Sam Smith's theme for the latest James Bond film Spectre has been released with this ultra-slick video by Luke Monaghan, featuring exclusive clips from the film as well as cinematic shots of the singer performing on some of the film's most stunning locations in Rome.

Editor Paul O’Reilly was forced to relocate to Pinewood Studios in order to edit the video, due to the security surrounding the movie, released later this month. O'Reilly was required to complete all his work at the studios, and the film footage had to stay on site for the duration. 

“Obviously there was incredibly tight security on the footage we were given,” says Paul O’Reilly, based at Stitch Editing and Homespun. “Initially we were only provided with the footage from the official trailer to make the first cut. However we were given the unexpected but wonderful privilege of meeting Sam Mendez and Barbara Brocolli. We were all understandably nervous for them to view our work but they were lovely - really positive about our ideas - and after a pitch with them and their production team they granted us an additional forty minutes of footage to help support the narrative of the music video.”

The footage provided had a limited amount of frames per shot, so had to be carefully curated to slot into the music video, without revealing too much of the film’s plot.

“The extra footage gave us an opportunity to intertwine moments that really spoke to the narrative of the song and Luke’s footage. It’s been an amazing project to work on. An unforgettable experience, with some rather unforgettable rushes!”

LUKE MONAGHAN:

“The whole experience shooting a music video linked to a film, let alone the Bond franchise was a new and exciting one for me and not something I ever thought about. Having read the script and seen clips for scenes already shot by Sam Mendes and Hoyte Van Hoytema, I knew the key was to keep the performances simple but big. Each location we used was either in the film or matched to the scenes I wanted to use from the film. Sam is a great performer and I think we got his best performance yet for this one.”