What Did We Learn from 'Bond,' 'Zorro,' and 'Protégé' Director Martin Campbell's AMA?

Director Martin Campbell was born in New Zealand and started his career in London as a camera operator. From there he moved up the ladder, getting respect for his visuals. Since then he's had the opportunity to direct two Zorro movies, two James Bond movies, and has worked with talents like Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, Jackie Chan, and many others.

Campbell's newest movie, The Protégé, stars Maggie Q, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Keaton. 

Campbell recently sat down to do a Reddit AMA where he talked about his career, process, and filmmaking life. We took the liberty of pulling some of his best answers to show you them here.

But head over to Reddit to read all of it! 

How Campbell Approaches Action Scenes

"All the action scenes are planned very carefully. In the case of Casino Royale, all the action scenes were storyboarded and the second unit director was Alex Witt, who is one of the best second unit directors in the world. I give him the storyboards, we sit with them, talk them through, and then he goes away and shoots them. I tell him if you can shoot it in a different way, come up with something better, other ideas—shoot what you like, as long as you shoot my storyboard."

How GoldenEye Established a New Bond 

"I think GoldenEye is a more serious movie than the Roger Moore movies and Pierce Brosnan himself brought a much more grounded Bond than Roger Moore. Also, his relationship with M was very different to the past and of course, the bad guys turned out to be the Russians, who were the bad guys du jour in the 90s. But each actor brings a very different characterization of Bond. The [difference] between Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig could not be more extreme."

The Worst Fight He's Ever Been In 

"With the Warner executives, over Green Lantern."

What Makes a Script Good? 

"Good story. Good characters. Good action. Something different that I haven't seen before, and that I haven't directed before."

On Why Zorro Has No CGI In it

"At the time, CGI was in its infancy and we never even contemplated using it. We used none because we didn't need it. We did use a little bit of blue screen and little glass painting."

Summing Up the Martin Campbell AMA 

I thought reading through his answers gave us a better look at who Campbell is as an artist and where he's been as a filmmaker. It'll be interesting to see what project he picks next.

He's been part of some of the most influential franchises around and worked with some of the biggest stars. There's a lot of direction left for Campbell, but we'll see how he innovated and chases these new stories. 

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Source: Reddit