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Nobody Does It Better

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When the press filed out oof the first screening of Casino Royale last November, filling Leicester Square, there wsa a palpable air of relief about them. The film didn't suck. Actually, it was rather good. Better yet, in Daniel Craig we had discovered a 007 for a whole new generation, so good that you could almost hear the collective, relieved sigh underscored by the hush whisper, 'Pierce who?'

Seldom had there been such a frenzy of anguished speculation than that which accompanied the news that Craig had been cast to fill the shoes of fiction's most famous spy. He was portrayed so memorably by Sean Connery, Roger Moore and the aforementioned forerunner Pierce Brosnan after all. The sight of Craig being revealed to the press before filming began, sat uneasily on a motor launch up the Thames hardly laid to rest the fears of the naysayers.
But a couple of hours in his company, seeing the 38 -(39 on March 2) year-old transform himself from rough hewn government functionaryto suave secret agent was enough to win most of us round. Yet, if we were fretting, how must it have been for Craig himself, caught as he was on the eye of this negatively charged media storm before anyone could judge his work on its merits?
"The flack came along and therewas nothing I could reply to" he said matter of factly a week or two after that first screening. "I wasn't going to make a statement, I wasn't going to get into a public discussion about it. Ordinarily when I do a movie I wait for it to be edited and have people to see it and then make their decision. I did get affected by it. I probably had 24 hours of darkness and then thought, 'You know what, let's just get on with it'."

Such strength of character is a useful trait in a man playing so single minded a character. But for Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, heirs to Cubby Broccoli's cinematic legacy and producers if the most successful franchise in movie history, there must surely have been some doubts early on when the chatrooms were alive with cruel thoughts about their choice.
"I think for us it was pretty clear that Daniel was the frontrunner," Wilson explains, "The problem was that Daniel himself wasn't sure, and he wanted to read a script. But we weren't prepared to give him a draft until it had gone quite a way towards what we thought would be the final version. That being the case we had about two years of uncertaity where we were looking for a back-up. That's why we looked at a lot of other people for the role."
If rumours are to be believed - and even if not, it makes for interesting reading - Clive owen and Hugh Jackman were among those considered. The interesting thing is that both those men and Craig himself have a body of work in movies already. Sean Connery had a film career when he signed on to do Dr No, but he could never have been called a household name, it was Bond that made him a superstar around the world.
Rogeer Moore was well known from his TV series The Saint, but that TV profile was turned into another order of stardom entirely by his association with the character. George Lazenby emergedfrom relative obscurity and promptly returned to it after On Her Majesty's Secret Service, while Timothy Dalton was primarily known for his theatre work before tackling the role. Pierce Brosnan had found his first real success in the television series Remington Steele, and has worked hard to parlay the increased profile of Bind into developing a vaied CV which will stand him in good stead now.
Craig is in that moould, as likely to apear in a film like Enduring Love or The Mother as a blockbuster like a James Bond movie. Most recently he has been filming a role in His Dark Materials, adapted from Philip Pullman's novels. This at least brings with it the hope that he won't tire of the role the way that Connery did, when he foumd himself becoming too closely identified with such a larger than life character.
"I went into this think there was no point worrying about what may be or what may happen," Craig said on the eve of Casino Royale's premiere, "because that will just have a negative spin. I just wanted to concentrate on getting it absolutely right."

