How Crew Designed Cuba Locations for ‘No Time to Die’
“No Time to Die” doesn’t stint on one of the Bond trademarks: shooting in stunning locations across the globe. Daniel Craig’s latest and last outing as moves from Matera, in Italy, to Norway, Denmark, Jamaica and London.
A stunning sequence is set in Cuba — one location that wasn’t available. So the production team shot a few exteriors in Jamaica dressed as Cuba, then transformed the U.K.’S Pinewood Studios into Havana for the rest of the scene.
Production designer Mark Tildesley traveled to Cuba to research the architecture, taking note of intricately detailed building facades, the look of streets, neon signs and propaganda art.
“What we were able to do was build our version of it,” Tildesley says. “We could extrapolate all the best pieces and our favorite buildings, images and icons to build that world — the Bond world.”
He worked closely with cinematographer Linus Sandgren, particularly when it came to creating a ballroom — filled with partying Spectre agents — with an open-air bar outside where a shootout ensues between Craig as Bond alongside Ana de Armas as agent Paloma and the villains. The location was inspired by photos Tildesley had taken of an old house while out to dinner. “It was in this palazzo with this amazing staircase and this road that went under the staircase, and that was the key to designing that whole bar and space,” Tildesley says.
Sandgren manufactured many of the practical lights that were creatively integrated into sets, with the symbol of the sinister Spectre organization in the ballroom ceiling and a shimmering wall in the bar.
When Bond stumbles onto the ballroom, the lighting turns from a party atmosphere to a single spotlight shining on Craig. A high angle shows him surrounded by Spectre agents, and Sandgren says the shot not only takes in the scope of the room and its design but has an air of mystery. “That whole sequence feels like a Hitchcock thriller,” he says.