

The other element of the finale that never came to be was a confrontation between Bond and his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld at a Salt Mine in Mexico. 

Rather than Blofeld's Batho-Sub being crashed into the Oil Rig's control centre by Bond, the villain would have escaped from the Rig in his aforementioned midget submarine. Meanwhile, Bond would have followed along via a Weather Balloon. The intention was for them to arrive at a salt mine in the Mexican part of Baja California, where there would be a fight to the death between the two, climbing across gigantic hills of salt. **

In a gruesome turn, Blofeld would have fallen to his death in a salt granulator (rather than a chimney as was his eventual death in the series, seen in For Your Eyes Only's pre-credits sequence).

As Hamilton states in the quote above, the owners of the salt mine did not give them permission to film at the location, thereby scrapping much of the planned finale for good.

But it seems there was another obstacle to this extended climax making it to the screen; the running time. In one interview, Guy Hamilton revealed that the script for Diamonds Are Forever was originally timed at two and a half hours. *****

The previous entry in the series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) was the longest Bond film up to that point, with its 142 minutes running time beating even the 130 minutes of the heavily successful Thunderball (1965).

Hamilton explained why a long running time was not acceptable to cinemas at the time; 

"in America they’d lose one show, possibly two shows, each day where they began at 10 am, then another one at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and at 10 pm. So when I got to sign my contract, the picture had to be under two hours or else I had a penalty clause you had never seen in your life." *****

Simply put; even if the climax was filmed as originally planned, it's very likely that much of it wouldn't have made into the final print. So it's understandable why Hamilton had to make this tough decision to shorten the finale.

Re-imagining the "lost climax"

And that brings us to the purpose of this post; how have I approached re-imagining this sequence for the climax of my Diamonds Are Forever Re-Imagined project?

Since this project is a live-action fan-edit/animation hybrid, most of the climax will be animated as with the majority of the new sequences I'm working on, but with a few live-action scenes from the original film's Oil Rig climax.

The deleted footage of the Frogmen I mentioned earlier is an immensely important asset; without it, I'm not sure how I could possibly begin to re-construct that sequence from scratch. Therefore the only bits of that section of the climax that I would need to animate would be the Frogmen deploying the limpet mines to the Rig.

As for the Salt Mine confrontation, I've done a little bit of research to try and get an understanding of what Guy Hamilton and Tom Mankiewicz had in mind, since the screenplay for Diamonds Are Forever has not been released online to my knowledge.

The Oil Rig sequences were shot on a semi-portable Rig hired by the film crew, off the coast of Oceanside California. * In the film, the map in Willard Whyte's Penthouse places the Rig on the coast of Baja California.

From what I've been able to find out, there is indeed a salt works (founded in the 1950s) in the Baja peninsula around the Ojo de Liebre lagoon and near a town called Guerrero Negro. ****

While I have no information to confirm this, I think it's possible that this is the same location that Guy Hamilton mentioned seeing stills of, but was unable to film there.

Using photographs such as these of the location for reference (as well as some artistic licence), I'll visualise some exterior sets in Moviestorm. Hopefully it will enable me to replicate the broad strokes of Mankiewicz's planned climax to Diamonds Are Forever.

For now, here are some stills of how I envision the epic confrontation between Bond and Blofeld (albeit with the likeness of Telly Salavas rather than Charles Gray). Taking place on a gantry high above the ground after a pursuit across giant hills of salt, it will be by all means a gritty and tough brawl for sure...

These sources greatly helped with my research into DAF's "lost climax":

* Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition DVD, Commentary Track (Region 2)

** MI6-hq.com Trivia - Diamonds Are Forever

*** Some Kind of Hero (By Matthew Field & Ajay Chowdury)

**** Guerrero Negro site

***** Guy Hamilton interview - Filmtalk.org

Big Scene development post 4: The Oil Rig climax (Part 1 - Bond's arrival on the Oil Rig & scenes in the control centre)

UPDATE: Some of the scenes I talk about here in this post have been cut down and re-edited to get to the Oil Rig Battle scene quicker.