He may forever be identified as the man who helped redefine Bond for the 21st Century, but in this task he was helped greatly by a director who had ushered in the Pierce Brisnan era with GoldenEye, Martin Campbell.
"I think with Martin coming back it put us in a comfort zone," Michael G Wilson adds, "When you try to change a lot of things, the tone and the actor, you need to be comfortable that you're going to get a professional helming the picture, someone that you have worked with before and that you know as a collabrator. Someone you know has a good vision. Hiring Martin was just a way of reducing the uncertainties."
But what uncertainty there must have been when, as well as having a new actor in you iconic lead role, you were working with a whole new Hollywood studio, MGM having been bought by Sony - a studio that, ironically. once threatened to produce a rival to the series, yet another variation on Thunderball. And Sony, too, must have wondered what it was getting into having acquired the rights to a franchise that had scored its biggest hit with Die Another Day, only to see the formula being tinkered with.
"The studio was worried," Martin Campbell explains, "because the last film had been a big success, so they thought why muck around with it? But Barbara and Michael absolutely stuck to their guns. And they had the most to lose if it didn't succeed."
But which way would should they go with this deconstructed, pared down Bond Adventure? The stories are obviously out of sequence, with Casino Royale having being the first book that Ian Fleming wrote but - if we discount the appalling 1967 spoof - the last of them to be filmed. Perhaps it might have been possible to do it as a period piece, set in the Cold War world of the 1950s or '60s that would reflect the political environment in which it was written.
"It crossed my mind," Campbell nods, "but I didn't discuss it with the producers because I didn't think for a second they'd go for it. I dismissed it fairly quickly because clearly there'll be further Bond films and what do you do after that? Unless you remade Dr No and started the whole cycle over again. I suppose there may come a time when they might do that, I have no idea."

Wherever they decide to go with the next film, as yet untitled, this is a position of strength for Eon Productions. The company that Cubby built after acquiring these rights in 1961 with business partner Harry Saltzman, has moved on from hearing the sound of sharpening knives. Critics who were eager to dismember a series of films so big and unwieldy, so brashly out of step with the strippedback action of the likes of Jason Baun and Jack Bauer, now offer a chorus of hearty approval.
Daniel Craig has even been BAFTA nominated for his performance, for goodness sake, which at least offers an indication as to the moral complexity that underpins a gritty performance. It promises much, and raises the stakes, for the future. Screenwriters Robert Wade and Neal Purvis, who have also been BAFTA nominated along with co-writer Paul Haggis, have worked on these films since The World Is Not Enough in 1999. They have said that while Casino Royale ends with the line 'the name's Bond, James Bond' there is some unfinished business he will have to attend to in the next movie.
"We saved the end line and I didn't even use the Bond theme until the end," smiles Martin Campbell. "After the event that took place in the story the emotional doors are slammed shut and Bond is clearly becoming what Fleming referred to as 'that beautiful machine'. I think the next film will pick uo wherethis one ends, though I don't know for sure."
"We are thinking like that at this stage," producer Michael G Wilson confirms. "It's very early days but we are working with Purvis and Wade, and exploring different ideas. So far all those ideas are continuing where this film left off."
Which is all good news for those who enjoyed Daniel Craig's bow, with the only slight disappointment being that a rather major marketing opportunity has been missed in not releasinga new film this year, 2007.
"There was no chance of that," Wilson sighs "it just physicallyisn't possible. We had that in mind but it didn't work for us." The unlikely is within their grap, the impossible remains tantalizingly out of reach. But at least we know that, as the old title card used to proudly declare 'James Bond Will Return...'. And some of us can't wait.
Anwar Brett

