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Behind The Scenes (1)

By MI6 Staff

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As 'Casino Royale' celebrates its 10th anniversary, MI6 looks back to the making of the film with rarely seen behind the scenes video from the production. This first installment focusses on the Madagascar sequence.

Daniel Craig started out his tenure as James Bond filming the Madagascar sequence in 'Casino Royale', although in a slightly back-to-front order. An abandoned motel and its grounds at Coral Harbor on New Providence Island stood in for the shanty town on the African island Madagascar where Bond watches Mollaka during the snake and mongoose fight. A derelict hotel in the same area was utilized as the construction site where Bond pursues Mollaka.

Other sets were also combinations of interior sets built in one location and exterior locations in another country. The first scene shot on the production, the Nambutu Embassy chase, was at a set in a studio in Modrany, outside Prague. "It was complicated – Bond moves through the Embassy pursuing and capturing Mollaka – running along corridors, into offices and jumping out of a window into the compound where he sets off a huge explosion," explained Production Designer Peter Lamont. "The beginning of that scene was shot later in The Bahamas, where he follows Mollaka to the Embassy from the building site."

Casino Royale Behind The Scenes : MADAGASCAR Sequence

First on the location schedule in the Bahamas were the scenes in 'Madagascar', which the art department had dressed as a construction site. In the scene, Bond gets into an 18-ton digger and drives at about 35 miles-per-hour towards the building. He hits the side of a truck, destroys a hut, and then slams into the concrete plinth which Mollaka is running on, the backhoe’s bucket chewing into the concrete.

"We built a model and put forward two or three ways that the digger could conceivably take out the concrete, including taking out the pillar underneath," recalled Visual Effects wizards Chris Corbould. "Martin Campbell preferred the direct way, with the bucket straight into the concrete. We did a couple of tests, and during the take it was even better than I expected. The concrete curled round the bucket and it came out like a wave."