126 replies to this topic

[ACE]

I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was an excellent programme for those who knew nothing about the man. It was never going to be an Attenborough biopic and it does capture the spirit and essence of the man. Well acted, well shot (in Goldeneye) it was a clever and resourceful docu-drama that seemed to be very accurate. The jazz score was excellent. I suppose I like to see Fleming centre stage. Sorry people didn't like it as much as me.

ACE

[Atticus17F]

I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was an excellent programme for those who knew nothing about the man. It was never going to be an Attenborough biopic and it does capture the spirit and essence of the man. Well acted, well shot (in Goldeneye) it was a clever and resourceful docu-drama that seemed to be very accurate. The jazz score was excellent. I suppose I like to see Fleming centre stage. Sorry people didn't like it as much as me.

ACE

I'll second that, ACE.

I'm slightly confused by some of the comments here. The programme's blurb reads; "Bondmaker takes a bold and innovative approach to dramatising the story of the author's life, by using Fleming's own words. Shot on location in the UK and Jamaica, the film explores the relationship between Ian Fleming's life and the legend that is James Bond." It did exactly what it says on the tin, if you ask me.

And they weren't kidding about "Fleming's own words"; all of Ian's [and Anne's] lines were delivered verbatim from letters and interviews. Top marks to whoever researched that lot.

If I have a gripe, it's that the programme was too short. A 60min running time was never really going to be enough. But, at the very least, it was honest. No stunts, no gadgets, no budget. Just a good, solid, factually-accurate Beeb drama. Splendid stuff.

[ACE]

I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was an excellent programme for those who knew nothing about the man. It was never going to be an Attenborough biopic and it does capture the spirit and essence of the man. Well acted, well shot (in Goldeneye) it was a clever and resourceful docu-drama that seemed to be very accurate. The jazz score was excellent. I suppose I like to see Fleming centre stage. Sorry people didn't like it as much as me.

ACE

I'll second that, ACE.

I'm slightly confused by some of the comments here. The programme's blurb reads; "Bondmaker takes a bold and innovative approach to dramatising the story of the author's life, by using Fleming's own words. Shot on location in the UK and Jamaica, the film explores the relationship between Ian Fleming's life and the legend that is James Bond." It did exactly what it says on the tin, if you ask me.

And they weren't kidding about "Fleming's own words"; all of Ian's [and Anne's] lines were delivered verbatim from letters and interviews. Top marks to whoever researched that lot.

If I have a gripe, it's that the programme was too short. A 60min running time was never really going to be enough. But, at the very least, it was honest. No stunts, no gadgets, no budget. Just a good, solid, factually-accurate Beeb drama. Splendid stuff.

Bravo Atticus17F!

[Atticus17F]

The good points:
Highlighted how Bond and Fleming were so alike.

I thought the main idea of the programme was to illustrate how Fleming and Bond are only alike on a very superficial level. They're actually quite different, aren't they?

[Tuxedo wearing Bond]

Opening scene with Bond scuba diving (or was it Ian?)

Yeah, that was a little confusing as to who it was. As Bond/Ian did have black hair.

Anyway, I watched and recorded this last night, and to be honest I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the way it gave extracts of flemings Bond books as he experienced things simular to those of Bond. And I liked the end when fleming is reading out the ending of You Only Live Twice as he plummets into the water and the music is playing in the background as he reads out Bonds thoughts. It gave me a more carmer approach than I originally took it.

Overall, a good programme, but nothing too amazing.

8/10

[Gri007]

I just recorded it and watched it.

It was a bit boiring. Mind you Noel Coward was quite good though.

[Bondian]

It's good to see some differences of opinion.

[TortillaFactory]

Bondian, I'd still love to see this, if you're going to be uploading it.

*begs like...someone who begs really well*

[Bondian]

Not enough grovelling I'm afraid. LOL

Just kidding...uploading to JB&B right now.

Please remember folks this file is BIG, and you'll really need to have a broadband connection to view it.