The World Is Not Enough

Set designer Peter Lamont has been with Bond since the start

Think of a typical Bond set and you'll probably imagine a vast underground metallic silo, a nuclear warhead at its center, with a super villian's finger hovweing over the red button. But 007 has come a long way since the days of Auric Goldfinger, and production designer Peter Lamont should know - he's worked on an impressive 18 of the 21 films to date. "I enjoy it as much now as I did in the beginning," he beams.
While Casino Royale represents a creative reset for the franchise, producers Michael G Wilson and Barabara Broccoli have been wise enough to retain their keyt creative talents. The approach may be new, but many faces behind the camera are Bond veterans and as the film's success has shown, you don't habe to dump the baby in order to change the bath water.
Lamont's work on the movie began some time ago, ahead of a finshed script, and long before director Martin Campbell had even moved into his office.
"We did quite a lot of research," Lamont reveals, "tramping around and trying to decide where we were physically going to do the film before Martin joined. Having worked with him on GoldenEye, we all knew what a good choice that was. He had put the Bond's back on the map again [with GoldenEye] and we had gone from there."
Casino Royale strips Bond back to it's bare basics. Gone are the Fantasy trappings (so no invisible cars this time), silly gadgets and arch humour. The tone is pure grit: Bond is a bloke who takes the hits, and in Daniel Craig Wilson and Broccoli have found an actor who can combine both fearless bravado with emotional vulnerability.
"I think Daniel is a great choice,! says the designer. "We were all there when he did the screen tests and he was the one who got pur vote. He was by far the best. He moves well, he's a great actor, he's a very handsome fella and he's very physical. All great attributes for James Bond. We were all delighted when he got to have a crack at it."
While Lamont can't be drawn when asked if Craig represents the definitive re-creation of Bond as written by Ian Fleming, he will confirm that Caino Royale was always intended as a faithful version of the original novel. From that starting point, the entire tone and lookk of the movie was born.
"In Fleming's book the Hotel Splendide and Casino Royale are in the South of France. You start to think about various places for them and we roamed about all over the place looking - we went to Prague it was my suggestion that we should look outside the city itself to Karlovy Vary because I felt that had more to offer and hadn't been seen or overexposed like Prague itself.It's a gorgeous looking place, a great spa town. You have the Grand Hotel Pupp there, the old spa building called Lazne I, which became the Casino Royale.
"The geography matched beautifully. Unfortunately Lazne was in a bit of a sorry state but with a bit of tender love and care and the help of the localpreservation group, and our money, I think we put it back to rights. It did look gorgeous when we finished with it. Lazne I was an old spa and all the rooms were still there but it wasn't really being used. But it is a very handsome building."
The crew also spent time in more tropical climes for the sequence in which Bond tracks down Dimitrios to the Bahamas. The One and Only Club on Paradise Island made a perfect choice for a location. while the breathtaking building site chase - which is supposed to be set in Madagascar - was actually filmed in an abandoned hotel complex at the nearby Coral Harbour.
"We wanted a romantic Caribbean look," says Lamont of the location. "I'd been out to the Bahamas several times and thought that if we were going that way we should think about Nassau. It's the convenience of getting there and the closeness to America that is the charm.
"We did use Paradise Island in Thunderball but it has changed somewhat since then. When we did Thunderball the beach was open and the golf course was there but not used, it was just the greens maintained and that was about it. Going back was somewhat different because it's far more populated. And I didn't realize what a big island it was because we only used a small part of it that first time. And actually, we first went out there i a scouting mission and picked out a location we wanted to use as a shanty town. And by the time we went back with Martin it had been renovated! So that threw us.
"We took Martin to a place we used to dine at when we were doing The Spy Who Loved Me which is now derelict and that became the base for our shanty town. We had a look at Coral Harbour which was another lace we'd used on Thunderball and there's a building that's meant to be an hotel that was never finished because of some dispute or other. And Martin thought that was wonderful, so we used that as well."

