Alan Church (1964-2024)
3rd January 2025
Bond fan Alan Church who became title designer Maurice Binder’s protégé has died
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 - Bond fan Alan Church who became title designer Maurice Binder’s protégé has died)
To grow up and work on the James Bond film series in a professional capacity is, to a 007 fan, what dreams are made of. That is exactly what happened to Alan Church who carved a successful career as an optical effects camera operator and later a visual effects producer.
Born in Bushy Hertfordshire on 18 April 1964, Church was first introduced to the world of James Bond when his father took him to see a double bill of 'Dr. No' and 'Thunderball' at the Odeon Rayners Lane in 1972. Interviewed by 'Some Kind of Hero' authors Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury, Church reminisced, “I was just hooked and thrived on the double bills. My Gran took me to see 'Live And Let Die' and it became my favourite film. It was imprinted on my mind.” So in awe of Roger Moore’s debut, he saw it 32 times on its initial theatrical release. “I started collecting James Bond memorabilia with every bit of pocket money I had. I ended up jumping into the skip at the back of the cinema on Sundays when the films changed to get my Bond posters. My goal was to work on them somehow.”
The son of a fireman and a schoolteacher, the film industry seemed like a closed shop for Alan growing up in the 1970s. But his tenacity proved otherwise. Leaving college in 1981, Alan wrote to and called every production company in London. He got through to the ‘Star Wars’ production office at Elstree, “The lovely lady there advised me of what to do. She said, ‘Unless you’re a dwarf, we can’t help you. I said, ‘I’m not a dwarf, but I’ll cut my legs off.” She suggested Church write weekly to the unions to request information on trainee openings.
Church applied for a junior position at General Screen Enterprises (GSE) that served the British film studios by producing optical effects, titles, trailers, and small visual effect shoots. GSE was owned by producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas who had made the Carry On series, “My jaw dropped to the ground when I saw these cans of film and saw what they were doing. Because of my enthusiasm, they offered me the job there and then.”
Church began at GSE as a trainee optical assistant and soon graduated to optical camera operator working on a variety of projects most notably for the BBC on title sequences for shows such as ‘Grange Hill’, ‘Holiday’ and ‘The World About Us’. One of Alan’s early title sequences was for ‘Educating Rita’ (1983) directed by the former Bond helmer Lewis Gilbert. “GSE was a film factory in Uxbridge that nobody knew about. During that time as a film fan, I had so many encounters with big directors – Peter Yates, Roman Polanski, John Boorman. I was in awe, and they found that endearing.”
In 1983 he finally got to work on not just one but two Bond movies, albeit in a small capacity. For 'Octopussy' he was asked by John Glen’s editing team to speed up certain shots in the jungle and train sequences. “We would speed up the action by removing one frame out of every two. We completed this technique on an optical camera. Our work was of course invisible.” Travelling back and forth to Pinewood he became friendly with the EON crew. Later that year Church completed optical work on the rival picture, ‘Never Say Never Again’, “I was tasked with making Sean Connery look younger. The makeup department had made him look more like a rubber puppet. He looked spongy. I remember the scene where he said, ‘My name is Bond…James Bond.’ I got the footage and thought, ‘What the hell does he look like?’ I did everything in my power to soften the shot because we didn’t have CGI tools.”
For 1985’s 'A View To A Kill' Alan carried out composite work on the Eiffel Tower sequence. 'The Living Daylights' (1987) was more challenging, and Alan was responsible for the optical effects concerning 007’s Aston Martin V8 such as the heads-up digital display and the laser which shoots from the wheel hub.
Church’s ultimate dream was to work on a Bond title sequence, “While the scripts were good and the villains brilliant, the titles were really my thing – extremely cinematic and high camp. Maurice Binder was my hero. He was my idol, I just wanted to work with him.” Binder traditionally completed his work with GSE’s rival, National Screen Services (NSS). When NSS experienced financial woes in the late 1980s Binder looked to GSE as an alternative and was assigned Church as an assistant. Alan’s first Binder project was the opening titles to Bernardo Bertolucci's Best Picture Academy Award winner ‘The Last Emperor’ (1988), “Maurice thrived on new blood and enthusiasm. I was scared of him but very loyal. We set about shooting the titles in our studios on the Oxford Road, next to the Crown and Treaty pub in Uxbridge. It was an incredible experience – using some of the simplest things. We used to go up the High Street and find paddling pools from Argos, and sheets of glass and things like that – watering cans to create ripples of water – and photograph the reflections.”
