The 007 stage at Pinewood

Press, 19 November 1981, Page 17

The 007 stage at Pinewood

Although most of the breathtaking underwater sequences in ‘‘For Your Eyes Only” were shot by a special movie unit, headed by the world-famous marine photographer, Al Giddings, in the Bahamas, the match-up scenes were filmed in a special water tank constructed in the unique 007 Silent Stage at Pinewood Studios, England. The producer. Albert A. Broccoli, and his then-pro-duction designer. Ken Adam, had. with tne British architect. Michael Brown, built the massive stage in 1976 for the atomic submarine sequences in the Bond film. “The Spy Who Loved Me.” It has since been used for other films, including “Superman" and “Clash of the Titans.” The 007 Stage measures 115 m by 49m and is 41m high. It incorporates a tank measuring 107 m by 23m with a depth 4.9 m to 5.5 m. For scenes in the latest James Bond production, only a portion of the existing tank was utilised and kept to a constant temperature of 24 degrees Celsius. An "observation window" was set into one end, for filming purposes, and a bank of monitor screens at the side showed exactly what was being filmed by the under-water cameras at any given moment. The two-man submarine, Neptune, and the one-man submersible, Mantis, were used, plus a team of stuntmen expert in underwater work. The second unit director. Arthur Wooster, and his team had to don frogman’s ■ suits, equipped with oxygen supply, and work for long periods underwater. Rubber rafts were in constant use for surface work and transportation. The whole complex operation

continued, apart from the main shooting unit, for over eight weeks. SNOW SEQUENCES Some of the most breathtaking and unbelievable snow action shots ever to be seen in a Bond movie or, indeed, any movie, are featured in “For Your Eyes Only.” They include sequences involving skiing, a ski-jump, a bobsleigh run and a Biathalon Contest and were all filmed in and around the famed Italian ski-resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Dolomites, with the expert advice and participation of the second unit director and photographer, Willy Bognor, one of the world's top skiing champions and cinematographers. Bognor had photographed the spectacular snow sequences for two earlier Bond films, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and “The Spy Who Loved Me," including the famous opening scene for the latter picture, in which Bond, on skis, took off over a high precipice and floated down gracefully by parachute with a Union Jack emblazoned on the canopy. Bognor has produced, directed and photographed approximately 30 films, documentaries, features and German TV specials, many of them dealing with skiing. He has developed some unique camera techniques for photographing skiing sequences and, for several key shots for “For Your Eyes Only,” actually skied backwards down a ski-jump, filming close-ups of following skiers. In another dramatic sequence, he skied between a spiked-wheeled motorcycle and a bob-sled, during a high-speed chase scene on the famous Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympic bob-run.