Shooting 007: And Other Celluloid Adventures (48 page)

11 With Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli while filming
Octopussy
. A native New Yorker, Cubby began making films in the UK in the early 1950s and produced close to fifty films using British technicians. In 1989 Cubby was the first winner of BAFTA’s Britannia Award for Excellence in Film; in 2011 they announced that the award would be renamed the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment. (© 1983 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. All rights reserved)

12 Camera crew group photograph taken while filming on
The Living Daylights
near Ouarzazate in Morocco.
Left to Right:
Frank Elliott (focus puller), Hassan (Moroccan camera department assistant), Alec Mills, Roy Wealleans (camera truck driver, kneeling with clapperboard), Mike Frift (camera operator), Simon Mills (clapper loader) and Chunky Huse (grip).

13 Ouarzazate Airport in November 1986. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was provided by the Royal Moroccan Air Force, courtesy of King Hassan II of Morocco, who was always keen to welcome filmmakers to his country.

14 With my son Simon at Ouarzazate Airport. In spite of the fact that we were filming in the Moroccan desert, the altitude combined with the northerly wind blowing off the Atlas Mountains had most of the unit shivering for much of the filming.

15 Q’s workshop on 11 December 1986 at Pinewood Studios during the royal visit by the Prince and Princess of Wales. While special effects supervisor John Richardson speaks with Prince Charles in the foreground, Princess Diana admires my very distinguished nose. (© 1987 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. All rights reserved)

16 A rushed lunch on
Licence to Kill
(1988) with Frank Elliott (focus puller) and John Tythe (gaffer). Even in the supposedly controlled conditions of a studio film set you sometimes had to grab a quick bite whenever you could.

17 The
Licence to Kill
camera crew while filming on location in Acapulco.
Left to Right:
Mexican camera assistant, Simon Mills (clapper loader), Alec Mills, Mike Frift, Chunky Huse and Frank Elliott. The white-painted Villa Arabesque in the bright Mexican sunlight caused a number of lighting headaches when composing the individual shots.

18 Filming on a tracking vehicle at Key West on
Licence to Kill
, as the villain tries to make his pre-title sequence escape.
Left to Right:
Alec Mills, Frank Elliott, Chunky Huse, John Tythe, Keith Hamshere and Mike Frift.

19 Filming outside Krest’s warehouse at Key West. The weather looks lovely but the average relative summer humidity of about 75 per cent left the film unit totally drained by the end of the day.

20
Octopussy at Thirty
– the Bondstars summer barbecue at Pinewood Studios on 7 July 2013.
Left to Right:
Colin Miller (sound editor), John Grover (editor), Alec Mills (camera operator), Tony Waye (assistant director), Paul Weston (stunt supervisor), Maud Adams (Octopussy), Elaine Shreyeck (continuity), Kristina Wayborn (Magda), Alan Tomkins (art director) and Peter Lamont (production designer).

21 Signing autographs at Gareth Owen’s annual Bondstars summer barbecue at Pinewood Studios, where the fans have a chance to meet the artistes and crews who make the films.

22 Perhaps I was a gladiator in an earlier life. Filming in an amphitheatre near Naples while working as Jack Cardiff’s second-unit cameraman on
The Last Days of Pompeii
(1983).