Casino Royale was shot in four countries (add the UK and Italy onto the list), and required the construction of over 40 sets. It's a major logistical challenge, involing the supervision of set-building on a global scale - while Campbell and his crew were filming overseas, Lamont would simultaneously also be overseeing the film's most complex set, the sinking Venetian house that was built in Pinewood Studios. That interior would have to match exterior footage, which had been shot in Venice on the Grand Canal opposite the Rialto Market.
"During the building process, the whole thing became more complicated," he reveals. "The decision was taken that the house would not just sink vertically, but would need another axis to move the building from side to side as it sank. Chris Corbould and his special effects team built a fantastic rig for us."
Lamont's career in production design actually began over 50 years ago, working as a draughtsman on classic British movies including The Importance of Being Earnest and A Day To Remember. He was invited to join the Bond team for the third movie, Goldfinger, by then designer Ken Adam and charged with the challenge of designing a set for Fort Knox that could be built at Pinewood Studios.
"Ken gave a great folder and it was the exterior of Fort Knox and he said, 'Have a go at that...'," recalls the designer. "And I remember he would pop in daily and have a look over my shoulder to see what I was doing and during that month I drew it all up and made a model.
"I remember Guy Hamilton [the director], Cubby [Broccoli, producer] and Harry [Saltzman, producer] looked at it and said, 'Well, lets get an estimate of how much it's going to cost'. I almost fell through the roof because the estimate was for £56,000 which was the most expensive set that had ever been built at that time. I thought, 'Oh God, I'm going to et fired for this'. But nobody turned a hair. Gut said, 'We'll eliminate this bit and that bit, and we'll do this and this...' and it came down to about £40,000 and then it was, 'Right, build it!' And we landscaped the place and built a concrete road into Black Park on the back lot at Pinewood. It was amazing.
"We did all that sequence and then when the film was finished Peter Hunt [the editor] went out and took some aerial shors around the real Fort Knox because they wouldn't let us shoot there at all. So we did the exterior and there was that wonderful set of Ken's of the interior where Oddjob meets his fate with Bond."
After his experience on Goldfinger Lamont went off to work on rival spy movie The Ipcress File, beforebeing recalled by Ken Adam to start work on Thunderball.
"Ken said, 'Somebody had better learn to swim under water'," he recalls. "I remember I joined a sub aqua club in Slough and they did me a crash course so that when we went out to the Bahamas I would be able to work on the set underwater. We built the interior of a Vulcan Bomber that had to be sunk in 60 feet of water, woth the atominc weapons and all of that, that was my job. I went out there for two weeks and stayed 14."
So what was it like working with the great Seean Connery?
"Oh great, an absolute professional. And Roger [Moore] was a lovely fella, he was always so well turned out and knew his lines. He knew everybody and liked a laugh and a joke with everyone. A lovely man."
Although Bond whas pretty much defined Lamont's career, these films are certainly not the only entries on his CV. He even missed out on one of the more recent film, Tomorrow Never Dies, because of a commitment to James Cameron's Titanic (or 'the sinking ship' as he wryly refers to it), and along the way he has designed the look of Sleuth, The Boys Frm Brazil, Fiddler On The Roof, Aliens and True Lies.

Asked to define what qualities have made the Bond movies so successful, and kept them in our cinemas for an astonishing45 years to date, Lamont responds, "I think it's being there at the right time and very high production values. We try to do things in the best way. Even now, we try not to get into too many gimmicks, we try and do things the real way. When you see the chase scene in Casino Royale it's quite amazing what we've done and it's for real."
Lamont is already set to start work on the as-yet-untitled 22nd Bond movie, which begins shooting this year. At the age of 77 he shows no signs of flagging, despite already having established himself as one of the major names in the industry with his astonishing career.
"Well, I've done all the jobs," he says modestly, "and I can make tea quite well!"
Richard Houldsworth

License to thrill

Effects expert Chris Corbould creates a bang in Miami and sinks a house in Venice...

In an era when movies are often rules by CG effects, James Bond remains reassuringly old fashioned. The granchise has always been about spectacle, but in a believable way; when Pierce Brosnan took a ride on a virtual wave during one of the more ludicrous sequences in Die Another Day, many agreed it was time for a rethink.
Just as Casino Royale introduces a tougher Bond, it also embraces physical effects, which have been devised by Special Effects and Miniature Effects Supervisor Chris Corbould. The man has been a long-standing contributor to the series - his introduction was The Spy Who Loved Me - and it's obviousthat both Bond and his art are topics he feels passinate about.
"I will fight tooth and nail to do something for real," he says "Obviously if there are safety or budget concerns then I back off and admit defeat. CGI is a great tool and can be very useful, especially if blended seamlessly with reality to give a good performance, but if an effect can be done for real it's the best way to go."
So what does visual effect supervisor's job encompass?
"It starts off with the atmospherics - we're responsible for any rain, any snow any wind," he reveals. "And then there is the pyrotechnic side of things because we are responsible for any explosions, bullet hits, that sort of thing. Then we deal with the engineering side, and then go into the gadgets.
"There weren't too many gadgets on this one but we would be looking after them. And then there are the cars and any modifications they might need. We had the Aston Martin DBS which is the new sporty version and a very nice looking car. We didn't have much to do with it but stunts did a fantastic roll in it."

