The LA Times have got their hands on some more on-set shots from this year’s Transformers sequel: Dark of the Moon. In their article, they look in detail at the genesis of Michael Bay’s involvement in the franchise and how the films developed, including some candid admissions from Bay regarding the artistic shortcomings of the second film, Revenge of the Fallen. Bay said, for example:-
“Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It’s tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects post-production work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story.”
Bay promises that Dark of the Moon will be lean and mean, less mystical than Sam Witwicky’s arc from the second film, more like “a good old-fashioned mystery..a tougher movie”. Much of the action will take place in Chicago and Bay is said to be very pleased with the style and effect of the urban warfare scenes, having gone for a Black Hawk Down aesthetic with them (much like this spring’s upcoming Battle: Los Angeles) although there is mention of a sequence involving glide-suited commandos swooping between skyscrapers, which doesn’t immediately sound like scaled down, gritty urban warfare. Having said that, credit is due to Bay for his candour in confessing his disappointment at some of his work on the second film. He could easily have said that since it made a packet of money, who cares? But he seems to have more artistic integrity than that.
Bay also shares a lot of his experiences in working with 3D cameras for the first time and the challenges they present when working with a lot of physical effects. It seems that the past few months have been a rich and varied learning experience for Bay, but the resulting footage seems to be going down well.
We will get to enjoy the fruit of Bay’s labours (and those of the rest of the cast and crew) on 1st July 2011. In the meantime, here are those on set shots for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to catch the rest of the LA Times article here.
