Steven Jay Rubin remember Derek Meddings on his birthday

By: Steven Jay Rubin

Published:
2021-01-15

The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia presents This Day in James Bond Movie History - remembering ace special effects supervisor Derek Meddings on the anniversary of his birth in 1931.

Derek Meddings (1931-1995) was a miniatures expert – and thus a throwback to the pre-digital effects age – a time when exquisite detail, and amazing cinematography turned tiny facsimiles of real places and equipment into the real deal. Nothing demonstrates that more than his yeoman work on The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), where Meddings was tasked to bringing Karl Stromberg’s (Curt Jurgens) Liparus supertanker to life. Some of the shots, filmed from an abandoned Nassau hotel tower were truly amazing – as the Liparus swallowed its nuclear submarine lunch. Stromberg’s Atlantis base was also a terrific Meddings miniature.

It was Meddings who joined the Bond team on Live and Let Die (1973), building Kananga’s poppy field in miniature and then blasting it to fiery smithereens. Later, he blew up the giant satellite dish in GoldenEye (1995).

Everything Meddings fashioned became an integral part of a film’s success. I have fond memories of his splendidly created giant crystal spider in the 1983 fantasy film Krull.

So let’s hoist one to another Bond genius – one who created in miniature but whose achievement was truly outsized. We miss you, Derek.

Book cver for The Miniature Effects of Derek Meddings. Copyright © 2008 Shubrook Brothers. All rights reserved.

Photo on top
Derek Meddings at Pinewood Studios. Copyright © 1994 Graham Rye - www.007magazine.com. All rights reserved.

All text. Copyright © 2021 Steven Jay Rubin. All rights reserved.

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Steven Jay Rubin remember Derek Meddings on his birthday

Everything Meddings fashioned became an integral part of a film’s success. I have fond memories of his splendidly created giant crystal spider in the 1983 fantasy film Krull.

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