Friday, October 15, 2021
The SFX supervisor on 'No Time To Die' breaks down the film's five biggest practical effects
befores & afters: Chris Corbould has worked on 15 James Bond films, and has been the special effects supervisor for nine of them; No Time To Die is his latest. And amongst all that intense practical effects supervision, he has slowly been transitioning into second unit directing, an area he now plans to concentrate on.
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As a more casual movie watcher, I don’t think about special effects too much when watching a film. Also, I almost never watch films with big explosions or stunts such as these, but it was very interesting to learn about them, nonetheless. Something I was surprised by, first of all, was that Daniel Craig was actually driving the car in the donut sequence, as it is a very dangerous stunt for the actor. Still, it’s interesting because it adds a layer of authenticity to his performance. Although not necessarily related to special effects, it was great to learn about the use of the different locations and how they were incorporated into the stunts. The effects always need a backdrop, so the location is still very important. I think that with new technology films can rely too much on editing and non-practical effects so it’s refreshing to see this film using all the real stuff.
I went through a huge special effect phase in middle school so I love stuff like this, especially at this scale. It really is magnificent to hear about the production team blowing an entire boat up twice because the first taket wasn’t just right. More than likely both of those takes cost tens of thousands of dollars. The underwater rig also blew me away, because I’ve heard how difficult shooting in those massive tanks can be. Another super interesting part of the interview is Chris Corbould’s talk about moving from stunts to direction. There has been a theme of stunt directors becoming feature DIrectors, most notably with the John Wick movies and so far the legacy has been squeaky clean, with some very impressive films to boot. I’m very excited to see what Chris Corbould goes on to do, in both stunt work, second-unit direction, or feature direction because I think he has a great sense of scale. If I was hiring a stunt director, or any sort of director, I would probably chose whichever one proposed that we blow up a bout and sink the lead underwater essentially in a coffin.
I love how Chris Corbould referred to the sinking ship as a rotisserie, the way the effect is described with the bubbles and tilted staircases sounds really cool and it’s amazing that it’s a practical effect. It’s also impressive that they gave the effect of the trawler boat exploding, but did it in a way that kept the boat in good condition to return to the owner. I haven’t seen the movie so I’m not sure where all the scenes take place but it was interesting to learn the different places they shot in; Jamaica, Scotland, etc. I don’t know much about special effects or the work process of the people involved in them. Specifically, all the information about Corbould’s work in second unit directing, previsualization, and the stress of being a special effects supervisor revealed a whole side of film production I don’t hear much about as someone in the costume department.
I have always been interested in special effects. It really is the only part of film and tv that entices me at all. Similarly to what Jeremy said, it is awesome that films take so much pride in making sure these special effects are perfect that they blew up a boat twice for this movie. While that obviously could not have been done without the proper funding, it is great that they were able to secure the funds to really make the exact look the directors wanted. Part of me has always been interested in getting into the special effects world after I graduate. To me, the fire and explosions are not the most interesting. I want to work on contraptions that allows cars to do wild things like the DB5 doing donuts in this article or making things to be able to film wild off road scenes like with the Defenders in the article.
I’ve always found learning about these kinds of large-scale film special effects to be highly interesting because they’re almost always unable to be integrated into live theatre. Prior to reading this article I did see a trailer for James Bond: No Time to Die a few weeks ago, and I saw a clip of the Aston Martin-donuts-minigun stunt special effects supervisor Chris Corbould explains in the article. Even though I remember that I found that scene to be somewhat ridiculous, it was still really fascinating to read about how they achieved that crazy effect through camera work and really precise timing. The three consecutive explosions they coordinated for one of the final scenes were very impressive as well; reading about all the measurements and numerical analysis that went into the planning and execution of those (really dangerous) stunts was a reminder of all the details and meticulousness that goes into such grandiose effects.
The special effects in ALL of the James Bond movies have been so incredible to watch. It was so interesting to read more about the specifics behind all of these effects that Chris Corbould was responsible for all 15 movies. I also am extremely impressed that he has been in this role for all of the 15 movies in the series. He must be extremely talented and from the article it seems like he really loves what he does. I also loved reading about the Land Rover Defender scene and how those were all real stunts. It was really interesting to see how he worked with Jaguar Land Rover to make sure all of these prototype vehicles were safe and specifically able to be used for this movie, making the necessary alterations to them to make them safer and do more intricate stunts with them. This work is so amazing to me and really helps to make the magic of the movie come to life.
It’s always fun to read or watch how special effects are done in movies, to see the behind the scenes of how practical and special effects are done. I really like all the fun and humorous names they gave to certain scenes and locations. It was also interesting to read how they outfitted the Land Rover Defenders to do the rolls down the hill. It’s also nice to see how much fun these people are having when they do things like this and makes me wonder what it’s like to be on set with these teams as they work on these effects. The fact that they did off location testing before moving to on location filming is also interesting and I wonder what the setup and conditions for that would be. Do they build a skeleton of the set or piece they are working with and test it a bunch, or is it a controlled and isolated event on testing material?
I remember the time when I was really interested in SFX – the blend between real world and computer generated imagery intrigued me. What I really respect for SFX people is their determination in getting things right. I suppose their works take great consideration of everyone and the surrounding enviroment’s safety as I’m sure they do not want to damash things that are not meant to be damaged. Especially when shooting outdoors in the real world, where things cannot be undone, they must take extra care and predetermine all the possibilities. Also, I admire how a lot of their works are just trial and error processes — there are truly no shortcuts. Even when every detail is planned, there could always be external factors that affect the final outcome. And seeing that they are constantly making adjustments and refilming to get the details right just shows how much repetitive yet much needed work they have done.
Wow, that's super interesting. It's great to see the respect they have for the area around them, and the people that live there. The process they went through just to get the donut sequence sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it's so interesting to read about. I genuinely wonder how much money the movie spent on practical effects, as when the SFX supervisor was talking about the donut sequence, he said they spent three days donuting and blowing up charges. How much money do those charges cost? I guess that's where those multi-million dollar budgets go. The part about the cladding was super interesting too. Huge shoutout to Daniel Craig though, it sounds like the production crew and designers really respect him and had fun working with him. Still difficult to see him as anything other than the detective in knives out, but hey, what can you do.
As a kid, I loved anything behind the scenes. Whether it was a documentary about movies, stage productions, or even airports, I loved seeing how everything worked without the general public knowing. It made me feel like I am a part of something secret and cool. I think this was a really fun article to read because it brought out the kid in me. I think how the explosions are made are especially cool. It takes a great deal of planning, knowledge, and a little bit of creativity and insanity to pull something off like that. It also allows me to explore other careers in the industry I never knew existed. I think something like this is so cool and something that is always changing as new technologies allow for cooler, more specific effects. One of the reasons I chose CMU was because of how connected it was to the growing technology industry. I think even things that seem separate from theatre and TV be can fit in perfectly with it.
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