'Quantum Solace,' in the making

The latest 007 movie, "Quantum of Solace," is being shot amid high security at a sprawling studio complex near London, where vast soundstages have been transformed into a medieval Italian town, a corner of South America and the high-tech headquarters of British intelligence.

Reporters given a backstage tour last week saw star Daniel Craig's stunt double, Ben Cooke, preparing to wreak havoc on an art gallery in Siena, Italy. Nearby, Bond's boss M, played by Judi Dench, sat talking to an assistant in her high-tech office at MI6 headquarters. Members of the crew worked on another stage lined with elegant colonial-style facades that is standing in for Bolivia.

It's a surreal experience to wander around Pinewood Studios, a 100-acre collection of brick buildings, back lots and cavernous hangars set amid woods and fields a few miles northwest of London.

The studio was founded in the 1930s, modeled on Hollywood's giant movie-making complexes. Bond thrillers have been shot here since the series began with "Dr. No" in 1962. The narrow lanes between the buildings include Goldfinger Avenue.

Filming, which began Jan. 3, is taking place on five sound stages, including the vast "007" stage, rebuilt after it was gutted by fire in 2006.

Scores of workers scurry about -- adjusting lights and rigging, or sipping cups of tea during lulls in activity.

About 500 cast and crew are working on the film at Pinewood -- 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week. Many are old hands, returning from previous Bond films. "We have a crew that's all worked together, all know each other," said producer Michael G. Wilson. "It's a good atmosphere."

Despite the bright lights, snaking cables, sawdust and gaffer tape, it is amazing just how quickly it all starts to seem real. The black-and-white "marble" pillars of the Siena art gallery are hollow but look like the real Tuscan thing.

Walking a warren of dark, narrow tunnels representing Siena's underground cisterns feels genuinely claustrophobic.

The MI6 set -- newly built for this film -- is a sleek, two-story suite of steel-gray furniture and frosted-glass offices that puts many corporate headquarters to shame.

It has been outfitted with impressive attention to detail, including desks, working computers, even chrome coffee pots, and newsmagazines laid out on a waiting-room table.