Corboulds first major sequence in the movie was the stunning fight and fight on the Madagascan building site. The segment was actually shot in the Bahamas, at a location discovered by production designer Peter Lamont with the effects supervisor contributing to the shots in which Bond drives an 18-ton digger at his enemy Mollaka, smashing through a building, a hut and a concrete plinth.
"We built a model and put it forward two or three ways that the digger could concievably take out the concrete." he offers, "including taking out the pillar underneath. Martin Campbell preferred the direct way, with the bucket straight into the concrete. We did a couple of tests and during the take it was even better than I expected. The concrete curled around the bucket and it came out like a wave."
For a scene later in the movie, Corbould also got the opportunity to create sheer carnage at Miami airport, with the fight sequences aboard a fuel tanker that would involve the mass destructionof other vehicles, and culminate in a huge, satifying explosion. It sounds big and exciting and glamorous, but the unit didn't even leave UK soil - it was shot ar Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, and involved a painstaking shoot that lasted 10 weeks.
"I've had experience with tankers before on License To Kill," he reveals, "and they are beasts to work with onceyou have all the tonnage hurtling around. And obviously we wanted to strive to do more spectacular things than last time, so we souped up the tankers to get some high speed collisions."

Casino Royale culminates in a knuckle-gnawing thrilling set piece in Venice, with Bond and Vesper Lynd in peril in a dilapidated three-storey house that is rapidly crumbling into the sea. Exteriors had been shot in the city, but the house itself was a complex rig that was built on the Bond Set at Pinewood Studios.
"We met with Martin and he told us what he wanted and then Peter Lamont [production designer] came up with the designs. We started doing some research and development into exactly how we would do it. It was started in October and we were still tweaking it the day before we started shooting it several moths later. I have to say, we were all pleased with it and it worked very well.
"The sequence is set in what they call a house but is more like the inside of an hotel lobby. It was four storeys high with a great big archway inside and a lift. The actual rig measured, I think, 45 foot by 40 foot by 45 foot high and it reached the roof of the 007 stage, that's how big it was.
"This is supposed to be a house in Venice where the foundations are rotting and to stop it sinking further they've installed these inflation bags, about eight of them, to take the weight off the crumblig foundations. Now, during the action sequence these inflation bags start being destroyed, one by one. This causes the building to list over to one corner.
"With our rig we could move up and down 16foot, we could tilt it from right to left and forwards and backwards 15 degrees, we coulddo anything with it, to be honest. The 007stage already has an eight-foot tank in it but to get the most out of this the production built the side of the tank up another 12 feet, giving us 20 feet of water. And it was linked with hydraulic valves and computerized. It worked like a dream."
The practical visual effect was then complicated with a model of the collapsing building, built to one-third scale by Corbould and his team. "That was a lot more complicated than you would think," he recalls. "There was something like 150 different bits that fall off from tiny bits of rendering to chimneys and balconies, you name it. It was quite a challenge - and it was like a big jigsaw to put back together."
What was it like working with Daniel Craig on his first Bond outing?
"Oh, I can't say enough good things about him," beams Corbould. "I think he's great and he's got a real Steve McQueen feel about him. McQueen is one of my favourite actors and Daniel reminds me of him.
"Daniel is a real special effects and stunt department's dream. He thrives on it and he's a real pleasure to work with. Our biggest thing is the safety element and Daniel was very up fpr being in amongst the action - more so than any other actor I've ever worked with. He was absolutely obsessed with it and he wanted his face in there. I'm a great believer in that, for me that's value for money with the actors on screen, as long as it's safe. And we did a lot of stuff.
"He did this whole run where he's going along a corridor where all the windows are being shot out and we obviously had to be very meticulous in the planning of all of this. I'd worked with Daniel before on Tomb Raider so I knew he could handle himself as far as the action but we still got him in and said, 'Look, this is what you are going to be up against'. We showed him everything so that he was confident when he went into it."
Corbould has been working in the movie special effects field for almost three decades, and his credits include many classics in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre. He has contributed to Superman II, Willow, Alien 3, Interview With The Vampire, The Mummy and Batman Begins, but despite this diverse body of workit's clear that he retains strong affections for the bond franchise.
"I've almost grown up with Barbara [Broccoli, the producer] making thes films and it does feel like family. All of us are very close and once you have proved yourself to them they trust youand they keep asking you back all of the time, which for me is a pleasure. And also Bond, for me as a special effects guy in a CG dominated world, has been a bastion of what I can excel at. They still give me the opportunity to show what I can do physically rather then using CGI.
"When we started on this film they said, 'There will be no gadgets or think the audience likes to see someone take a risk. Rather than watch what they know is a blue screen, they appreciate the feat of bravery and the effort that goes into the real thing.
"I think we are heading for a revival of special effects over visual effects."
Richard Houldsworth

