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