Videoblog Bond Spectre Gallery MexicoThe latest SPECTRE video blog focuses on the filming that was carried out earlier this year for the pre-credits sequence in Mexico City, with a special emphasis taken in the Vlog on the huge amount of behind-the-scenes preparation and make-up work that went into the ‘Day of the Dead’ festivities, celebrations which provide a colourful backdrop to the opening scenes.

Director Sam Mendes is seen in the new Vlog in action in Mexico City issuing his instructions on camera positions to crew members, and also checking out camera perspectives for himself. Explaining his reasons for choosing the ‘Day of the Dead’ festival for SPECTRE, Mendes commented: ‘I wanted the audience to be dropped into the middle of a very, very specific, very heady, rich environment. It’s the Day of the Dead, everywhere you look there’s colour and detail and life. We’ve built floats and maquettes, the costumes are extraordinary and the craftsmanship is amazing’.

As the new Vlog clearly illustrates, the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ (Dia de los Muertos) festival will provide a perfect setting for the energetic foot-chase engaged in by 007 through the crowded streets and into the famous Zocalo Square. The shooting in Mexico City took approx three weeks, and the ‘Day of the Dead’ scenes saw a large number of extras all having to be made up and ready in their costumes for each day’s shooting. This involved a complex logistical operation, processing all the extras and getting them into appropriate costumes, with special attention paid to making up ‘skeletal’ and ‘dead’ facial charactersistics on each person involved. Tere was very impressive attention to fine detail in each case. Huge catrina skeletons, known locally as ‘Dapper Skeletons’ and ‘Elegant Skulls’, will also add tremendous visual impact to the sequence.

As the JBIFC has noted in previous posts, the pre-credits for the new Bond movie promise to be very spectacular. A few weeks ago EON co-producer Michael G. Wilson revealed that ‘it is maybe the biggest sequence we’ve done’, while Daniel Craig also similarly commented: ‘It’s one of the biggest opening sequences I think the Bond franchise has ever done’.

Further shooting for the Mexico City sequences has been carried out in recent weeks at Pinewood Studios, including some further work on the gritty helicopter fight sequence between Bond and an adversary that forms the climax to the pre-credits. Live and let high!

To check out the new SPECTRE Vlog, go to: www.007.com

 

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