Action at Skyfall

We went up to Hankley to check up on the progress of the James Bond film set. A lot of other people had the same idea. Just look at the crowd on the ridge in this shot.

They were waiting for the helicopter to take off. There were actually two. The big green one in this shot and a small, camera chopper which was filming the green one. Here’s the chopper they were filming in.

The entire area had lots of little groups of people watching (including us). It was all quite exciting. There was one guy with an amazing spot directly beneath where the chopper was hovering. I’m not sure whether he was a normal member of the public or something to do with the filming. He had a dog with him.

He’s that black blob behind the chopper. The helicopter is directly above the church I featured last week, which, by the way, has suddenly sprouted a load of graves stones. Some of them may not be quite finished because they were wrapped in black garbage bags.

Here’s a close up of some of the graves:

I am wondering whether the car in the bottom left hand side of this shot is James Bond’s Aston Martin (or whatever he drives these days).

This is a really fuzzy shot of the car on its own. I really have no idea but it could be in shot given the camera chopper was behind the green one which was heading towards the car.

One more photo of the filming. I think this barn looks completely real. If you ignore the other two buildings with the bits missing, this one would look completely convincing sitting there. I think the little tractor helps with the illusion, to be fair. The little group of people seem to be crew.

I have to say that the hordes of people watching must be pretty hardy because the wind was bitterly cold. As we left the ridge, the temperature immediately improved. There’s no way we’d be hanging around any longer than a walk required.

The noise was horrendous as the choppers flew back and forth and round and round. At one stage, someone fired a machine gun, making it even noisier. It was so nice when it all stopped and Hankley sounded the way it normally does. It’s all very exciting but it’ll be so nice when it’s all over and we can walk there in splendid isolation once more.

As we neared the path out of Hankley, a small family group, hopelessly lost, asked for directions back to their car. They’d been going in completely the wrong direction. We set them right and headed for home. I hope they’re not still wandering around the woods, lost and cursing us.