No time to die opening title sequence professional#
No time to die opening title sequence series#

This is most noticeable when he uses Sylvana Henriques. Of course this was not uncommon at the time but it does mean that to modern eye the discrepancy is a distraction. Optical compositing.Īnother valid criticism is that Binder did not use Japanese (or other Oriental races) though this was also the case within the film.

Binder’s work is only to superimpose some silhouettes. To their shame, neither Binder nor the producers thought to give credit to Haroun Tazief and yet it is his footage that is the titles. And huge purple serpents were scattered, sealed with thousands of orange spots.’ On all sides, around the volcano, the bush was in flames. Over the left edge, a sparkling yellow stream flowed, shaken at times by living jolts. Projectiles which had reached less height, no doubt because of their large size, fell fiery again, riddling the dark sides of the cone with their igneous shot. I could make out the continuous movement of the spray, made up of myriads of incandescent particles incessantly projected, which gradually died out during their ascent. Observed through binoculars, the spectacle was fantastic. He described the first time he’d witnessed an eruption: ‘At the exit of the last bend, an immense spray of fire tore through the night, three times as high as it was wide, scarlet, underlined at the base of an intense yellow line.

No time to die opening title sequence professional#

He had been able to get dangerously close to the action, and the film amazed audiences and professional alike it was one of those documentaries that was seen as a turning point. This stunning film had been released in 1959, filmed by the geologist Haroun Tazief across many volcanic countries including Japan. The titles’ backdrop of exploding volcanoes and flowing larva, used footage taken from the French documentary Les rendezvous du diaboles (The Devil’s Blast). Whether the spurting larva that first appears just as Connery’s name comes on screen is a metaphor for more biological rather geological actions, well who knows. This is said to be a version of Flare Gothic and has that hint of the Far East. (The only other identifed girl in the sequence is the delightful but decidedly un-Japanese Sylvana Henriques.)įor the first time, Binder moves away from using a clean and modern typeface to one that is thematic of film’s setting. This then dissolves into the reveal of the mysterious eyes of a geisha (we can assume) using the only Japanese girl to feature in the titles, Kiyomi Kobayashi. ‘He would have wanted it this way…’ leads into the title sequence itself, opening onto the red ribs (the colour possibly most associated with Japan) of a Japanese oil-paper umbrella, wagasa 和傘. It also seems likely that Binder was told to up his game after Thunderball, which were stylistically and graphically interesting but dramatically boring and a step back from the preceding titles. Binder was to try again – but even less successfully – in the next film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. However this did not work as well as the technique that Brownjohn had used, which was to project imagery on to body parts. Putting my doubts to one side, the titles for You Only Live Twice are worth dwelling on as they are some of the least gratuitous in the series, use some interesting found footage, and Binder begins to use a more sophisticated optical compositing technique such as creating imagery framed within the silhouettes.

No time to die opening title sequence series#

I also find Binder’s work increasingly queasy, exploitive and demeaning to the models as the series progressed although there is no doubting the titles became just as much part of the Bond cinematic experience as any of the other iconic elements within the films. As anyone who has read some of my previous pieces will know, I argue that Binder gets too much credit for being the father of the Bond titles whereas it was Robert Brownjohn who started the ball rolling with From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, and did the better work.