Computer Animation Arts

You Only Live Twice has to rank as having one of the great underrated film scores. Okay - Nancy Sinatra and the high pitched strings of the opening theme have ensured its legacy in pop culture until  the end of time. The opening themes to Bond have always been bigger than the films themselves. Yet the rest of John Barry’s score stands out as an equally sumptuous feast for the ears, which doesn't get as much credit as it deserves. Thwarted perhaps by the film's unfair critical reception.  Capsule in Space  for example, perfectly encapsulates what makes the film such an enjoyable popcorn spectacle. Despite all of its absurdities, You Only Live Twice - for me at least - captures a grand sense of cinematic danger and scale which dares to place Bond in a situation which is far greater than his own abilities can handle. A secret base in a volcano is unbelievable, but it’s cinema of the most exciting kind. I love You Only Live Twice because of it’s absurdities. For all...

With the first year's 'Secret Lairs' project very much in mind, check out Alien Apple Studios' presentation of their environment concept art for Eurocom's Bond 007 Legends game.

  With the imminent release of Sam Mendes' new Bond adventure, Skyfall , Ian Fleming's original novels are being reissued by Vintage here in the UK and by Amazon in the US.  It's a minimalist graphic-design smack-down between the two companies, and they're compared and contrasted here for viewing pleasure.  Saul Bass looms large - never a bad thing - and the best of these just go to prove that sometimes there's nothing more chic than a bit of text and lots of negative space!

Silly actions scenes aside, the latest film from the James Bond franchise Skyfall is shaping up to be possibly the most sophisticated one yet. We cant't always trust trailers but Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead) is most definitely a proper film director still at the top of his game - although before directing films he made his name in theatre as the artistic director of intimate Donmar Warehouse. His strong artistic sensibilities always seem at the forefront of his films.  Underneath the bravado of 'Bond' I think there's an interesting examination of 'James' just waiting to be told. Here's hoping!

More John Barry means more James   Bond , and his film score for the fourth in the spy franchise, Thunderball (1965).  This was the Bond movie with the jet pack and much parodied 'pool of sharks'.  Musically, it's got that unmistakeable blend of menace, jazz and big band orchestration that so evokes the time and place of early Bond...  Apparently, after hitting - and sustaining - the last big, ballsy note at the end of the theme song (featured below), Tom Jones fainted in the recording booth! "It was a combination of the time (the early '60s), a collision of musical cultures (the end of the big-band era, the beginnings of rock) and the offbeat qualities of Ian Fleming's creation that led to Barry's unique mix of jazz, rock, pop and traditional orchestral writing. "John is part of the original DNA of the Bond film franchise," says Barbara Broccoli, producer of the Bond films since 1995 and daughter of original Bond producer...

John Barry , born in 1933,  died aged 77 in January 2011 .  I'll be featuring works by this late, great oscar-winning composer over the coming weeks for your listening pleasure, and w hat better way to introduce Barry's musical legacy t han with the brassy delights of his Goldfinger (1964) score, the soundtrack that locked down the musical identity of the long-running James Bond franchise.  I defy anyone listening to the excerpts below not to thrill to the jazzy raunchiness of Barry's music.  This is sexy, dangerous stuff...  Alpine Drive/Auric's Factory Oddjob's Pressing Engagement Goldfinger theme, lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse , performed by Shirley Bassey