Let the Sky falls ...

SKYFALL est enfin disponible … et il est temps de rappeler aux fans de 007 Legends que la mission finale du jeu – inspirée du film sur les écrans en ce moment même – est disponible dès aujourd’hui en téléchargement sur Playstation Network, Xbox LIVE et Steam pour PC.

Pour finir en beauté l’aventure vidéo James Bond, une expérience unique en son genre, la mission SKYFALL envoie les joueurs au cœur d’Istanbul pour traquer un violent assassin. Très vite, cette mission se transforme en chasse épique, entraînant les fans dans une poursuite à couper le souffle sur un train en pleine course alors qu’un mystérieux sniper manque de peu d’éliminer Bond. Après avoir vaincu la mort elle-même, 007 doit traquer sa cible jusqu’au bout du monde à Shanghai dans un duel final qui permettra de découvrir la vérité.

Voici la nouvelle bande-annonce avec des scènes tirées du niveau SKYFALL : http://youtu.be/8uaF5wx2tUo

Et pour garder un maximum d’authenticité, on trouve dans 007 Legends toute une liste de talents issus des films passés et présents de la saga James Bond, dont deux étoiles montantes de SKYFALL : NAOMIE HARRIS prête sa voix et son apparence pour son personnage Eve et OLA RAPACE donne ses traits à son personnage Patrice. Voici un aperçu des coulisses où l’on peut voir comment les développeurs donnent vie au film au sein du jeu : http://youtu.be/ZBq8nHLEKJo

007 Legends est disponible dès maintenant chez tous les distributeurs habituels. Pour plus d’information et des mises à jour exclusives, les fans ont rendez-vous sur www.facebook.com/007LegendsGame ou www.007legends.com. 

Pour fêter l'évènement , Our Man From Bond Street organise un grand concours - ouvert uniquement aux lecteurs Français .
Indiquez-nous par courrier au moins trois titres de films de James Bond auxquels Skyfall rend hommage dans son intrigue , d'une manière ou d'une autre  .
Envoyez vos réponses à mediabisfr@yahoo.fr avant le 30 novembre 2012 au plus tard . 

" This is the BIG one , 007 " ( This title is fully copyrighted Tim Greaves / Media Bis . Anyone using it without proper authorization is in for ...Quite a lot of troubles , I'll tell ya' ! )

ALL FOLLOWING INFORMATIONS HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY CLEARED BY TASCHEN FRENCH P.R ( For your truly humble servant ) 

It weighs - approximatively - 6,4 kgs
It covers the production of ALL James Bond Movies - from Dr No to Skyfall ( including the non Eon produced ones ! )
It's a deadly weapon .
It's the Taschen James Bond 007 Archive book .
3 years in the making .
Thousands of exclusive pics unearthed and compiled by documentalist Paul Duncan .

First , the editions . Book will be available a little after the European release of Skyfall  .
It can already be pre-ordered on the Taschen website .
A Special limited edition ( around 700 copies I've been told ) should be available . Don't have precise details about that one ( heard about Daniel Craig signed copies , though )  .
An ULTRA SPECIAL VERY ( VERY ! ) limited edition will be produced .
With a 24 carat Gold lamé cover and gold leaf pages . It will be produced at such a restricted number that I prefer not to tell you about it , for fear of inducing mass suicide amongst Bond Fans around the World ...

Let's talk about the content now .
In a word : i's a WINNER !

If you thought you already knew everything about the Bond movies , then think again .

I would say about 70% of the picturial content is completely new and exclusive .

Documentalist Paul Duncan was given complete access to Eon archives ( which were - according to Taschen P.R - a ' real mess ' ... ) as well as Columbia pictures and Warner Bros ones ( for their respective entries in the Bond Canon ) .

Each chapter is dedicated to a specific movie - opening with some superb shots taken from their respective Credits sequence .

The real surprise then is to finally see both the Columbia Casino Royale version and Warner Bros Never Say Never again entries included at last in an official Eon / Danjaq book .

Granted, the NSNA chapter isn't that long - and without a lot of exclusive pics ( some storyboards - already seen here and there , a Theatrical release Poster sketch , some candid behind the scene shots ... ) . The text is very informative - and for once didn't downsize the movie when compared to the Eon ones .

