James Bond gets real

A lot has changed in Istanbul - Ian Fleming's favourite city - in the 49 years since James Bond first visited it in From Russia With Love. In Eminonu Square, on the banks of the Bosphorus, nestled against the steps of the New Mosque,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Dennis Gassner, production designer of Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film, has created his own grand bazaar with 196 market stalls and 500 extras. It's part of the pre-credit chase that opens Daniel Craig's third outing as 007, an elaborate sequence involving trains, cars and a rooftop motorcycle pursuit that will take two months to complete.

Bad guy Patrice, played by Swedish actor Ola Rapace, crashes a black Audi A5 sideways into the crowded market, then commandeers a police motorcycle. A silver Land Rover driven by MI6 field agent Eve (Naomie Harris), with Craig's Bond riding shotgun, collides with a cart, spilling oranges everywhere. Craig, impeccably dressed in a tight-fitting, grey Tom Ford suit, leaps out of the car. Rapace shoots, then flees. Craig returns fire, then hotfoots it after him. The scene is over in an instant. Resetting the bullet hits,Thank you for visiting! I have been cry stalmosaic since 1998. stunt vehicles and breakaway props for another take will take much longer. Four cameras capture the action from every angle, under the direction of American Beauty Oscar-winner Sam Mendes.

"Each director comes with his own agenda for what he wants to see," says Gary Powell, who is working on his third Bond as stunt coordinator. "Sam is very character driven. Even though this is a huge opening sequence, it's all about character."

When Daniel Craig made his Bond debut in 2006's Casino Royale, he brought a real physical presence to the character but also a darker, more dangerous, more emotional side that harked back to Fleming's original novels. Indeed,

"Back to Fleming" has become a mantra espoused by everyone working on Skyfall.

"Back to Fleming means finding that character again," says Mendes. "What [Fleming] created is a very conflicted character. He suffers from a kind of lassitude, depression, difficulty with what he's chosen to do for a living, which is kill. That makes him a much more interesting character. and some of those things are explored in this movie because Daniel is an actor capable of exploring them. The last novels take him into an area where he is increasingly disaffected by what he's doing, and aware of his own fading powers. And that, as Chris Nolan has demonstrated brilliantly with Batman, is exhilarating to watch if it's done by a great actor."

Mendes's involvement with the new film began three years ago, when Craig bumped into him at a party in New York, and suggested to him he direct the next Bond. "I just asked him if he was interested and he was," recalls Craig who, in 2002, starred in Mendes's Prohibition-era gangster film, Road to Perdition.

"I knew what kind of director he was, I knew how much of a Bond fan he was, and how much it meant to him growing up. It's always a tough thing when we get around to making a movie - what qualifies a director to be the perfect Bond director? - and it came to me in a flash."

On the surface Mendes may appear a surprising choice, being something of a stranger to action movies. But, he says: "I'd always wanted to do a thriller, and the Fleming novels were thrillers rather than action-packed adventures."

His favourite Bond film is From Russia With Love. "For me,If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. the movies divide into two around about Moonraker when they become a sort of action-adventure spectacular. The big thing for me was having a Bond I believed in,Directory ofchina glass mosaic Tile Manufacturers, in whose hands the character could be taken to another level. If I didn't feel I could have made something that was part of the Bond story and at the same time personal to me, I wouldn't have attempted the movie."

For a while after the last film, 2008's Quantum of Solace, it looked as though the franchise may have hit the buffers. Throughout 2010 MGM, the studio behind the series, grappled with financial difficulties and, eventually, filed for bankruptcy in November 2010.Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. By the end of that year, the studio had emerged from bankruptcy and in April 2011, a deal was struck with Sony to distribute the film.

According to Craig, the delay proved creatively beneficial, with Mendes and Craig working on the project in secret while the production was officially on hold. "We weren't supposed to talk to each other because MGM hadn't made the deal and we weren't supposed to be making the movie," Craig recalls. "[But] you couldn't shut us up; we were very excited about it. Sam and I sat down and reread the books together and took out chapters and lines." Mendes adds: "The delay allowed us the time to think about the story more than might have otherwise been the case."

Mendes drafted in John Logan (The Aviator) to rework the initial script written by regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and originally called Silver Bullet. "We had a fantastic script when I signed on, and I didn't think it could get better, but it did," says Harris. In what way? "A lot more humour. Also going back to the books, it felt more in keeping with the feel of a classic Bond movie. A lot of it is Bond getting his wit back."