ERCHED BY AN
Obertilliach ski slope high
in the Austrian Tyrol only
a Spectre-issue Helly
Hansen puffer jacket
preventing the onset of hypothermia
Empire is shielding its eyes from the
glare of sun on snow. Just behind are
a group of schoolkids playing hooky to
catch MI6 and SPECTRE doing battle
for the first time since Never Say Never
Again (or For Your Eyes Only if theyâre
sticklers for canon). A hundred yards
in front squats a two-tiered Alpine
barn that only five minutes earlier had
been a hive of activity. The last of the
stunt and explosives experts slowly
depart the area. âNo filming!â shouts
a crew member as a curious local tees
up a smartphone.
The skiers swishing blithely past
have no idea that in a moment Her
Majestyâs finest will be blasted across
the valley in the battered cockpit of
a light aircraft like a rocket-propelled
rooster. Not the man himself of course.
You couldnât hire a crash test dummy
to sit in this cockpit let alone the most
heavily insured man in British cinema.
Besides Daniel Craig is back in
Pinewood with Sam Mendes and the
first unit finishing the beginning of
the action sequence that ends here.
Itâs the kind of temporal brain-
twister action movies of this scale throw
up. Balance sheets and tight schedules
have two separate crews working on the
same scene hundreds of miles apart. The
magic of cinema â and specifically that
of editor Lee Smith â will render those
joins undetectable. This set-up is the H
AUSTRIA
OBERTILLIACH
DATE FEBRUARY 1 2015
WORDS PHIL DE SEMYLEN
2