But it's the 1967 Casino Royale chapter which really shines . With lots of never before seen pictures , and promo adds , funny anecdotes about the Hell the production went through to try to deliver something which could be more or less understood by a general audience ( some critics say they failed . But they tried - and very hard ! ) .

Book is constructed in a chronological way . From 1962's Dr No to 2012's Skyfall . 

Strangely enough , the latter films are more exclusively profusely illustrated than the Sixties ones . 

I suspect that quite simply , recent archive material was easier to unearth , than,say the caterer's menu of From Russia With Love ...

Anyway , despite a rather hefty Sale price , I can only say that's it's worth " every penny of it " .

Taschen PR jokes , telling me that perhaps they will make another one ... " In about fifty years " !!!

P.S : there IS a small complaint I could make . No information about CBS Climax Theatre 's version of Casino Royale . But since it wasn't a movie production, one could admit surely Taschen could be forgiven for that . Or could they ? ...

' How To Write a Bond Book ' ( or If Ian Fleming did it , I can too ! )

The image is almost a cliche but , really , writing a book is like giving birth .
For months you'll get nauseous , you'll have unexplained fits of temper , you'll start eating anything in sight ( usually around 3hrs AM in the middle of the night, when, still glued to your computer screen and  trying to find that ' bon mot ' which has been eluding you since the beginning of the day , you need some well deserved uplifting of any kind ) .

I have always loved books . Started to read early , considerably improved my English devouring US Marvel Comics books by the tender age of 11 ( which I was lucky to find rather easily on the Riviera , due to the constant flow of English-speaking tourists there ) .

Also started collecting Novelizations ( note to younger generations : a Novelization - or ' book of the film ' - was in those prehistoric times what could be described as the only Bonus a film buff could then grab his hands onto in the mid 70s  . Often written by unknowns , sometimes helped by the original screenwriter of said movie , they were based on the script of the movie itself . And more often than once offered to the delighted reader complete unknown filmed sequences - no doubt dragged from very early screen treatments . Such as in the Alan Dean Foster 's ALIEN novelization with the horrific description of the discovery of the unfortunate encocooned Dallas , for example . End of the History lesson . For now . )

Must also reveal I had an aunt working at the famous Paris Bibliotheque Nationale too  ( where I spent some of my Teenage summer holidays pushing heavy carts of litterary masterpieces for a modest salary ... ) .

Anyway , after being took to a Christmas screening of Diamonds Are Forever in 71' , I discovered fairly rapidly that the adventures of that British secret agent were in fact adaptations from litterary works by a certain Ian Lancaster Fleming . I then started to read all his books - sometimes re reading furiously some saucy passages , just to be sure to fully understand the writer's prose of course ...

I guess that since I started to collect various editions of Mr Fleming's work , he is also directly responsible of my Bibliophilia in some way .

The very first Bond book essay I bought was the wonderful John Brosnan's James Bond in the Cinema in 1977 ( first edition, of course )- not counting Sir Roger Moore highly entertaining ' s recap of the shooting of Live & Let Die in 1973  .

Since I had that fascination with books , my interest pushed me to start some heavy correspondence with various friends around the world ( hey, Mr Tim Greaves , remember those pre-Internet days while we exchanged letters full of Bond snippets ? ).

So , to try to make things shorter ( or less I'll tell you about my whole life and will bore you to death ) , I embraced a litterary career - again molded after the one of a certain British Spy novelist  ( really ) .

The idea of writing a book on James Bond had been in the back of my mind for decades .
We had none in France ( except some official Eon Poster books released here and there in French - and some unofficial, badly informed ones ) and I started to get a bit jealous of the kilotons of US & Brit titles dedicated to the James Bond phenomenon I was seeing in the bookstores in London for each new Bond movie release .

So I started writing my own book three years ago . Mind you , I could have tried earlier to be honest , but  was also trying at the same time to find TV Production companies interested into the financing of a huge 007 documentary as well, and writing my movie reviews for a living , my time wasn't that extensible ...

