BD: And the Maya-based CG?

SH: For wider landscape shots we did extend those out with CG background set additions and matte paintings and things like that. And we also developed a CG Walther PPK where Bond sort of falls into the eye and the gun follows him. It was much easier to control that than using a [real] gun.

BR: I like Marc's description of the movie: he wanted it to feel like a bullet shot from a gun and you keep moving at a constant rate.

BD: You've just described the essence of your title sequence, too.

BR: Right.

MK12 used Maya-based CG to add a Walther PPK where Bond falls into the eye and the gun follows him. 

BD: Now what about creating the UI that MI6 uses: the smart wall and table?

TR: Yeah, we actually did all of the moving images on a screen, whether it was a PDA, cell phone or the hydrogen moniker on the dashboard of one of the cars.

BD: And what kind of software did you use for this?

SH: Primarily After Effects and Illustrator.

BD: So you've basically replaced Q in this movie in being able to unify every MI6 device with such high-tech proficiency.

BR: Yeah, I think that's one of the interesting aspects of this: the [touch screen] gags that they have in there that almost everybody has experienced, but what we ended up doing with the graphics is add a hyper-real feel to it, which feels like the same kind of stuff that Q would introduce. You can see John Cleese come into the room and say, "This smart table will do blah, blah." It's a really interesting way to portray that character without actually showing him... by doing these impossible things with these realistic devices.

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of VFXWorld and AWN.