Dramatic chase scene set against Mexican parade
About 1,500 extras, who will be digitally enhanced on-screen to look like 10,000, are gathered in Zocalo Square in Mexico City.
Many are in bridal dress, the rest of them are in skull make-up and costumes depicting participants in the Day Of The Dead parade.
Exotic floats have been built with a skull theme, and some men carry huge skeletons on sticks with bright red plumes sticking out of the skulls.
A Mexican flag presides over the centre stage, where a band is playing.
It's a beautiful March day and we are at the filming of the opening action scene of Spectre from a balcony of the Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico, a gorgeous art deco building overlooking the square.
In this scene, James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Mexican Bond girl Estrella (Stephanie Sigman) walk down the street and enter the hotel.
Then "something bad happens", we are told by the unit publicist, who is trying to do her job despite the oath of silence she has taken. Bond "defuses the situation by assassinating someone, which causes the whole chase to start".
Then there's an explosion and the chase begins, with Bond and the bad guy running through the tail end of the Day Of The Dead parade, jumping on a helicopter which has just landed and fighting each other on it.
Spectre takes place two months after the events in Skyfall, with Craig returning for the fourth time in the biggest role of his career and director Sam Mendes coming back for his second stint.
The big baddie is played by two-time Oscar winner, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz.
Bond is on a rogue mission to Mexico City, where he infiltrates a secret meeting and comes up against his old nemesis, the global terrorist organisation that has made an appearance in previous films, SPECTRE - Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci play the other two Bond girls, while Naomie Harris reprises her role as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q and Ralph Fiennes as M, replacing Judi Dench who met an unfortunate end in Skyfall.
VILLAIN
The action moves to Italy, Austria and Morocco as Bond follows the trail of the enemy, whom he discovers has a chilling connection to him in the past.
Waltz, 59, said his favourite Bond villain is Gert Frobe from Goldfinger (1964) because "he was a very important actor in German language movies after the war... and to have him plucked out of that context into the Bond world was really great fun".
He plays Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the mysterious mastermind behind SPECTRE. So what makes a good Bond villain?
"What's important is to make Bond shine. Bond is a hero. He needs to be able to do heroic things and the villain facilitates that."
French starlet Seydoux, 30, is willing to go a bit further in describing her character, psychologist Dr Madeleine Swann.
"I would say that she is Bond's equal. She is very independent and she also has to go through psychological issues like Bond. She's more complex than the usual Bond girl."
And what does Sigman, 28, whose mother is Mexican and father is American, bring to Spectre?
She said: "What does a Latino bring to everything in life? Fire. We are fiery."
Long-time US producer Barbara Broccoli, 55, said Craig insisted on doing his own stunts and took his work very seriously.
"He works out like an Olympic athlete, a couple of hours in the morning and then in the evening. He lives like a monk, he goes to bed at nine o'clock at night, then heads off at five in the morning."
Her leading man may not be back, but she doesn't see an end to the franchise.
"We don't think about that. The public will tell us when to end."
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