With my legendary modesty , I tried to apply Ian Fleming's famous line ( " I'll write the Spy novel which will end all Spy novels " ) to my book , trying to dig up unknown informations and little known facts ( well ... Again, mostly for a French audience ! ) - while being extremely careful not to fall into the sensationnal Tabloid type either ( IAN FLEMING HATED SPINACH - Read the awful truth here ) .

I just hope the  book will prove interesting and entertaining enough for James Bond fans AND general audience alike .
And I'm already working on a synopsis for a second one .

Yes I've been bitten and I just love that !

A Bond ' on the Rock '

We French have always treated Ian Fleming's hero litterary adventures with some disdain ( even if the said writer positively loved France . Sigh )   .

That is , apart from one publisher , Plon ( then part of the Presses de la Cité Publishing group ) who kept re-issuing all of Mr Fleming's titles - including Thrilling Cities and The Diamonds Smugglers in hardcover editions complete with original Brit edition inside pics ( plus Mr Kingsley Amis Colonel Sun as well ) up till the mid seventies . The Plon collection uses Sir Sean Connery famous silhouette from FRWL as a generic logo on a white cover , and also published ' movie tie-ins ' from time to time ( such as for ' Goldfinger ' , featuring a superb color cover of Shirley Eaton's dead Golden Girl on her Miami bed , or for OHMSS with a striking cover featuring George Lazenby in his famous film poster ski apparatus , and last for Live and let die - featuring this time the original 1973 Film Poster . )
Last but not least , Plon also published in 73' Roger Moore diary on the shooting of that latest movie - titled in French '  Vivre et Laisser Mourir - Le Film d'un Film ' .

When Plon ceased to exist , Presse Pockets ( another division of Les Presses de la Cité ) took over in the late 70s with covers this time featuring various female models dressed ( or undressed ) as the main character of each novel . Same translations as the original 1960iish Plon ones - which then began to date a little bit ( strange to read Interpol still using Telex when the first personnal computers started to appear everywhere for instance ) .
And after the demise of that collection too,  various Publishers tried to grab a piece of Fleming's prose .
Fleuve Noir first re-issued some titles by 1979 , starting with the Bond of the moment Moonraker - with appaling covers of semi naked girls taking poses which had nothing to do anymore with the very own stories they were illustrating . °/°

Then in 2006 a new publishing company , Bragelonne , commissioned a French artist to create some bold new graphic covers to coincide with the launch of a new James Bond collection .
Halas , said collection only offered three titles before folding out - for lack of sales ...

By 1981 though another French Publisher , Les Editions du Rocher , a Monte-Carlo based Publishing company ( Monaco being affectionaly known as ' The Rock ' in France ), bought the rights of some John Gardner titles as well - and published for the very first time in French Licence Renewed - retitled Operation Warlock . This was followed by  Mission Particulière ( For Special Service ) the year after and by L' Homme de Barbarossa ( The Man From Barbarossa ) ten years later in 1993 .

By a strange twist of fate , those very same Editions du Rocher will be publishing my very own essay on James Bond by late october this year .
Titled ' James Bond , le Dossier secret ' , it will feature various pieces of little known facts of the 007 mythos , both book-wise and movie-wise as well - complete with an amazing foreword penned by the delightful Miss Rachel Grant ( aka ' Peaceful Fountain of Desire ' in D.A.D ) .
There's no coincidences ...

Christmas is coming early this year , or the Skyfall Tsunami

 It all started rather slowly when in June CartaMundi ( the Belgian card manufacturer - already associated with Eon since D.A.D ) first offered its ' James Bond 50th Anniversary ' packs . Various selections were obtainable , culminating with the limited edition range one in a metal box .

Later this month Cartamundi will propose its exclusive Skyfall Casino chips range - since they designed the chip motives for the Hong Kong Floating Dragon Casino sequence .
Then Corgi announced a Skyfall Special edition Aston Martin DB V for october .
Then the books started to pour  ( in each & every civilized country of the world ) . Official Danjaq licenced ones - and ... Others ( Making of ; Anniversary ; Themed ; Fan written books . You name it . ) - flooding Amazon with announcements and early cover concepts .
Finally the ' big guns ' decided to enter the game : Sony Ericsson started to tease the general audience with glimpses of the new Xperia T phone ( used by 007 in the movie ) ;

Bollinger issued an official Communiqué by last august - reassuring Fans the legendary Champagne will indeed be back with a special bottle to celebrate both Skyfall and the 50th Anniversary of James Bond .

