"Usually behind the camera on the day he totally gets it. A lot of that is because he preps so well and works so hard before we even start shooting.
QUINT: Which Transformer is your personal favorite?
JOSH DUHAMEL: Good question. You know what? I gotta say... I haven't seen any of the Decepticons really. I've seen Devastator, the tank... and I guess I've seen the helicopters and stuff, but I haven't seen what they look like (as robots). As far as the Autobots, I gotta go with Ironhide, the truck. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I own a black truck. But I was thinking... If I was a kid, if I was 10 years old, and I wanted one of these to play with the first one I'd get is probably Ironhide.
I also like Bumblbee just because he's a cool Camaro. Plus, I drive the old Camaro on LAS VEGAS, so I have a real affinity for that, too.
He had to be pulled away, back to the shot.
They moved the cameras again, this time Bay's video village was set up right next to me. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura catches sight of me and gives me a warm greeting. I spent some time with Lorenzo during pre-production of STARDUST in London. He sat me down and showed me tons of art and walked me through the Pinewood sets then (read about that visit here!!!). We got along pretty well.
He was again all smiles, but had to go entertain the International press that showed up around noon. I saw him occasionally for the rest of my time on set leading around around a group of Asian reporters. When he left me standing at the canvas chairs, I noticed I was alone at the video village... Well, not totally alone. I looked over and Michael Bay was sitting there, turned in his chair, looking at me. There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. He looked like he was struggling with something.
"Listen, I want to say something," he said.
"Okay..." said I.
He said that he knew there were a lot of people bitching and whining and bitching and bitching (his worRAB) since the Optimus Prime vehicle pic hit the net. "The reason I went with the flames was to be able to define Prime's mid-section when he's a robot." Apparently, the flames are set sort of like ribs on the robot Prime, giving his mid-section more than just a monotone look. He also assured me that Prime was definitely red and blue, that the paint job from that angle made the blue look black. He also said that the only reason he picked a long-nose truck instead of a flat-nose truck was purely for the additional mass.
I told him that I believed that every single person being vocally negative about the film wants this film to be great. They might not trust him or what he's doing, but nobody is out there hoping Bay messes this movie up. They want to see a badass live action TRANSFORMERS flick. I said if he could nail the robots, then the majority of the people will forgive whatever changes they don't like.
He smiled and was really giddy about what they've done so far. He said they've fully rendered the Skorpinok sequence I've described in animatic form and said it was badass. Bay also said he counted 11 different set pieces in the film, saying that the film just moves like a shot and he can't wait for people to see it.
Bay also talked about Peter Cullen, saying that he was happy that Cullen was voicing Prime again. After Cullen does his voice work, Bay wants an actor to come in and make a video reference of the delivery for each of the lines, to give the animators something to work with. He said Cullen's voice was note-perfect, but he wanted a screen-actor to actually act out the lines so the animators could look at it. Apparently they have a program where they can put in an actor's face and watch a rough Optimus act, conforming slightly the characteristics of the face. Bay talked about playing around with footage of both Robert De Niro and Hugo Weaving with this program and seeing the De Niro and Weaving versions of Optimus Prime. He stressed it wasn't motion capture.
He couldn't have been happier with ILM's work so far. Can't wait to get a glimpse of that stuff.
Bay was pulled away and I sat down, catching up on my notes. Tyrese was sitting behind me, in the shade of an awning. He thanked me for the mention in the last piece and, with a laugh, promised my $1,000 check for mentioning his production company (HQ Entertainment at
www.hqent.net) was on its way. Sweet, here comes my second imaginary payday! Woo-hoo!
They had a shot ready with Megan Fox, the first time I've seen her do any work in all my visits. She is adorable in person. I can understand why she has a following. I never spoke with her, as it seemed she only had one shot the first half of the day.
She was in a light pink sweater and covered in dirt, smudges all over her clothes and face. Her hair was tied back into a pony tail. She was amongst the destruction on Broadway, looking down the street, and was supposed to be reacting to a series of explosions. Bay called her over to show her some footage they had shot already leading up to this moment. I wasn't within view of the monitor, but I could hear Shia yelling.
