[SJFerrol]

How comes they'd film certain things for real and then use obvious green/blue screen like in car chases or other locations

[Nooblet68]

My take is that they just did it to save on money since they had a much tighter budget back then.

[MissDexter]

Not something that was unique to Bond movies, quite often seen in many older films.

[Helbore]

Most likely the stuff filmed for real was done with stunt doubles and the crappy back-projection sequences are with the wimpy leading cast.

[MissDexter]

Originally Posted by Helbore

Most likely the stuff filmed for real was done with stunt doubles and the crappy back-projection sequences are with the wimpy leading cast.

Not really anything to do with being "wimpy".
2 reasons the leading cast didn't always do close up action shots 1) they weren't insured 2) they didn't have the skill - for example the ski chase at the start of Spy Who Loved Me required very experienced stunt skiers. Roger Moore probably didn't have the skill to do that.

[Andy2]

Quite often, blue screen/back projection was used to re-do a scene that turned out crap on location. It would have been too expensive to go back and do it again, so they just did a (often poor) process job.

I've also heard that the first Bond film cost just £300,000 to make, so they were on a shoestring!

[Ads]

Now days loads of stuff in movies is done on green screens, but because of technological advances its much harder to work out its fake

Whereas the old back projection days, its always completely obvious!

[RebelScum]

There's one scene in Casino Royale where it's noticeable. It's not a major scene, when Le Chiffre is playing cards on his yatch. A girl comes out if the water, climbs the steps and enters the yatch. As she enters, the scenery behind her is green screened.

[Helbore]

Originally Posted by MissDexter

Not really anything to do with being "wimpy".
2 reasons the leading cast didn't always do close up action shots 1) they weren't insured 2) they didn't have the skill - for example the ski chase at the start of Spy Who Loved Me required very experienced stunt skiers. Roger Moore probably didn't have the skill to do that.

I was being sarcastic when calling them wimpy

I remember that Timothy Dalton did most of his own stunts as Bond. He said in an interview that it wasn't because he was brave, but because he was some kind of perverse coward, as he didn't have the guts to say no in front of all those guys on set.

[Ted Cunterblast]

I guess these days people are so used to CGI being used to put the actors face over the stunt performers that it is fairly seamless and unnoticable, so that it appears that the actor is on screen for the whole duration of the sequence.


So it may appear a little jarring when you watch the older movies and see close up inserts of the actors face against an obvious green screen background...but there was no other way to do it back then.


Oh, and you should always take this 'I do all my own stunts' line from actors with a pinch of salt. They don't, save for the occasional jump or something similar which is deemed harmless and not likely to cause any injury.


You don't allow your leading actor to perform potentally dangerous stunts, because if anything goes wrong, even something like a twisted ankle then production stops , and that means they can be losing millions...it's a risk that studios rarely take.

[NorfolkBoy1]

It's not even unique to older Bond films, every close shot of Bond riding the motorbike on the Istanbul rooftops in Skyfall looked an incredibly obvious green-screen on the IMAX screening I went to, much less obvious when I've seen the same shots in trailers/tv spots however.