Coca Cola started its 007 campaign with online promo - and a very original clip ( more or less copied from an old ... Pepsi one ! ) .
A new perfume was exclusively unveiled at Harrod's ( London ) - with the obligatory pseudo ' James Bond Girls ' offering fragrance samples .
To be noted : although part of the Skyfall production , Honda - through its motocycle branch - wisely chooses not to go the usual ' Bondathon ' road with their CRF25OR model . Reason may be simple : the model had been largely customised to pass for two different vehicles - a street merchant one and the official Turkish police one ...

Let us hope this avalanche of licencees will be dealt with moderation in the upcoming movie ( not ' à la Moonraker ' )

Sony Xperia T new phone

French edition of ' Bond on Bond ' By Sir Roger Moore

Bollinger Bond 002 Cuvée

CartaMundi Poker Chips Deluxe case

The 2012 / 2013 French James Bond TV doc that never was . Or ' Never trust a Network Executive ... '

Folks , this is a rather sad story , so if you're looking for a rose tainted , gold paved road story please pass your way ok ?

It all started as way back as 2002 just after the French tranmission of my special James Bond reports shot at Stoke Park for T.P.S , a Satellite channel ( part of the TF1 media group ) which had sent us there to cover 007 40^th Anniversary in style .

With all the famous Bond people I managed to meet and interview while there , I thought to myself «  it's ridiculous , we've got more than 3 hrs of footage and only 5 mms of it has been used . I've got to find a way to produce something worth of that exclusive material … ».

The Bond fever of the day passed , and I keep calling various people in the Biz' to see if I could find a Production company interested into a James Bond documentary which will cover not only the film incarnation of the character but also pay hommage to his creator , delve a little bit into Danjaq's real business , and offer some original P.o.vs from various people connected to the James Bond universe .

I sent – litterally – a hundred of emails ( note to my 007 friends around the World  : deep apologies for having pestered you for such a long time with that project of mine ) .

And got , well, 99% of negative answers in return . Usual reasons ? «  Too expensive » , «  No new Bond film this year » , « Impossible to get clips from MGM »,etc. ,etc.

Until … April 2012 . I then got a positive return from an Executive producer of a French Production company , who insisted to see me «  to discuss the idea » . Whoohooo !

That first meeting went rather well . We talked on general matters , and I already insisted on the necessity of shooting in Great Britain ( mainly at the Beaulieu Car museum , the Barbican and various places of interests ) .

The Lady executive was charming , and even a tad too enthusiastic about the Documentary project : «  we simply HAVE to get at least one James Bond in our movie » she kept on telling me .

Knowing that , out of the six official incarnations of 007 , three at least would be impossible to get ( mainly Ms Connery, Brosnan and Craig ) , I tried to temper her , arguing that we could have plenty of other guests amongst actors , technicians , writers and such .

But the Lady was adamant : «  we-need-a-James-Bond to sell our program to a network  ».

Fortunately , it happened that the Cameraman who was assigned to work with me on the project had some way to get an ITW ( or so … He said . Turned out it wasn't true at all in the end ! ) with Sir Roger Moore while the man would be in Paris for promoting his upcoming Bond book in early october .

Everything seems to be quite fine then , and I embarked onto Cannes – where my Cameraman was supposed to join me later - , willing to get there the Bond girls Eon was to send there for an exclusive ' Bond 50' Croisette hommage .

