After the unfortunate napping incident during the Bruce Willis Diehard 4 event, I thought for sure I'd never be invited back anywhere. Luckily Dannyboy Lightfoot, of Silverscreen, was incredibly understanding and let me into the Transformers event. I stayed awake the entire time!Housed in the new sim, Sector 7, it is so detailed that they only had 396 prims left. When I first arrived, I was on a street above the event, overlooking the water. A greeter advised me to take the stairs down, make a couple of turns, and then wait for the elevator to take all of us down. When we hit bottom, we were in a tunnel area that was quite expansive. This led us into the "press room", which consisted of chairs, a screen, a gigantic Megatron, and a couple of rooms you could go into.
While we waited for the director, producer, and cast to appear, we had a chance to see the trailer for the new movie. I'm not much of an action fan, but Transformers is a throwback to my childhood, so it's a must see for me. When the time came, Maxwell Lisle appeared to moderate the event and the journey began. First up were Michael Bay, executive producer of the film, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer. After that, some of the cast members were interviewed, including Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, and Tyrese Gibson. The film premieres on July 2nd, so don't miss it!
Read on to see the highlights of the SL press conference ... (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)
Michael Bay and Lorenzo di Bonaventura Segment
Tidbits:
- Michael Bay was originally apprehensive about taking the job when Steven Spielberg offered it. He'd been offered a lot of superhero movies before and did not want to do a silly toy movie.
- Michael was familiar with Transformers, but didn't own the toys. Now he's one of the biggest fans in the world.
- There's actually a Transformers school at Hasbro in Rhode Island! Lorenzo and Michael got the chance to attend.
- They centered the movie around three storylines. It hinges on a small story of a boy buying his first car, which just happens to be a robot.
- Michael Bay's first car was a 1976 Volvo, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura's first was a 1966 Plymouth Fury.
- The first cut was 170 minutes. They took 5 minutes out per week until they arrived at 143 minutes.
- They would not answer as to whether or not they had stairs in their house.
- Shia LaBeouf - Michael looked all around the world for the role of Spike. He compares Shia to a young Tom Hanks; funny, witty, and has great improv.
- Megan Fox and Rachel Taylor - Both are fairly new to acting.
- They didn't want the robots to walk around like lugheads. They wanted them to move in a fast, quick way.
- They studied kung-fu movies and ninja moves for animations.
- They didn't attach motion capture equipment.
- They videotaped different types of fighters and put them into different robots.
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He just wanted to finish the first one and he'll decide after the movie comes out. He feels it's superstitious to decide right now.
- The ending sequence is 30 minutes long. It includes a highway chase and a plane chase in the sky.
- The hardest scene to film was the end action scene. They were shooting footage of things that weren't always there and trying to keep it in their head. They had to do it on a gigantic scale, yet keep the human story alive.
- It took 2 and 1/2 to 3 weeks to film the final sequence.
- There were women of all ages that told Michael that they didn't want to see the film, but they loved it when they did.
- The writers grew up watching the show, so they put some of them in.
- They were forced to choose characters before the script was even out because toys had to be made.
- They thought their avatars were funny, but couldn't tell whether they were breakdancing or not.
- One commented that they could have more fun with it once it gets more 3d.
- CGI is expensive. They had to keep it to about 450 shots.
- There was a good reason why they didn't make the characters full CGI. They equated it to the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. They felt it wouldn't look good on the big screen. They kept a lot of the aspects of the characters, but they still look a bit different.
- Would never want to do a fully CGI movie like Polar Express.
Cast Segment
Entire Cast:
- They are all fans of the Transformers.
- None of them had heard of Second Life before today, but think it's cool. Megan said she had "gigantic tits" in SL.
- All of the cast would do a sequel to Transformers if they were asked back.
- Shia and Megan spent an entire day filming a kissing scene that never made it into the film.
- He quipped that it wasn't in the script and that Bay was just helping him out.
- He really enjoyed it.
- He stated that it's not like people forgot about it and it just disappeared. He had the Bumblebee toy and the velcro shoes, so he was definitely a fan.
- Both move at a fast pace.
- Michael is interested in happy accidents happening often.
- Steven is plotted and planned.
- He feels that Michael is the sickest action director on the planet.
- He's never seen anything visually close to his style on the screen.
- He refused to divulge any details.
- She's doing a film in London with Simon Peg and Kirsten Dunst.
- The name of the film is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
- According to Megan, Kirsten is a great girl and Simon is awesome.
- The robots were represented by window washing poles that were the appropriate height to the robot character.
- There were visuals that they could act to.
- Will tour in December with his new R & B group, TNT, which consists of Tyrese, Ginuwine, and Tank.
- He has a new album coming out, Black Rose.
- He feels that when you have 750 people on a set and just one man in charge, you hear things about his directing style, but when you get there, you respect his process.
- For Josh, it was the motorcycle chase and being close to the explosions.
- For Tyrese, it was trying to remember difficult dialog where cars, bombs, tanks, and helicopters were blowing up.
- For Josh, it would be Spielberg or Tarantino.
- For Tyrese, it would be Michael Bay and Spielberg, for which this was already fulfilled with Transformers.
- Megan would like to appear in a Michael Jackson video.
- Shia: The first girl, for obvious reasons.
- Megan: Her first girl. (She is engaged to Brian Austin Green) She's not into possessions and feels that emotions are a better reward.
- Tyrese: His first car, because he never had a girl. It was an 83 Cutlass, named Fifi, that was black with a beige interior. He had no license and had to dodge the police.
- Anthony Anderson would like to transform into edible underwear, but Josh Duhamel points out that he would then be eaten by guys.
- Tyrese would like to be a B2 Stealth Bomber.
- Josh would like to be a 40 foot ocean cruiser. His name would be Chill and his weapon would be gassing people.
- Shia would like to be Zac Efron so he can be in Hairspray.
- Megan's vote was on Fantastic Four, citing that it was the shit.
- Josh's vote was on Shrek 3.
1. Cool, Moo.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that 212 minutes is a bloody long time to sit in a dark room listening to strangers chat inanely on their cellphones?
Posted at 1:48AM on Jun 23rd 2007 by skribe