CANopen sinks a building for James Bond
Source: CAN Newsletter March 2009
Box office figures have confirmed that the James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ has been one of the most successful in this ever-popular franchise. Although the film steers clear of some of the more traditional gadgets that ‘Q’ can muster up; it still has a breathtaking array of special effects scenes. One of the biggest, the sinking of a Venetian building, was a unique motion control challenge that involved Moog and its partner EMP Designs Ltd. Moog’s role was to ensure the smooth and safe operation of a huge rig that had to sink one of three motion bases, the largest weighing 80 000 kg, into the large water tanks at Pinewood Studios just outside London.
The sinking building was part of one of the final scenes in the film and required two different camera angles — an external scale model shot against a blue screen to show the building sinking into one of the Venetian canals and a full-scale internal model used to film the actors inside the actual sinking building. The structures themselves, developed under the auspices of special effects supervisor Chris Courbould, had to be controlled with extreme precision so carefully choreographed stunts and action sequences could be filmed. Courbould and his special effects team built the structures and then called in Dan Stanton and his team from EMP Designs, to develop the control systems.