Mind you , at this time , no Money matter had been discussed at all . This was some sort of ' pre-production ' work and I naively thought that the subject would be decently approached when the official start date of the British shooting would have been finalized . Stupid of me …

Cannes was a disaster . Not only did the Cameraman simply refused to take any images of the Bond stuff ( for a good reason : he was there to work for France Television – of which he was an employee, and didn't want to work for free without any contract . And hadn't been clearly briefed by the Paris Production team about my needs on the Croisette ) , but the highlight of the Eon Cannes event – mainly an outdoor beach screening of some Bond movies introduced by some past and future Bond girls themselves turned out to be a mish mash , poorly organized thing . Add to this that the very day when Martine Beswick, Carole Bouquet and Bérénice Marlowe were to introduce the nightly screening , rain started to pour on the Croisette , instantly transforming the Outdoor Screening Beach into some kind of swamp . Hastily , the Cannes execs tried to re-schedule the night event into the Palais des Festivals , putting stickers here and there to alert the Press and the medias alike ( «  Stickers ! » . They had our own mobile phone numbers , and no one thought of simply TEXTING us journalists about the change of plan ???? ) .

So I simply … Missed the indoor event .

Complained about it the very next day to the head of Cannes Ciné-Classic section and then learnt that Eon has been very ' difficult ' to deal with when arranging this Bond retrospective event in Cannes indeed . Won't elaborate ,but it seems the marriage between Cannes and Eon wasn't a happy one I can tell you that .

Anyway , back to Paris I then started to ask my Production about the proposed dates of shooting in England .

During my absence , work had been done indeed . But not necesseraly in the good direction . For instance , some naive Production assistant asked the Barbican if our future crew could possibly REMOVE some items from their plexiglass cubicles , to be able to casually handle them while filming took place. They even suggested the Shooting crew to come to the Museum the day after the official ending of the exhibition so that we could indeed attend the packing of the objects ( due to be sent to the States then ) - and then perhaps … Grab some stuff for close-ups shots and such .

Was horrified when I learnt that – and that's exactly the moment an alarm ring started to drill furiously in my head .

Uh oh , these people are supposed to be TV professionnals and they are not aware of the value of the items exhibited in the Barbican ?

Come on …

Anyway , we were then by the end of June . Everyone going on holidays – including the main Lady Producer who purposefully avoided to answer any of my email dealing with salary request . Strange , eh ?

By mid August I was feeling completely disgusted . Numerous assistants had tried to cajole me to email various people ( on the ground that their own English wasn't good enough ! ) , ranging from the Burbank based MGM section dealing with movie clips buyings , to Mrs Lucy Fleming from the Ian Fleming Publication cie ( a contact I had stupidly given them ) ...

Fully aware that I had indeed put a foot into a nest of ( utterly stupid ) bees , I flatly refused - each time sending back only four words ( «  Where-IS-My-Contract ? » ) and slowly tried to cautiously disengage myself from the whole operation .

Ah , forgot to mention that , before departing for her much earned holidays in the Sun , the Lady Producer had finally decided that the UK shooting would take place by the … Beginning of September .

2012 was therefore lost for a French airing date , and she casually told me : «  oh , we will try to sell it to coincide with the DvD release of Skyfall then. Don't worry .. » .

Fact that 2012 was indeed the 50^th Anniversary date of the James Bond film series seems completely oblivious to her .

Sigh .

Being fortunately embarked onto other ventures , I didn't even protest , knowing full well by now that only one issue would finally come out of all this : cancellation of the whole project , sooner or later …

And that's exactly what happened – only 3 days before we were actually to transport ourselves to England . Got a charming phone-call of the Lady Producer telling me in a sugar-coated voice that «  we have to abort the whole UK shooting schedule – AND ' put on Ice ' the whole Documentary project as well . But have no fear , we still want to do a filmed ITW of Roger Moore in Paris ( for which precise purpose , that I'm still wondering ! ) AND we will try to sell the project to Canal + early next year . So please stay with us , Kevin .. » .

My answer was as cool as an icecube dropped into a Vodka Martini : «  Don't count on my participation anymore . I will personnaly warn all the people you contacted on my ground that the production is truly dead – in case you tried to tell them something else » .

And I've never heard from those people again …

Paris , september the 3^rd of 2012 .

N.B : promo clip was devised by a friend of mine - and in no way the official product of the Production company involved , nor any French Television networks . In short : made just for Fun . 

N.N.B : my most profound apologies to all the people and organizations contacted in the line of duty for that still born Documentary venture . But , as someone once said , ' Never Say Never Again ' ...

First Teaser trailer screened at last at CinemaCon 2012 ...

