Casino Royale shooting starts at Dunsfold Park aerodrome, UK

Legendary secret agent James Bond will shortly go into action at “International Airport” Dunsfold Park for the next 007 film Casino Royale - reports Surrey Advertiser.

The media frenzy surrounding the filming moved to Dunsfold last Wednesday, when paparazzi photographers were spotted around the perimeter.

On the same day, two construction workers preparing for filming were injured when a scaffolding tower collapsed while they were dismantling a lighting rig.

A taste of how Dunsfold Park will look reinvented as a glamorous international airport was provided this week during some night-time shooting.

“It looked fantastic all lit up,” site owner Jim McAllister said yesterday.

“We are looking forward to an Airbus landing tomorrow (Saturday) as part of filming and are thrilled that we are opening our gates to the Casino Royale film crew and stars.”

Equally impressed by the location, the film makers want to shoot more night scenes at Dunsfold, and a planning application to extend the film consent already obtained has been submitted while shooting continues.

This has prompted fresh complaints, however, from neighbours who object to the number of retrospective planning applications submitted for the site and to noisy weekend activities, which they say have no consent.

“We find it inconceivable that, for such a prestigious film, the production team has apparently only recently become aware of how many nights they will require filming to be undertaken and that Dunsfold Park Ltd has no permission to allow these activities to take place,” a spokesman for Dunsfold Aerodrome Group (DAG) said.

“So the application goes in, the filming takes place late into the night for a month, in contravention of the existing permission, and nothing is likely to be done about it,” he added.

DAG recently objected about the BBC currently filming Top Gear at Dunsfold Park, even though the existing consent expired on April 30 and the application to renew it has not yet been determined by Waverley Borough Council.

“We do not oppose the filming of Top Gear at Dunsfold Park and we are most certainly not against the village pub deriving income from such sources,” the spokesman said.

“But we totally oppose the filming of the extremely noisy outdoor sequences, which cause so much disruption to those who live close by.”

Responding to concerns about night-time filming for Casino Royale, Mr McAllister said that the film producers were committed to keeping the noise to a minimum and that they had promised to warn immediate neighbours before some of the noisier sequences took place.

Casino Royale Productions wrote to residents on Monday, May 22 to inform them that night sequences involving some action scenes would be filmed from Tuesday, May 30 until Friday, June 30.

“The majority of the filming will not be noisy.

“However, there will at times be some gunfire as part of the action, as well as the movement of vehicles and running aircraft,” the locations manager Steve Harvey said.

“There will also be a small number of controlled pyrotechnic explosions as part of the sequence during the period from Monday, June 26 until Friday, June 30.

“We will circulate a bulletin outlining dates and timings.”

Advance warning will be posted on Dunsfold Park’s website www.dunsfoldpark.com. The production company said it has an open door policy and its management is always available to answer queries or concerns local people might have.

Discuss this news here...