American Cinematographer - December 2006 - 49

As

always, Bond

takes his orders
from M (Dame

Judy Dench), his
stern Secret

Service

character has
One such

seen

scene

in

takes

time.

some

place inside

production designer - in this case
Bond

veteran Peter

the titular casino where much of the

the art

film's action is set. In the

sets.

Bond must

operatives
the other

-

immediate

because I need to look down it and

in

that takes them down four
stairs. "It's much

more

scene,

enemy
a gun,
a

battle

and horrible when you get

the
right in there," says
Campbell of the handheld work.
"The bad guys attack Bond and then
they all go down four flights of
stairs, throwing themselves over

camera

banisters and such. We built the
whole

set

of stairs

Barandov, and

on

onstage at

each level

a

door¬

and window appeared to be
leading to a corridor. The set went
almost to the ceiling of the stage, but
it was important to be able to see the
whole thing and follow the fight all
the way down."

it and not see film lights.' So I
suggested we make each level look
like there's a frosted-glass window
up

and

Meheux notes the

of

impor¬

collaborating with the

a

corridor

on

the other side of

that.

They put in these windows
alternating yellow and
white squares that gave a very inter¬
esting effect when I lit through
made of

the actors and the set.

fixtures in the
to

silhouette

in

shots

featuring the actor's stunt double.
True to the spirit of Fleming's
novel, a lot of the drama takes place
at

the card tables, where

a

Texas Holdem Poker has

form of

replaced

Continental game of
baccarat. One of Meheux's chal¬

the

more

lenges
to

was

cover

finding cinematic

these

scenes.

ways
"There are

three card games

in the film," notes
Campbell. "How do you make 10
people around a table playing cards
interesting? We had to discuss it
quite a bit, but I must say Phil made
it wonderful."

the drama between the characters.

on

was

or

lit

lights without lenses and lit the glass
from the other side, letting the
different squares cast discernible
This

featuring Craig, and in

shadow

augmented by practical
stairway; he was able

Meheux used 5K tungsten

shadows

in shots

"Betting in itself is pretty
boring," says Meheux. "The audi¬
ence isn't necessarily going to know
the game, so if Bond says, 'I'll raise
you,' and they turn over the next
card, how many people in the audi¬
ence will know if it's a good card or
a bad card? So you have to deal with

them."

way

tance

and

flights of

fight off two
one wielding

machete

-

department when creating
"Originally, they were going to
make the stairway enclosed by four
walls," recalls the cinematographer.
"I said, 'That really that stumps me
as to where the light's going to be,

-
a

Lamont

control these

so

that Bond

was

superior.

American

Cinematographer 47
American Cinematographer - December 2006

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