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How ‘No Time To Die’ Pulled Off James Bond’s Opening Chase | Movies Insider - YouTube
Channel: Insider
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Narrator: This is the climax
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of the opening car chase
in "No Time To Die."
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To pull this off with hardly any CGI,
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the Bond crew had to figure out
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how to imitate bullet impacts
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and then line each one up with
the car's prop machine guns.
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Chris Corbould: I think the
beauty of this sequence is
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it is probably 95% for real.
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Narrator: And that's just one element
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of an opening sequence that involved
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10 versions of the Aston Martin,
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hundreds of fake bullets,
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and 8,400 gallons of soda.
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Here's how they did it.
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As soon as director Cary
Fukunaga found Matera, Italy,
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he knew the claustrophobic
paths and steep slopes
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were the perfect place
to put 007 in peril.
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We went out to Matera
probably 13, 14 times,
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finding locations, dreaming up ideas.
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Narrator: That's Chris Corbould,
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special effects and car
supervisor for "No Time To Die."
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While Corbould has overseen tank chases
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and record-shattering explosions
for the Bond franchise,
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this shoot presented a
surprising challenge:
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cobblestone streets.
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Matera's ancient streets weren't suitable
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for vehicles going 80 miles per hour.
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While beautiful, the
roads were also slippery,
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with less traction compared
to modern asphalt roads.
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So stunt coordinator Lee Morrison
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came up with an unusual solution.
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Soda.
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He sprayed 8,400 gallons of
sugary soda on the cobblestone.
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Once dried, the sugar made
the surface extremely sticky,
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giving the tires much better grip.
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The drivers could then
make sharp turns, drift,
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and go up narrow corridors.
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I was skeptical at first myself about it,
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but when I saw it,
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it absolutely paid dividends.
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Narrator: Once the roads
were suitable for driving,
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Bond could ride on a motorcycle
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and execute a daring jump
to reach the town square.
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The memorable moment was
done without a green screen.
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Craig's stunt double had
to jump a 25-foot ramp
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going exactly 60 miles per hour
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and then drop down 12
feet onto the road above.
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To hide the ramp,
filmmakers added this arch
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as a clever VFX cover.
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After four takes, they
had the shot they needed.
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The next part of the chase
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sees Bond hop in his Aston Martin,
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but the crew couldn't use
just one car for this.
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They alternated between 10
versions depending on the shot.
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Two of them were the real
version, used for beauty shots.
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The rest were replicas.
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Two had driving pods on the roof,
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so a stunt driver could
drive at high speeds
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while the cameras captured
Daniel Craig pretending to steer;
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four were driven by stunt
drivers inside the car
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for exterior shots;
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and two had all the
gadgets built into them.
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One such gadget was the mine dispenser,
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which Bond activates here,
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causing this black car to flip.
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In reality, those mines
were made with rubber,
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and these simulated explosions
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were electrical charges set to go off
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as the car drove over them.
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The flip provided another issue.
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Because the car was going so fast,
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it couldn't be attached to a fixed point,
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so cables, which were usually
effective, weren't an option.
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So the crew needed a different approach
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to flip the car without losing speed.
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They placed a nitrogen cannon
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facing down under the driver's side.
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When activated with the push of a button,
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it lifted the car into the air.
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The stunt coordinator wanted to keep it
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a bit more realistic
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and have it look like it was
just lifting up onto its side.
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Narrator: But a dangerous stunt like this
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meant they had to protect
not only the stunt driver,
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but also the city's old buildings.
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Corbould: Some of those buildings
are over 1,000 years old.
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And Bond has a history
and prides themselves
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on not damaging anywhere they go.
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Narrator: So they padded the buildings
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with protective concrete barriers,
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dressed up by the art department
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to look just like the
existing architecture.
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This layer of protection
was especially crucial
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for one of the sequence's biggest moments,
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where Bond does a full doughnut in the DB5
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while firing the car's
headlight machine guns.
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The mechanics of the revolving ones
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gave us a huge amount of
firepower for the bullet impacts.
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Narrator: Each bullet impact
had to be synchronized
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with the exact spot
the guns were pointing.
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The effects team couldn't
be off by even a second,
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or they'd risk ruining the illusion.
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First, they used a line
lock on the car's brakes,
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which helped keep the doughnuts
consistent for each take.
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The stunt car's hydraulic hand brake
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locked off the car's left front wheel.
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Once the driver released the brake,
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the car could spin on its own.
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It's almost like a pivot.
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So when you press the
throttle to the floor,
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you're actually pivoting around
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that wheel that's locked off.
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Narrator: The car also had to move
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in sync with the gunfire.
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Corbould: We had a line where we knew
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the guns were lined up,
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and we knew that it took
one and a half seconds
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to get from there to the next segment.
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Narrator: So Corbould planted squibs
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simulating bullet impacts
all around the square.
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Each of these was
attached to a firing box.
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Because they were set
to an automated timer,
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the devices would fire only
when perfectly lined up
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where the guns pointed.
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Meanwhile, the stunts and effects team
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had to ensure the safety of
the actors and stunt drivers.
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Right before going into doughnut mode,
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Craig and Léa Seydoux had to be seen
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from the inside of the car
as the DB5 got shot up.
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So Corbould fired about
200 pellets at the windows.
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Each fake bullet created
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a bullet-hole-like
shape before shattering,
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and the car's windows were layered
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with a strong plastic
called polycarbonate.
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It would break the glass,
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but there was certainly no way
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that it would get through the plastic.
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Narrator: While that was happening,
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a crew member vibrated the
car in sync with each impact.
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Finally, there was the
Connery-era smoke screen,
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which Bond employs to make a getaway.
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The screen needed to
let off way more smoke
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than an actual car exhaust.
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So Corbould took off the car's exhaust
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and replaced it with injectors
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used to make smoke effects in movies.
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We're using the heat
coming out of the engine
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to make the smoke in the exhaust.
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Narrator: Funnily
enough, these final shots
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of Bond and Madeleine speeding away
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were filmed before any of the
preceding action was shot.
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The last thing that we wanted to do
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was lose one of our cars in
the first part of the sequence,
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because you never know how
many you're going to use up.
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Narrator: So they ended
up faking the damage.
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First, the crew put vinyl wraps on the car
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and scratched them up.
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Then a mixture of glue,
glitter, and glass shards
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created the illusion of bullet holes.
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Corbould: If you got
really up close to them,
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you could probably see
that they weren't real.
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But, you know, the speed
they were going at,
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they held up perfectly.
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Narrator: All of this work was done
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for just the beginning of the movie,
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showing just a sliver of how much thought
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goes into a James Bond stunt --
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and how much soda, too.
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