If anyone would like me to send them a copy, please PM me your home address ( it's OK, I'm not a weirdo ) ( actually I am LOL ) and I'll send you a hard copy.

I'll post the link as soon as it's uploaded.

Cheers,


Ian

Bondian, I'd still love to see this, if you're going to be uploading it.

*begs like...someone who begs really well*

[The Girl With The Golden Gun]

Any thoughts on this bbc film? Personally i thought the actor playing Fleming looked like the lovechild of Richard Chamberlain and Noel Coward, but that's beside the point on the whole it was a very insightful if bizarre account of Fleming's career and how Bond almost became a slightly exaggerated extension of himself, only to catapult him to literary success. I also thought it was effective how this account was composed of interviews given by Fleming and those who knew him and those accounts being portrayed by actors, rather than being just another dull documentary stuffed with the usual talking heads and Bond aficionados. More please!

[Qwerty]

Post moved here.

[Bondian]

OK. Here's the entire video of "Ian Fleming - Bondmaker!".

It's very large at over 900 Mb's in total for the three parts, so please be patient. I could reduce it in size if you find your connection times out, but I wanted to give you 100% quality.

You may experience a couple of 'drop-outs' particularly at the latter part of part 2, unfortunately I only had some cheep DVDs in.

I suggest you right click on the link and select 'save target as' and download to your my documents >> my videos folder.

I've spanned this over two servers so to save bandwidth problems my end.

If you have no third party codecs installed, please click on the link below to download.

http://www.free-code...ck_All_in_1.htm

DISCLAIMER!!!
I should remind you that there is some occasional swearing and some sex scenes in this video. So please only view this video if you agree to the aforementioned.

Part 1 http://www.jamesbond.../movies/if1.mpg re-doing.

Part 2 http://classical-hol.../movies/if2.mpg re-doing.

Part 3 http://classical-hol.../movies/if3.mpg re-doing

Cheers,


Ian

Edited by Bondian, 31 August 2005 - 10:07 PM.

[TortillaFactory]

and at 210 kb/s, no less! Ian, you're my hero. I'll be watching this when I get home from work tonight.

[Bondian]

That fast.

Hope you enjoy it my dear.

Cheers,


Ian

and at 210 kb/s, no less!  Ian, you're my hero.    I'll be watching this when I get home from work tonight.

[Bondian]

Parts 1, 2 and 3 up now.

DISCLAIMER!!!
I should remind you that there is some occasional swearing and some sex scenes in this video. So please only view this video if you agree to the aforementioned.

http://debrief.comma...ndpost&p=440669

Edited by Bondian, 30 August 2005 - 10:13 AM.

[Bondian]

Sorry for the triple posting, but just to let you know all parts are now ready to download.

Cheers,


Ian

[ACE]

Edited

Edited by ACE, 31 August 2005 - 06:44 PM.

[Qwerty]

Seems the Charles Dance one pulled out on top.

[SirHilary]

Seems the Charles Dance one pulled out on top.

Indeed, the ITV production of Goldeneye (1989) staring Charles Dance, was a lot more entertaining and quite Bondian. Dance played Fleming with great charm and the supporting cast were superb. Although the production takes a few liberties with the truth for dramatic purposes, it remains true to Fleming's story. As far as I can recall, ITV have never repeated it (but I could be wrong). About time they gave it another airing, I'd say.

I was disapointed by Ian Fleming - Bondmaker. I was hoping to see more of Fleming 's exploits as we do in the ITV production. However, Ian Fleming - Bondmaker has it's own merits. The use of Fleming's words, either from his correspondence or the novels to illustrate his moods, thoughts and compexity, was well constructed. Because of the literary slant of this drama, I'm inclined to think that this would have made a good program on BBC Radio Four. But then again, we wouldn't get to see all those lovely location shots of Goldeneye itself.

[Bondian]

Just to check to see if anyone who's downloaded these have experienced any problems?.

[doublenoughtspy]

I've downloaded the first part and it won't play

Windows Media Player tries to find the codec and can't.

What codec did you encode with?

