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00:08Hey everybody, welcome to the second episode of Beyond the Lights.
00:11In this episode we're going to be focusing on the cast and characters,
00:15where we'll have developers reacting to your videos, providing deeper insights,
00:19as well as having special appearances that you don't want to miss out on.
00:23Let's get straight into it.
00:26My name is Martin Emborg, I'm the Bond IP Creative Director and Narrative and Cinematic Director,
00:31and I've been at I.O. since 2006 on and off.
00:35Play.
00:37Let's give him one.
00:39He's so young!
00:40They've got the cheek scar, they have got the cheek scar.
00:43It's when he's a youngin! Holy s**t! It's when he's a youngin!
00:48He looks dark, he looks mysterious, while also being cocky and confident.
00:54And quite flirty as well.
00:56Man, I love that they're getting that from this, because, yeah, obviously, he's all of those things. And more.
01:03The people who have put this together have done their homework, quite frankly.
01:07They're not just looking at cinematic.
01:09Which was a delight, obviously, and the gravity of the job settles in as well when you do that.
01:15But it's very inspiring.
01:18Those books are amazing.
01:19Like, they're really well-paced.
01:21They're really quite brutal, and they're really quite realistic.
01:24You can quite clearly see how, you know, the decades have had their versions.
01:30And so, now it's our turn.
01:34Doing an origin story for something like Bond, it's a really interesting challenge taking the core qualities of the character
01:43that people know and love, obviously, for 60-plus years.
01:46But then, how did he get there? How did he become this guy that's suave and knows everything?
01:52What's the journey to go there?
01:54And hopefully, the journey and where he comes from, to some extent, should surprise or, you know, at least intrigue
02:01people.
02:02So that he isn't just kind of, like, stepping through the door and going, well, let's get started.
02:06Like, there's a journey, there's a character arc that he needs to go through.
02:10And you are? Don't think we've had the pleasure.
02:13No, let's not get ahead of ourselves, James.
02:15What is very different in terms of, like, difference from books and movies is that, in our version, you know,
02:21Moneypenny is a field analyst.
02:24And so, she's gonna be in his earpiece.
02:27And so, you get a lot more time with Moneypenny.
02:29You get a lot more conversation between her and Bond.
02:32So, traditionally, Bond is a man of very few words.
02:37In our version, he speaks a lot more, which is partly because he's a young guy, but also partly to
02:42do with the medium.
02:43And we're not cutting to the next, you know, set piece.
02:46You're with him.
02:47You're entering the building with him.
02:48And so, you're gonna be part of a lot of back and forth and a lot of conversation and a
02:53lot of perspectives.
02:54Sometimes quite fun.
02:55I mean, it's always more fun to jump out of a window if you're being told not to.
02:59So, that's definitely part of the dynamic as well.
03:02So, Bond and Moneypenny do have a long history, I guess, across the franchise.
03:07And, ultimately, I think we wanted to honour that DNA in this version of her.
03:11So, they do kind of...
03:13Their dynamic treads this line of, like, cheekiness, but admiration.
03:18There's a lot of respect, but there's still kind of pushback when needed.
03:21And, yeah, we wanted to honour that.
03:22But, I guess, in First Light, we do see them at an earlier stage.
03:26Just before that kind of mythology sets in around them and, you know, they're figuring each other out.
03:30So, there is still that chemistry there and, hopefully, that chemistry grows throughout the game and everyone can kind of
03:35feel that and sense that.
03:37But, at the same time, they're figuring each other out.
03:40And, we wanted to show that, too, while still honouring everything that we've seen about them in the past.
03:44When we meet him, he is a young man that steps into the world of espionage, steps into MI6, where
03:52he'll meet the surrounding cast.
03:54And, the way that we work with the surrounding cast is that we've imbued these surrounding characters like M and
04:00Greenway and Moneypenny
04:01with some of those qualities that you know from Bond and so that they can inform the character.
04:05And, you know, fans will notice, oh, yeah, so that might be, you know, how he picked up his, you
04:11know, his style in the case of Q, for instance.
04:14Q, in our version, is a very sartorial, very stylish gentleman.