Fight Club

Stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell is the man putting Daniel Craig through his paces...

James Bond is a family affair for stuntman Gary Powell. His dynasty's involvement in the films dates back to 1962 when his uncle was on the stunt team for the very first movie, Dr No, with father Fred 'Nosher' Powell working on the follow-up From Russia With Love.
"My dad and my uncles worked on all the Sean Connery movies," he says. "My older brother [Greg] worked on the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton ones andI've worked woth Pierce Brosnan and now Daniel Craig."
A day out when he was a kid could even involve a trip to the 007 soundstage; he has fond memories of watching Roger Moore filming The Spy Who Loved Me.
"It was fantastic," he recalls. "I went to the 007 stage at Pinewood and there were three nuclear submarines and all these guys running around with machine guns. It was better than Disneyland!"
Gary has done his dad proud by carrying on the family tradition. His 16 years in the business has included work on such epics as Braveheart, First Knight, Alexander and The Legend Of Zorro. Powell joined the Bind series with GoldenEye in 1995, for which he was Pierce Brosnan's stunt double (a role he maintained on Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough). More recently he's earned his stripes as a renowned stunt co-ordinator, the role he now fills on Casino Royale.
"Back in October 2005 we were given an early script," he explains. "At that point I sat down with Michael [Wilson, producer], Barbara [Broccoli, producer] and Martin [Campbell, director] and they gave me ideas about what they wanted this new Bond to be like. They wanted it grittier, tougher in a way, with a Bond who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. And from there on it was a case of building up to preparing for the shooting of the film."
Although Casino Royale would largely retain the creative staff of recent 007 movies, the work on screen involves a complete shakedown. In terms of style, tone and direction this would be a new approach, and one that wouldbe led by the casting of a younger, hard-edged Bond.
"It was very exciting. They were saying thst they wantedto go back to real life stuff and it's not, you know, an actor jumping off a two foot platform and the rest of it is CGI. To say 'Everything we want to do we want it to be as real as possible', is for a stuntman, fantastic. Especially these days as we know, CGI has virtually taken over, so this was an opportunity to create something really good."
Fortunately in Daniel Craig the producers found an actor who was willing not only to get his hands dirty - but maybe a bit bloodied and scarred too.
"Bond is not just acting," insists Powell. "It's a huge, physically demanding film. It's not just, 'Turn up, say a few lines and you go home'. There's so much more to it than that. So you want an actor that is going to take that physical side of it on and not get precious about taking a knock or getting a cut or getting a scrape. And Daniel was just so up for it, I must say."
For a shoot as physically demanding and complex as Casino Royale, one might suspect that Craig was given a good six months rehearsals and fight training - after all, that's what they did on The Matrix. At a push, we might imagine that he crammed it all in during three months, but the truth is sobering...
"We actually got him quite late because he was finishing another film," reveals Powell. "We got him about two weeks before filming started so he was straight in at the deep end doing rehearsals for the embassy sequence, which was the first thing we shot.
"We did an assessment and then worked with him to develop the areas where he needed a bit more training than perhaps he did in other areas. He was 110 per cent committed to it. He knew what he was letting himself in for and he didn't come into it under-estimating the role. He came in prepared to work hard and his mind, luckily for us, was in the right place. His attitude was fantastic which is good for us because we worked him long and hard and we did put him through some pain.
"He was a very good pupil. It can be hard sometimes because you'll request to work with an actor for say an hour, two hours a day and some of them will be like, 'Do I really have to do this?' Especially when you are asking for their time at a weekend, maybe, and you say, 'Look we really have to nail this', and they just want some free time. Whereas Daniel's attitude was that he would do whatever it took to get it nailed. He was there whenever we needed him.