[Bondian]

Ah, crap. Sorry guys.

Please download this and it should play fine.

http://www.free-code...ck_All_in_1.htm

I encoded from DVD-MPEG, and I thought WMP played this by default.

My apology's folks.

I've downloaded the first part and it won't play

Windows Media Player tries to find the codec and can't.

What codec did you encode with?

[Qwerty]

Seems the Charles Dance one pulled out on top.

Indeed, the ITV production of Goldeneye (1989) staring Charles Dance, was a lot more entertaining and quite Bondian. Dance played Fleming with great charm and the supporting cast were superb. Although the production takes a few liberties with the truth for dramatic purposes, it remains true to Fleming's story. As far as I can recall, ITV have never repeated it (but I could be wrong). About time they gave it another airing, I'd say.

I'd love to see it on American TV.

[Bondian]

The good news is you can purchase 'Goldeneye' from here, but the bad news is it'll set you back $75.00.

[Qwerty]

Precisely - too much. Have to keep looking on eBay and such for a US region VHS.

[TortillaFactory]

Ian - I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not able to download the entire file on parts 2 or 3. My computer says I'm dloading 300some meg, and then the download claims to be completed within about a minute. The resultant file is about 8 meg. Is anyone else having this problem?

[Spoon]

A download manager program capable of resuming, such as Internet Download Accelerator (there are many others -- Google for details), should allow you to get the full files. If the download is interrupted, these programs should allow you to pick up where you left off.

Unfortunately, even with the full files, I had some video problems. Sometimes there would be a "skip" forward in the video, probably about a second's worth, cutting off the ends of sentences and making it difficult to follow what was going on. And sometimes the video would actually go back to an earlier point and repeat itself (complete with skips in the same places.) These issues got especially bad about halfway through Part 2, making that part basically unwatchable from that point on. Bars also appeared on the screen towards the end of Part 1 and at the beginning of Part 2; then they did go away. Part 3 had no video problems.

From what I could make out, it seemed like an interesting piece: it was not played up for drama and left much to the imagination, but that can be a good thing, and I enjoyed the mood of it. Thanks for posting it!

[TortillaFactory]

But the dloads aren't being interrupted; they simply won't complete. I've tried everything.

[Bondian]

Folks. I'm going to re-do the whole DVD.

I haven't had the chance to edit this through Adobe Premiere, so please bear with me.

Let me see what I can come up with, and if all else fails, I'll be more than willing to send out copies. Anymore than 4000 maybe a problem though. LOL

Maybe 3 equal parts would be better. The programme I was using to encode was only a demo.

I'll check this out and let you know when it's safe to try again.

Sorry about the problems.

Cheers,


Ian

[Bondian]

No problem Spoon and I'm sorry about the problems.

I used a cheep DVD to record this programme ( that's all I had in, and the recording idea was spontaneous ), and unfortunately some of the latter part of part 2 does skip and repeat. I'll try to iron this out by editing through Premiere.

I think we've had these problems because I wanted to rush this out for you guys, but maybe I should have triple checked it before posting it.

Please let me have another go at this because I would like to get it right for you.

I'll be back.

Cheers,


Ian

A download manager program capable of resuming, such as Internet Download Accelerator (there are many others -- Google for details), should allow you to get the full files.  If the download is interrupted, these programs should allow you to pick up where you left off.

Unfortunately, even with the full files, I had some video problems.  Sometimes there would be a "skip" forward in the video, probably about a second's worth, cutting off the ends of sentences and making it difficult to follow what was going on.  And sometimes the video would actually go back to an earlier point and repeat itself (complete with skips in the same places.)  These issues got especially bad about halfway through Part 2, making that part basically unwatchable from that point on.  Bars also appeared on the screen towards the end of Part 1 and at the beginning of Part 2; then they did go away.  Part 3 had no video problems.

From what I could make out, it seemed like an interesting piece: it was not played up for drama and left much to the imagination, but that can be a good thing, and I enjoyed the mood of it.  Thanks for posting it!