04:18So, he's the reason that the, you know, the Q watch is an Omega and he's the reason that the
04:23Q car, the spy car, is an Aston Martin.
04:26So, that's a very tangible version of how these characters inform who he is.
04:32Hi, my name's Alastair McKenzie and I play Q in 007 First Light.
04:36My first reaction when they asked me to play Q was nothing but excitement.
04:42I'd just been such a massive fan of Bond for all my life.
04:46I grew up with Desmond Nuellen playing Q and then Ben Whishaw.
04:49So, to be invited in to be part of that universe is just, well, it's very flattering and very exciting.
04:55Also, for me, Q was always the, he was the cool uncle figure when I was growing up.
05:04I loved Desmond Nuellen.
05:06I mean, he was, you know, an old man, but he had this kind of uncle-like quality to him
05:12that was very, very appealing.
05:14First Light is, as I say, it's more of an origin story. So, we have to, we see him as
05:21a slightly younger man and we see him as somebody who's experienced in the field.
05:27He has to kind of teach Bond how to become an agent effectively.
05:31He's more of a kind of teacher mentor figure. There's a lot of tech involved.
05:35You know, he's kind of likes to mess around a bit and Q has to keep him in check and
05:40remind him that he has a job to do and he has to do it properly.
05:45And he can't mess around with these gadgets because they're dangerous and he's got to treat them with the respect
05:52and the care that they deserve.
05:53Our Q has to be someone who, who commands that kind of respect and has that sort of authority.
05:59He is the sort of professor and the teacher and the mentor, but it's also a little bit of a
06:04twinkle in his eye as well.
06:06And he's a friend of Bond as well. Q would not be where he is today if he was not
06:10experienced in the field himself.
06:12So I imagine, you know, he's got a few tasty moves under his belt that he can bring out if
06:18necessary.
06:19But this one is only for double O agents, James.
06:22If you want to drive it, you'll have to earn the number.
06:26Then you have someone like Greenway, who's a new character. He's the mentor character.
06:31And he does not want Bond anywhere near this program.
06:34He's handpicked all the other recruits. They're all, they all excel at what they do.
06:39And so he basically sees Bond as someone who got lucky and should just, you know, keep walking.
06:45But M, M and Bond are, they have a lot of similarities.
06:51So in this version of the character of M, she's a lot younger.
06:55She's treated as the temp.
06:57I think everyone assumed that she would, she would move on and be unable to kind of wield MI6.
07:03But she has this easy authority that fits the character of M, but she's, she's ambitious.
07:08And she's the one that I think really sees something that MI6 is missing.
07:17I'm Beatrice Hardy. I'm lead for the character department and I've been with IOI for three and a half years.
07:23So the process of creating the initial look of a character usually starts with us getting a bio from the
07:32narrator team.
07:32So we have a sense of, you know, the basic stuff. What's the age? What's the gender? Where do they
07:37come from?
07:38Do they have some kind of cultural connection? What's their personality like? What's their ambitions? All of that.
07:44Because we don't just create one look usually for our characters. We actually do a full wardrobe for them, if
07:49you will.
07:49Usually we take a lot of reference images off the internet, make it quick and easy,
07:55gather a little bit what we think might be interesting, what might look good, what might feel good, what might
08:00feel right for this character.
08:01And then we start sketching. We start making a few concepts and same there.
08:06We start making something loose and then we go sharper and sharper and sharper into something that we then can
08:11go like,
08:11OK, this looks really good. This feels really good.
08:14It's quite important for us to make sure that we're creating characters that also complement each other or contrast each
08:22other,
08:23depending on what their role in the story is. So we once again want to really kind of look at
08:27also the relationships in between the characters,
08:29what they're doing together in the different levels and making sure that that also feels believable and real.
08:37So in designing a villain, presence is of course one of the most important things that we want to portray,
08:42that we have a strong presence and a strong impression of this character right away.
08:45And one of the things that were fun to explore with Bhavma was having some really bold striking colors for
08:53him.
08:53Because this guy doesn't have to blend in at all. He can stand out and he's not afraid to stand
08:59out even in this highly, highly dangerous place.
09:02Like he can afford to be almost a little bit flashy and really own the space that he's in and
09:07showing that he's owning the space.