"He worked with a personal trainer before doing a lot of work to bulk himself up, and he was in excellent shape. We then did our work with him and loosened him up a little bit."
Casino Royale sets its stall in an early sequence, as Bond chases Mollaka through the Madagascan embassy and onto a construction site, where they dive between building and girders while paying no consequence to the obvious perils. It is, without a doubt, one of the most finest stunt sequences ever committed to film.
"The scene features what are known as 'free runners'," says Powell, of the acrobatics performed by these urban athletes. "Sebastien [Foucan] was the guy we wanted and I'm glad to say we got him. We took him out to The Bahamas to show him the construction site which was a huge, disused hotel and told him what the idea was. Then we had a model made of the construction site and myself, Martin and Chris Corbould dreamt up the sequence.
"It was quite a long process. You had to start with a model, work out as much as you can with the model, and then have to say 'OK, let's do it for real and take the whle thing to a construction site 5,000 miles away'. Everything had to be shipped out there so that was a huge segment for us."
On screen, the results look brutal and terryfying. What was it like for Craig to shoot such a sequence?
"The construction site was tough for Daniel," Powell admits. "He was quite high up on a crane and he's not a lover of heights at all. So to do a fight high up like that was hard.
"We had him running up the crane and across the girders. He was 90 feet up in the air running across an eight-inch wide girder. He was on a safety cable but it is still very intimidating to be at that sort of height with the wind whistling around you. Believe me, its not easy for stunt people and that height is intimidating. He did it and he did a fantastic job.
"The fight on the stairwell, which basically takes place over four floors with eight flights of stairs, was a four-day shoot, maybe longer and that was tough. And in that one he is banging up against the wall and down the stairs and he did take the odd knock and a bruise and he never complained, never moaned. He just got on with it and smiled as he gave 110 per cent."
Did Craig's endeavours with stunt work improve as the shoot progressed?
"Oh yesm from the beginning to the end he was totally different," says Powell. "By the end when we showed hima fight he was like, 'Great!' and he was straight into it right away because he knew the movements, knew how it worked and so on the next one we can take it a step further, Im sure of that."
As Powell explains, a Bond movie can be huge in terms of manpower. The sequence at Miami airport, which involves a speeding tanker, involved up to 50 stuntmen. The construction site scene required 30, while on an average day around eight stunt artists will be on set.
Notoriously it's one of the most demanding jobs in the entertainment industry, and one that can come with a price.
"Anyone starting on a career as a stuntman who thinks that they won't get a knock or two is deluding himself," says Powell. "I've been very lucky. I've done some very big stunts and the worst thing that has happened to me is that I've broken my wrist. And there have been a couple of times when if luck hadn't been on my side I would have been seriously injured. But you do get knocks, you do get cuts and you do get a huge amount of bruises because it's part of the job. It's like a secretary doing the occasional spelling mistake - it's going to happen so you either live with it or you don't do it. Obviously we take every precaution to minimalize the risks. I'm a great believer in having as much preparation as possible."
With on-screen Bond mayhem now owned by his family for four decades, Powell couldn't be happier in his job. And his dad couldn't be prouder...
"To be a stunt performer on a Bond film is the highest accolade you can get," says Powell, "but to be a stunt co-ordinator is just incredible. It's something you dream of doing. No matter what comes along, Soider-Man or Batman or whatever, if you get the Bond that's the top of the tree."
Richard Houldsworth