Sony Pictures teased the CinemaCon 2012 audience with an exclusive Preview screening of their 2012 lineup .

And, one of the films most eargerly awaited with the very first preview screened anywhere was of course about the upcoming 23^rd official James Bond movie “Skyfall.”

The trailer started with James Bond on the roof of a London building , glancing at the city while the viewer is hearing a psychological evaluation between 007 and a Profiler . 

They played a word association game, in which Bond responds with the first words coming to his mind.

- " Country…..England.

Gun…..Shot.

Agent…..Provocateur.

Murder…..Employment.

On the other side of the interrogation room, M ( Dame Judi Dench ) and Mallory ( Ralph Fiennes as the Minister of Defense ? ) are seen standing behind a two-way mirror with an unidentified man. Meanwhile, the interrogator keeps asking Bond more words.

However, when the interrogator says, "Skyfall", Bond doesn't immediately reply. There's a pause . When the man repeats the same word for the second time, the 007 agent finally utters, "Done", before getting up and leaving the room.

The rest of the trailer showed the audience glimpses of action sequences , featuring mostly Daniel Craig .  

Shots of helicopters zooming in , giant fireballs exploding, shots of the Shanghai nightlife, Bond standing over a long row of coffins draped with the flag of England ...

One noticeable insert was about a London subway wagon crashing through a station wall ( shades of Die Hard With a Vengeance ... ) .

The teaser ends with an ominous voice-over by 007 telling audience " someone is coming to kill us , we're going to kill them first ... " . 

“Skyfall” trailer will be released soon ( possibly by early May ) . The film will be in theaters on November 9th in the US and October the 16th in Europe .

A legend in his own time ...

DECOUVREZ LES MISSIONS LES PLUS INTENSES ET LES PLUS EMBLEMATIQUES DE L’UNIVERS JAMES BOND EN TANT QUE MEILLEUR AGENT SECRET AU MONDE DANS 007™ LEGENDS

Santa Monica, CA – 18 avril 2012 – Pour célébrer le 50^ième anniversaire de la licence James Bond, Activision Publishing, Inc., une filiale exclusive d’Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq : ATVI), permet aux joueurs de revivre les plus célèbres missions secrètes de Bond et issues des films James Bond les plus populaires, grâce à 007™ Legends.

Grande première dans les jeux vidéo James Bond : 007 Legends propose un scénario original et complet qui rassemble 6 films Bond classiques dont le 23^ème film prévu cette année, le très attendu SKYFALL. 007 Legends offre ainsi l’expérience de jeu la plus diversifiée à ce jour ! Comme pour les longs métrages, 007 Legends équipe les joueurs avec des gadgets d’espionnage de pointe, mais aussi un arsenal d’armes comprenant le Walther PPK aux couleurs de Bond ainsi que des véhicules élégants. Ils partiront vers des destinations exotiques et sentiront toute la classe, le talent et l'élégance de Bond en mettant hors d'état de nuire de glorieux vilains et leurs sbires, en effectuant des cascades impressionnantes et bien sûr... en flirtant avec de sublimes James Bond girls.

« Pour célébrer les 50 ans du meilleur agent secret au monde, 007 Legends offre une compilation de ses plus célèbres moments réunis dans le meilleur jeu James Bond à ce jour » déclare David Oxford, Vice-Président Exécutif chez Activision Publishing, Inc. « En créant le scénario du jeu vidéo qui relie 6 films légendaires mais très différents, la narration des films Bond peut être délicate à adapter. En travaillant ensemble, notre studio de développement Eurocom et EON Production ont réussi leur pari en réalisant un hommage grâce à ce jeu vidéo unique et très divertissant. »

En plus de l’histoire principale de 007 Legends, le jeu permet le retour des Mi6 Ops Missions. Ces missions en solo très populaires chez les fans ont débuté dans GoldenEye 007: Reloaded et mettent les joueurs au défi d’accomplir des missions supplémentaires et variées. Elles proposent un gameplay basé sur l’action, des infiltrations et bien évidement des gadgets, et permettent un affrontement en ligne, dans le but d’obtenir les meilleurs scores. Pour la toute première fois, les joueurs pourront participer en tant qu’allié de Bond ou au contraire, aux côtés d’ennemis crapuleux. Ils revivront les missions à travers leurs yeux, mais aussi à travers ceux de 007. Le très célèbre mode multi-joueurs de James Bond comprend un mode à 4 joueurs en écran partagé et en local ainsi qu’un mode en ligne avec de nouvelles cartes, armes et personnages issus des 50 années James Bond. Avec encore plus de gadgets, plus d’infiltration et d’espionnage, les joueurs auront toutes les chances de se sentir dans la peau de l’espion le plus célèbre au monde.

