U.N.C.L.E. movie films at a Skyfall location

U.N.C.L.E. insignia from a second-season episode

The Henry Cavill News fan website SNIFFED OUT how The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie did some filming at a Skyfall location in the U.K.: Hankley Common, which substituted for Scotland in the 2012 007 film.

As it turns out, the website came across Tweets from area residents such as THIS ONE about the U.N.C.L.E. filming. Besides the one the website cited, there’s THIS ONE from Oct. 18 and THIS ONE from Oct. 23 after filming in the area ended.

In early 2012, a blogger took and posted pictures at Hankley Common during Skyfall’s production. The area was used to film what was supposed to Bond’s ancestral home and the title of the movie. The photos included what were supposed to be the tombstones of Bond’s parents.

There are no details available how Hankley Common will come into play for the U.N.C.L.E. movie starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer and directed by Guy Ritchie. Meanwhile, Henry Cavill News had an OCT. 24 POST of another U.K. location that may be doubling for Berlin.

Mendes confirms Skyfall delves into 007’s `personal history’

Skyfall director Sam Mendes

Empire magazine, promoting its new issue with Skyfall star Daniel Craig on the cover, has a short article with comments from Sam Mendes where the director confirms the movie will get into Bond’s background. While not a huge surprise, there’s this passage about the audience can expect:

Mendes also adds that Skyfall will see 007 “physically pushing himself” and says that he takes the character “to another level where Daniel isn’t just playing things he’sdone before, where we felt we were pushing — I have to say this in a way that’s not giving too much away — the personal history of the character.”

This revelation isn’t a surprise to anyone who read about Skyfall call sheets that briefly described scenes or viewed photographs taken by a nature photographer during filming in March.

Still, it’s the first quote we’ve seen from one of the Skyfall principals that addresses the issue of how the 23rd 007 movie will explore the character’s history. It hasn’t come up much in previous films. GoldenEye had a passing reference to how Bond was an orphan, for example.

Homages in Skyfall and Five-0 to past 007 films? (spoiler)

Spoiler involved is fairly minor (especially since the horse is out of the barn) but stop reading if you want to remain spoiler-free.

After looking at images at the Facebook page of Bondklub Deutschland & Friends you have to wonder whether Skyfall, the 50th anniversary James Bond film,will have homages to past 007 movies.

Bond flies past a statue of a stag in Thunderball (left), a statue of a stag at 007's ancestral home in Skyfall as photographed by the Foraging Photographer. Coincidence?

Thanks to photos appearing on the Foraging Photographer blog, images of a set intended to pass for Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland show there’s a statue of a stag atop a gate post. In 1965’s Thunderball, Bond (Bill Suitor doubling for Sean Connery), using a jetpack, flies past a statue of a stag while getting away from some minor villains.

An homage? If so, it’s fairly subtle. Eon Productions pulled the same trick with 2002’s Die Another Day, the 40th anniversary 007 movie, which was packed with references to earlier Bond films. Many were pretty obvious, such as Q’s workshop filled with old gadgets, everything from what was supposed to be Thunderball’s jetpack to Rosa Klebb’s deadly shoe in From Russia With Love.

Separately, the March 19 installment of the new Hawaii Five-0 series had a “McGuffin” that would be familar to those who’ve seen Die Another Day. The plot centered around conflict diamonds, the same thing that caused Bond (Pierce Brosnan) to pursue Colonel Moon/Gustav Graves in the 2002 Bond film.

You could write that off to coincidence except the Nov. 21 episode of Five-0 also had things in common with Die Another Day, including a North Korean setting, the hero being tortured and dark, murky photography for scenes set in North Korea. Maybe the Five-0 writing staff liked the movie.

Skyfall’s latest `security breach’

They say things come in threes. So it is with “security breaches” with Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie.

First, it was call sheets and related materials that contained spoilers such as character names ended up on fan Web sites James Bond Brasil and 007 Collector. Then a blogger, who primarily takes nature photos, comes across Skyfall filming at an exterior set that’s supposed to be 007’s ancestral home and some more information about the film comes out.