Next he assisted Binder on the titles for Nicholas Meyer’s ‘The Deceivers’ (1988) starring Pierce Brosnan. For a moment it looked as if EON had other ideas for 'Licence To Kill' (1989) and Binder would not be re-hired, dashing Alan’s hope of finally working on a Bond title sequence. At the eleventh-hour Binder was commissioned for what would ultimately be his 007 swansong. Church supported Binder by brainstorming ideas and themes, “We looked at a little bit of the footage of the pre-titles, and it was a wedding, so we thought: a wedding with cameras.” Church spent two weeks with the veteran and was involved in every aspect of the sequence. The words: Licence To Kill appear on screen fired from a Walther PPK. “I’ve got very small hands...ladies’ hands,” Church said, and was directed by Binder to slide on a velvet evening glove and fire the pistol, “I got 25 quid for that.” The sequence utilised model Diane Lee-Hsu who had also appeared in the film, “We were using various techniques, putting Diane in the paddling pool, a massive sheet of glass in the foreground, with me fixing a hose pipe with holes in it against the glass and connecting that to the water mains, and running water down the camera at 120 frames per second.” Church got to meet Bond impresario Cubby Broccoli and daughter Barbara when they visited Binder at work. Timothy Dalton also spent a day with the team shooting bespoke footage for the theatrical teaser trailer, “I liked Tim a lot. We went to the pub next door together for lunch. Can you imagine what it was like being a fan and doing all this? Unbelievable.”
Church’s pride and joy and possibly personal career highlight was the gun barrel sequence for ‘Licence To Kill,’ which Binder entrusted entirely to him. Church ensured that all the components were perfect and flawless, “I kept Tim full frame because I like to see his face and I didn’t freeze him, so his hand wanders a little as the blood comes down. It’s probably not the correct colour but I used a really punchy red. I absolutely love that. I’m so proud to have done the last traditional gun barrel.”
After ‘Licence To Kill’ Church left GSE to work for another Bond maestro, Derek Meddings who had his own company based at Shepperton Studios. There Alan worked as a VFX optical cameraman, focus puller and camera operator for model unit shoots on films such as ‘Never Ending Story II’ (1990) and ‘Cape Fear ‘(1991).
Church’s association with Meddings Magic led him to work on his final Bond production (1995) serving both the main and second units with Roy Moores on rear projection shots. During the first week of production Church found himself on the Severnaya set, where the key that controls the GoldenEye satellite is stolen, “We had this old, archaic back projection system, and we had all the elements on film, and we were actually projecting it, about 100 foot away from the actual set, so we had to have a big stage.”
In the mid-1990s Church had the foresight to embrace the changes the film industry was facing at that time and transitioned his career neatly from practical and optical effects into the digital age. In 1995 he joined Cinesite, “It was all very new to me, because I was used to all the studios, and working in Uxbridge and this was a very corporate company in Soho.” Into the 2000s and beyond Church became a sought-after freelancer producing and supervising effects on shows such as the 2020 BAFTA VFX nominated ‘Good Omens’ for Amazon/BBC. Along with his partner, Simon Giles, Church carved a niche as a consultant in VFX insurance claims advising loss adjusters on how to get productions back on track.
Most recently Church and Giles worked on ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ (2024) which awarded them two prestigious visual effects awards. Alan had no plans to retire and was arguably at the height of his career following his recent recognition from such bodies as The Royal Television Society.
Alan died suddenly on 23 December 2024 at the age of 60. He adored sharing his stories with like-minded fans and his loss will be felt deeply in the James Bond community.
With thanks to Simon Giles.
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