007 effect takes over Adana
ADANA - Hürriyet Daily News
Shooting for the film also ironically helped some locals to learn more about their own city. Some locals did not know the Vardar Bridge and just learned about it thanks to the James Bond team.
Adana has received a major boost thanks to its decision to welcome shooting for the latest James Bond flick, “Skyfall,” with many excited about greater tourism numbers and others happy at the production team’s contributions to the local economy.Preparations for the film’s shooting started in early March, leading locals to rush to see the team prepare for the action scenes which were shot on trains throughout the city.
Shooting for the film continued on the historic Vardar Bridge, on Kasım Gülek Bridge and at the city’s central train station.
Many locals noted that they had seen members of the production out and about town.
“Once I was at the Starbucks. I saw several people sitting speaking in English,” Vildan Aksoy, who works as a sales coordinator, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News. “Then we started to chat with them, and they showed me their shirts, which said ‘007 Bond Team’ on them.”
Traffic badly affected
Even though the city did not change much during the shooting, the experiences are worthy of recollection, according to locals.
The locals also experienced hard times. The Kasım Gülek Bridge was closed to traffic. When the production team started work on the shooting very early in the morning, police forced drivers to use the Baraj road as a detour.
“As the bridge closed to traffic, traffic became a problem. Everyone used alternative roads,” said İrem Aksoy, the owner of the French culture and language center Studio Langue.
“Adana is a city in which you never experience difficulties in terms of traffic. You can go to the other parts of the city very easily. So we cannot say there was really traffic congestion. It was not like Istanbul,” she said.
Shooting for the film also ironically helped some locals to learn more about their own city. “Some people did not know Vardar Bridge. The locals of Adana – at least most of them – just learned about the bridge thanks to the James Bond team,” said İrem Aksoy.
The bridge in the Karaisalı district, which displays unique, old architecture, was made by Germans many years ago. “Our locals just understood and appreciated the bridge,” she said.
Second-hand shops around Adana also benefited from the interest in old items from the production team for the new movie.
The team bought old objects and accessories such as coffee boxes, bamboo-made furniture, radios and bookshelves, said the owner of the owner of one of the shops, Batuhan Hoşgör.
Hoşgör’s father, Ahmet Hoşgör, who also owns an antique shop, also said the production team had bought many things from the younger Hoşgör’s shop.
The team also visited antique shops in other parts of the city, the shop owner said.
Locals approached the production team with a little humor, too. One unknown group altered the poster of the movie and applied Photoshop on the picture of James Bond Daniel Craig by writing “001 - From Adana with Love,” replacing the gun in his hand with a kebab. The photo has since made the rounds on Facebook.
With the end of production in the Mediterranean city, shooting for “Skyfall” now moves to Eminönü, one of Istanbul’s busiest and most crowded neighborhoods.