Now, in Turkey, three high school students sneaked into a Skyfall filming area and took photos of a stunt scene being prepared, ACCORDING TO THIS STORY by the Dogan News Agency that appeared on the Web site of the Hurriyet Daily News. An excerpt:

The trio avoided security guards by sneaking through alleys and climbed over a wire fence into the train station. There, they crawled under train cars and reached the repair depot, where they grabbed off-duty workers’ overalls and helmets.

The story says one of the three was searched, but hid his cell phone (with its camera) in his underwear. To see a gallery of the photos shot, CLICK HERE.

The main reason this sort of thing gets attention is because Eon Productions has been more secretive than usual, such as not providing the names of characters played by Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney. Thus, when some information does spill out, it gets played up. In the absence of traditional coverage, there’s a demand for news (with those wanting to remain “spoiler free” straining to avoid it) and these non-traditional methods are filling it.

Only two more months of filming to go. Will any more leaks occur?

Blogger ceases taking photos of Skyfall set (SPOILERS)

Warning: spoilers begin midway through this post

The blog The Foraging Photographer said March 16 it’s ceasing taking pictures of an exterior Bond set in Scotland after some pressure was applied.

007 relaxes at the pool after the latest Skyfall leak has been sealed off.

The blogger explains in a post you can read BY CLICKING HERE. An excerpt:

Weeeeeeell… I don’t know where to start, really. Or indeed where to finish. I arrived at Hankley this morning, with dog and child, friend and dog, expecting our normal walk around the common only to be enlivened by the film shooting. I greeted, in naive innocence, the (lovely) lady on the main security gate, only to have her call after me “…are you [my name]…?”, and tell me that I was in (and had created) a lot of trouble. They kept me there while they radioed the location manager to come and discuss things with me.

As it turns out, I’ve been a wanted woman on Hankley Common since yesterday, when it became apparent that I had breached military byelaw 4(13). On reading and re-reading this byelaw, I can’t say I’m yet entirely clear about how I’ve breached this, but I’m taking them at their word, and certainly the military police were perfectly serious about finding me and arresting me – the policeman I talked to later told me that if they’d found me first I would have been arrested, cuffed and charged.

(snip) What did distress me is that I seem to have dropped some of the site crew right in it. This really does upset me, because everyone I’ve spoken to on-site has been absolutely lovely, and I’ve greatly enjoyed having chats with them….I have been genuinely enthralled by the development of the set, and the incredible skill displayed therein. I love taking photographs of beautiful things, and, to me, the creation of this fake reality was an amazing thing to witness.

SPOILERS FOLLOW. If you don’t want to know any details bail out now.

The set in question is supposed to be James Bond’s ancestral home, known as the Skyfall lodge. Bond and M head up to Scotland, but Skyfall apparently will be attacked and destroyed. In a post you can view BY CLICKING HERE, you can see photos taken by the blogger, including the headstone for Bond’s parents, Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix Bond as well as headstones for other relatives that have names taken from Ian Fleming relatives. There’s also a chapel that has been constructed.

The Foraging Photographer’s images have been reproduced on fan Web sites and message boards. This is now the third crackdown related to the 23rd James Bond film and the third starring Daniel Craig. Two fan sites, James Bond Brasil and 007 Collector had published images of Skyfall call sheets and related materials sold on eBay that revealed character names and other details. James Bond Brasil took down the images it published. 007 Collector took down a photo of the list of Skyfall character that was included with the call sheets.

UPDATE: The Foraging Photographer added this to her blog entry (MoD means Ministry of Defence):

just want to make very clear that I did not at any point go anywhere that the public were not free to go, nor was I at any point asked not to take photographs. I did not at any point go inside any fences around the structures which were up during construction. Once the fences were removed, I assumed the boundary to be the ‘flooring’ around the sites (the plastic roadway stuff that protects the ground underneath). Only once did I set foot on that flooring, and that was with permission. There was full public access to the site throughout construction (it’s MoD land), and lots of members of the public taking photos and videos. It was only during filming that the security guys were present. I do feel that if the chapel site was such hot property, then the production team should have made the construction team very aware of this, and put security on the site. It’s not like I was skulking around – I was there with two loud children and a dog!