Filming
Mendes revealed that production would begin on 8 December 2014 at Pinewood Studios, with filming taking seven months. Mendes also confirmed several filming locations, including London, Mexico City and Rome. Van Hoytema shot the film mostly on Kodak 35mm film stock (in addition to digital cameras such as the 6K Arri Alexa 65mm), in contrast to Skyfall being filmed solely on digital cameras. Early filming took place at Pinewood Studios, and around London, with scenes variously featuring Craig and Harris at Bond's flat, and Craig and Kinnear travelling down the River Thames.
Filming was carried out in Austria between December 2014 and February 2015, with production taking place in the area around Sölden—including the Ötztal Glacier Road, Rettenbach glacier and the adjacent ski resort plus cable car station—Obertilliach and Lake Altaussee. Scenes filmed in Austria centred on the Ice Q Restaurant, standing in for the fictional Hoffler Klinik, a private medical clinic in the Austrian Alps. Filming included an action scene featuring a Land Rover Defender Bigfoot and a Range Rover Sport. Various aeroplane models were used in filming, from a life-sized plane with detachable wings to film the crash in the woods, to plane fuselages either built atop snowmobiles or shot from nitrogen cannons. Production was temporarily halted first by an injury to Craig, who suffered a meniscus tear while shooting a fight scene with Bautista, and later by an accident involving a filming vehicle that saw three crew members injured, at least one of them seriously.
Filming temporarily returned to England to shoot scenes at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, which stood in for a location in Rome, before moving on to the city itself for a five-week shoot across the city, with locations including the Ponte Sisto bridge and the Roman Forum. The production faced opposition from a variety of special interest groups and city authorities, who were concerned about the potential for damage to historical sites around the city, and problems with graffiti and rubbish appearing in the film. Special effects supervisor Chris Corbould stated the scenes had to be extensively planned prior to filming specially to avoid any mishaps, going to the point of building protection above steps where cars would drive. A car chase scene set along the banks of the Tiber River and through the streets of Rome featured an Aston Martin DB10 (a model developed especially for the film, with only 10 examples produced) and a Jaguar C-X75. The C-X75 was originally developed as a hybrid electric vehicle with four independent electric engines powered by two jet turbines, before the project was cancelled. The version used for filming was converted to use a conventional internal combustion engine, to minimise the potential for disruption from mechanical problems with the complex hybrid system. The C-X75s used for filming were developed by the engineering division of Formula One racing team Williams, who built the original C-X75 prototype for Jaguar. Remote driving pods were built above the cars so the vehicles could be driven while the cameras focused on Craig and Bautista at the steering wheel. According to chief stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell, filming the chase had the "risk of skidding into the Vatican", and led to "a record for smashing up cars in Spectre—seven Aston Martins in all," with the film's car expenses estimated at £24 million ($48 million).
With filming completed in Rome, production moved to Mexico City in late March to shoot the film's opening sequence. Scenes for the Day of the Dead festival filmed in and around the Zócalo and the Centro Histórico district, including at the Gran Hotel Ciudad de México. At the time, no such Day of the Dead parade like the one from the film took place in Mexico City; in 2016, due to the interest raised by Spectre and the government's desire to promote the pre-Hispanic Mexican culture, the federal and local authorities decided to organise an actual "Día de Muertos" parade through Paseo de la Reforma and Centro Histórico on 29 October 2016, which was attended by 250,000 people. The film opens with a long take that joins six shots seamlessly, and was one of the few scenes that required previsualisation. Through extensive planning, filming did not require motion control cameras. The scene joints were done in post-production through re-timing and re-projections, which even matched Mexico locations with interiors filmed at Pinewood.
The planned scenes required the city square to be closed for filming a sequence involving a fight aboard a Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105CBS helicopter flown by stunt pilot Chuck Aaron, which called for modifications to be made to several buildings to prevent damage. This particular scene in Mexico required 1,500 extras, 10 giant skeletons and 250,000 paper flowers. Reports in the Mexican media added that the film's second unit would move to Palenque in the state of Chiapas, to film aerial manoeuvres considered too dangerous to shoot in an urban area. These were pasted over a computer-generated square and crowd below the helicopter, with motion capture doubles fighting inside. Mendes and the effects team felt that this approach "would get believable composition and movement" compared to adding a digital helicopter above the Mexico City location. Following filming in Mexico, and during a scheduled break, Craig was flown to New York to undergo minor surgery to fix his knee injury. It was reported that filming was not affected and he had returned to filming at Pinewood Studios as planned on 22 April. Nonetheless, some parts of the Mexico scene were done with stunt doubles, whose faces were digitally replaced with Craig's.
On 17 May 2015 filming took place on the Thames in London. Stunt scenes involving Craig and Seydoux on a speedboat as well as a low flying helicopter near Westminster Bridge were shot at night, with filming temporarily closing both Westminster and Lambeth Bridges. Scenes were also shot on the river near MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. The crew returned to the river less than a week later to film scenes solely set on Westminster Bridge. The London Fire Brigade was on set to simulate rain as well as monitor smoke used for filming. Craig, Seydoux, and Waltz, as well as Harris and Fiennes, were seen being filmed. Prior to this, scenes involving Fiennes were shot at a restaurant in Covent Garden. Blofeld's helicopter crash was done with two full sized helicopter shells, which were rigged with steelwork and an overhead track. Computer-generated rotor blades and scenery damage were added in post-production. The MI6 building, which in the film is vacated and scheduled for demolition following the terrorist attack from Skyfall, was replaced in the production plates for a digital reconstruction. When the building is detonated, it is a combination of both a miniature and a breakaway version of the digital building.
After wrapping up in England, production travelled to Morocco in June, with filming taking place in Oujda, Tangier and Erfoud, after preliminary work was completed by the production's second unit. The headquarters of Spectre in Morocco was located in Gara Medouar which is a 'crater' caused by erosion and of neither volcanic nor impact origin. An explosion filmed in Morocco holds a Guinness World Record for the largest film stunt explosion in cinematic history, involving 8,140 litres of kerosene and 24 charges each with a kilogramme of high explosives. The outside shots of a train in a desert featured the Oriental Desert Express. Principal photography concluded on 5 July 2015. A wrap-up party for Spectre was held in commemoration before entering post-production. Filming took 128 days.
While filming in Mexico City, speculation in the media claimed that the script had been altered to accommodate the demands of Mexican authorities—reportedly influencing details of the scene and characters, casting choices, and modifying the script to portray the country in a "positive light"—to secure tax concessions and financial support worth up to $20 million for the film. This was denied by producer Michael G. Wilson, who stated that the scene had always been intended to be shot in Mexico as production had been attracted to the imagery of the Day of the Dead, and that the script had been developed from there. Production of Skyfall had previously faced similar problems while attempting to secure permits to shoot the film's pre-title sequence in India before moving to Istanbul.
Five companies did the visual effects—Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative, Moving Picture Company, Cinesite and Peerless—under the supervision of Steve Begg. The computer-generated effects included set extensions, digital touches on the vehicles, and crumbling buildings. A sixth one, Framestore, handled the title sequence, the seventh in the series designed by Daniel Kleinman. It took four months to complete, and centred on an octopus motif reminiscent of the Spectre logo, along with images of love and relationships.
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