Prévu cet automne sur Xbox 360^® et PlayStation^®3, 007 Legends est développé par Eurocom sous la licence d’EON Production Ltd et de la Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. (MGM). Pour plus d’informations, restez connecté sur le site officiel du jeu ainsi que sur la page Facebook.

Activision nous a gracieusement invité à visiter les studios de Eurocom dans les jours prochains ...

Designing 007 ( with style ! )

" In collaboration with Eon Production , Designing 007 will be a multi-sensory experience, immersing audiences in the creation and development of Bond style over its 50 year history . "

It will explore the craft behind the screen icons, the secret service and villains, tailoring and costumes, set and production design, automobiles, gadgets and special effects, graphic design and motion graphics, exotic locations, stunts and props.

Highlights include gadgets and weapons made for Bond and his notorious adversaries by special effects experts John Stears and Chris Corbuld, along with artwork for sets and storyboards by production designers Sir Ken Adam, Peter Lamont and Syd Cain, and costume designs by Bumble Dawson, Donfeld, Julie Harris, Lindy Hemming, Ronald Patterson, Emma Porteous, and Jany Temime.

On display too will be lavish screen finery by Hollywood costume designers and major fashion names including Giorgio Armani, Brioni, Roberto Cavalli, Tom Ford, Hubert de Givenchy, Gucci's Frida Giannini, Douglas Hayward, Rifat Ozbek, Jenny Packham, Miuccia Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Anthony Sinclair, Philip Treacy, Emanuel Ungaro and Donatella Versace.

Designing 007 will transform the Barbican, taking the audience on a journey - a 'making of' and presentation of Bond style over 50 years.

The exhibition is designed by Ab Rogers and curated by the Barbican, with guest-curation by fashion historian Bronwyn Cosgrave and Oscar^®-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming.

A View to ... Nothing ?

Alerted by some UK medias ( Daily Mail , The Sun and various internet websites ) by the beginning of the new year about the London bound shooting of Skyfall , I thought it'd be fun to pass by the area and have a look on the first unit at work .

Unfortunately , I arrived a bit late on the actual Trinity square spot , where shooting was taking place .
The impressive , Greek like architecture ( huge columns and tetraheaded roof )  building  reminds me somehow of the Gozer building in Ghostbusters  ( it is now formed of  high-class apartments, but used to house the London Port Authority in the eighteenth century. ) - talk about Cinephilia ...

 Was actually on the spot Two full days after the shooting started there with the main cast ( Daniel Craig & Dame Judi Dench featuring proeminently in the szcenes )  . Mind you , there was still some units at work, obviously .

'Inner sources ' had already reported that the place could somehow  be used as a ... Morgue - or an official building of sort, where the coffins of the bodies of MI6 personnel killed during the attack which should take place at the very beginning of the movie would be exposed for a limited time ( I noticed some crushed flowers on the pavement ) .

Security was still tight ( impossible to enter the building , guarded by C&M Location Services people ) - meaning filming was still taking place inside .

Interestingly all the familiar yellow B23 ( cryptic ) signs had already disappeared from the area ( stolen by mad 007 collectors - or intentionally removed by the Production , not to alert them ? ) .

No one in the area seemed to have reliable information about the exact sequences filmed here ( and the Shooting panels posted here and there were excessively anonymous , as you can see ) .

As I was merely acting as a basic tourist , and not endorsing my Journalistic work cover , I refrained from texting Eon's current P.R to ask about the possibility of wandering closer to the set ...

Weather was beautiful with a clear blue sky , so I merely walk back home following the Thames , happy enough to have witnessed somehow a little part of the Skyfall shooting ...