And now we've reached a pivotal point of this project; the time I can work on animating a re-jigged version of the Oil Rig climax from the original film. 

Taking inspiration from the climaxes of the two Bond films that preceded Diamonds Are Forever (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), this will enhance the scale of SPECTRE's last stand immensely and provide a more satisfying conclusion than what we originally got.

So far, I have animated the scene showing Bond's arrival on board the Oil Rig and everything set inside the Rig's interiors. This includes Blofeld's office and the Ken Adam designed control centre with all the computer banks and technicians.

As you may be able to tell from these stills, this scene here shows Bond sneaking aboard the Oil Rig before getting captured. In the original film, he was captured immediately after emerging from an inflatable sphere in the ocean. 

Here however, he discards the guards who discover him at the recovery platform and spends time climbing his way up to the top before he is caught. This is because he is purposefully trying to distract Blofeld and buy some time for the CIA's helicopter attack force to arrive.

Although some of the lines from Gray's Blofeld in the original film have been kept for this confrontation, this Blofeld is in no mood to keep Bond a prisoner. And he'd rather have him executed...

"I learn from my mistakes, Mr Bond."

The trickiest of the interior scenes to animate were the ones where dear old Professor Dr Metz is arguing with Blofeld over the choice between surrendering or fighting to the very end.

Metz: "You don't give a damn about peace! All you care about is-"
Blofeld: "Oh, shut up Metz!"

There are two things I had to keep in mind with these dialogue scenes. Firstly, I had to decide where to put all the technicians/scientists working on the computer banks in the background. They all had to be doing something on-screen, which made the whole situation more convincing.

Secondly, I would focus on Blofeld and Metz's facial expressions whilst they argue. The problem was that the Moviestorm software came under strain from having to process so many additional background characters that some ended up being removed to save memory.

Thankfully, I think my animating of the principal characters in the scene came out well. I payed close attention to Joseph Furst's portrayal of Metz in the original film to match his reactions to Blofeld's arrogant attitude. Blofeld on the other hand, was a different story altogether.

Since the likeness of the character model I use for him is mainly based off Telly Savalas, I couldn't just copy Charles Gray's performance from DAF. But I decide to incorporate elements of all three classic Blofelds:

1. The creepy cold stare, menace and scar of Donald Pleasance (You Only Live Twice)

2. The hand gesturing whilst holding a cigarette & the imposing physicality of Telly Savalas (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)

3. The pompous arrogance and aristocratic tone of Charles Gray (The original DAF)

Though this Blofeld will be far less charming and polite, I must add.

Also, I wanted to show this version of Blofeld in my fan-edit to act like he's having a villainous break-down. This is inspired by the version of Blofeld in the You Only Live Twice novel by Ian Fleming, which presents him as a de-ranged and rambling foe with an aggressive fighting style (something which will be important in a later scene of this fan-edit...).

The schedule for remaining Oil Rig scenes

I've split up the Oil Rig climax I have scripted into various chunks that are animated out of sequence. This is mainly to simplify things, as I'd prefer not to continually switch between sets by doing it in chronological order.

With interiors finished, next on the list is the filming of shots featuring Helicopters. The original film has quite a few of these, and the Ultimate Edition bonus disc does contain more out-takes of Helicopters attacking the rig.

But the ones I have scripted are required to show specific characters inside, such as Felix Leiter and Willard Whyte.

After that, I will move onto the battle scenes. A certain friend of Bond's will parachute onto the Rig with a small army of men to assist 007 in attacking the control centre.

The battle is more likely to be of a similar scale to the assualt on Piz Gloria in OHMSS, but I will also take some inspiration from the fighting seen in YOLT's Volcano Base attack. 

All will become clear in the next update on this enormous action sequence...

- The Retro Captain