It’s 25 years since ‘Goldeneye’ – a huge miniatures film

Revisit some of the film’s models with Nigel Blake.

Under miniature effects supervisor Derek Meddings, a raft of models and miniatures helped achieve the visual effects for Goldeneye, released a quarter of a century ago this week. Aircraft, buildings, telescope dishes and even satellites were part of that effort.

Nigel Blake was a modeller on the film. He shared with befores & afters two shots of his work, on a helicopter and Mig 29. You can read his descriptions of the work in the captions. Also, check out the great Sense of Scale segment with Blake after the pics.

This is me working on the 1/4 scale Eurocopter Tigre helicopter. This model had explosively ejected rotor blades and an ejectable cockpit escape pod, it was used for the sequence in the statue park. It was constructed from 4mm black ABS plastic sheet. The cockpit pod was on counterweighted wires and had smoke and rocket pyros attached to the underside. There was also a radio controlled system to release the pos from the wires and ion the two parachutes, these were made by Irvine parachutes at Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
These are the 3 radio controlled Mig 29 jets, these were used for the take off sequence from a miniature runway built in perspective to the real control tower at Leavesden studios near Watford, there was a big Soviet style red star mounted on the buildings. These models were used in a sequence of flying over the Sevrenaya radar station miniature set.

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