09:08So we created this yellow suit situation for him that kind of oddly makes me think a little bit of
09:14poison frogs.
09:16The way that they are beautiful and alluring to look at, but the color is also clearly there to signal
09:22a danger.
09:27When you're in that creative space at the very beginning and you're lying on a couch and like having big
09:32thoughts,
09:33you know, some of those things arrive fully formed.
09:36What is the story we want to tell about a young Bond?
09:39And where do we want to meet him? And where do we want to leave him?
09:42And you know, all that good stuff. And it's, there's some alchemy going on for sure.
09:48So when we bring someone in for full likeness into our game,
09:52what we usually start with is getting them to a scanning studio.
09:57And we put them inside this lovely dome with a lot of cameras.
10:01And we make a scan of their face, their body, also their hands,
10:08whatever data that we think that we might need to get them into our virtual little world.
10:12Then we take that home with us and we start to reconstruct their faces,
10:17make something that is ready to put into the game, has the resolution and, you know,
10:22our shaders, our textures, all of that to, to get the look that we have in our game.
10:27All of these different expressions that we have scanned,
10:29we use that for our animators animating their faces to be able to make sure
10:35that we're hitting these poses that we see that they, they can do.
10:38I'm thinking of Lenny James playing Greenway.
10:41He has a super expressive, lovely face that has been super fun to work with,
10:46but that has also been a little bit of a challenge on, on what to, to keep into the base
10:51model
10:51and what to add in through, through animations and, and making that work and look correct.
10:57I mean, we spend so much time studying these people's faces and how they move around
11:03and how their wrinkles sort of react in different situations to the point where
11:07these poor actors would probably get a little self-conscious if they knew about.
11:13But we do spend a lot of time looking at them talking and moving about
11:16to get the correct feeling into our characters on, on them in our game. Yeah.
11:21You know, you work for years and you're in the VA booth all the time
11:24and you do loads of mocap and you're staring at these kind of like grey shapes on the screen
11:29and trying to make what you're saying and doing match that.
11:31And then all of a sudden they come to you with these clips and you're like, wow, we've made something
11:36that is really cool.
11:41And yeah, I think that kind of moment hit even harder for me because it is my first game
11:45and I've never seen that come to fruition before.
11:48Yeah, I felt this insane amount of pride to be this tiny cog in the huge kind of beast that
11:54is the making of a video game.
11:57And yeah, I just can't wait to see it all now.
11:59It was just such a joy to collaborate.
12:02I think everybody who was working on this wanted to make it as good as it could be.
12:07And, you know, it was, it was like surprisingly kind of growing days and like long days.
12:14But I think everybody knew the kind of weight of responsibility that you have when you're doing something like this.
12:20So we love weight by fans already.
12:23And no one came into that and just like crushed it every day.
12:26It was so, so fun to work with.
12:28Crackados.
12:29Yeah, a lot of Crackados. Yeah.
12:31And then just, just, yeah, just kill them every day.
12:36Once you find the actor or actress that will portray and breathe life into this character, there's a, there's a
12:42recalibration.
12:43Like the, the instincts of great actors, I mean, it's, it's priceless.
12:48And obviously it has a major impact on the character.
12:51And I think the luxury of something like this, where we've worked with someone like Patty for a long time,
12:58you do get to calibrate the character to fit what he does and his instincts and how he carries himself.
13:05Obviously, when you have a text and you have a character, that's when the work begins to some extent, right?
13:11It was like, you could, you could play something in a myriad different ways.
13:14I was extremely impressed with how much he brought to the table.
13:19And that's true for the whole cast, how much they bring when they come in and, and the questions that
13:25they ask.
13:25I mean, you better be on your A game.
13:27Like it's, it's a, we're operating at a quite high level, uh, on this project.
13:32And, um, yeah, I think we've made something quite special.
13:43That was it for the second episode of Beyond the Lights.
13:45We really hope you enjoyed.
13:46If you haven't already, you can pre-order the game now and get a free deluxe upgrade.
13:51And if you have any questions, please leave a comment down below.
13:54And we'll see you guys next time.
14:05Bye.
14:08Bye.
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