Some time had passed since the last set up, so Bay stood up and lit a fire under the crew's asses. "C'mon guys! We're losing our energy!" Then he's hit with a thick cloud of smoke from a smoldering, crushed in delivery van. "Too much smoke," he yelled. "Oh, God! That's some stinky shit!" They get the cameras ready and one of the set decorators wants to take a moment to put something that'll make steam come out of the van before they roll. Bay: "**** the steam! Let's move!" And so they moved.
Megan went back to her general starting point area and Bay called for the cameras to roll immediately. Megan looked panicked and called out something like, "What am I supposed to do?" Bay didn't hear her. Megan looked to the AD and mouthed, "I don't know what to do." The AD started to say something when Bay called "Action!" and called out the 3 explosions. "BOOM!" He waited while Fox just stood there. "BOOM!" Again, she didn't move. Bay said, "React!" She called back, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do!" Bay called, "Cut!" and walked over to her. She repeated that she wasn't told what to do. Bay pointed at the AD and said, "This is your fault," and told her again where the cameras were and how she was supposed to react.
The next take Bay yells "Boom! Boom! Boom!" with about 3 seconRAB pause between each. Megan's reaction was a kind of lame shoulder jump, like she was giving an exaggerated shrug. Her breath is heavy... with worry, I'd guess, but her face didn't really show much from the distance I was watching from, about 20 feet away. She then runs across the street to a tow truck with "Mike's Towing" stenciled on. She flips open a panel on the truck like she's going to grab for something and they yelled cut.
Bay didn't like the reaction she gave, so he asked "Can we get some explosions?" Of course they'd have to rig these up and that'd take time, but then one crew member joked about just shooting a gun. Bay, dead serious, agreed. "Why don't we get some gunfire? Let's get some gunfire!" Next take, sure enough one of those DOGS OF WAR guns were pulled out and instead of Bay yelling "Boom!" three times, they had 3 loud blasts from the gun. She jumped each time a little better, but to my untrained eye she still just looked like she shrugging her shoulders while breathing heavy. When she ran to the tow truck this time it was clear they unleashed twice the amount of extras running down the sidewalk than what was in the previous take. Little Megan Fox got damn near bowled over by the extras running at full speed. It was like watching a linebacker tackling a cheerleader when she got hit, but they never crashed to the ground and she was okay and still ran to the tow truck.
I was having a conversation with Executive Producer Mark Vahradian during the break after they got what they wanted from Megan. He asked about upcoming 2007 movies I was looking forward to. Of course I said SPIDER-MAN 3, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3, 300... Bay walked by us and stopped to listen in to me talking about SPIDER-MAN 3. He just kind of nodded his head and said it was a mistake for them not to have had a presentation at Comic-Con. I assume he saw all the coverage all those movies got out of the Con and how excited people were. They did announce Peter Cullen returning to voice Optimus, which was something, but I told him they really should have run an animatic of Optimus transforming. I've seen some of these things and they are goddamn cool. He just shook his head.
Before I left the set I saw 2 more sequences shot. The first one I'm talking about was actually the last sequence I saw before they broke for lunch. It had Tyrese, Duhamel and their men ducking for cover in the middle of the street, using overturned cars for protection. The shot starts on a soldier on the ground, part of an undercarriage laying over him. It's like he just narrowly avoided getting blown up. Before the shot Bay had the actor push the tire so it was still turning when the shot started. The man gets up, pushes the debris off him, shakes it off and the camera whips up to Tyrese and Duhamel who have a heated conversation. It starts with both calling out to the men, asking if anybody is hurt.
I didn't have headphones, so the only part of the conversation I heard clearly were the bits that were yelled. The gist of the conversation has Duhamel expecting back-up, I think, but Tyrese, radio in hand, tells him that whatever they were expecting to back 'em up was not effective. Duhamel whips his head up to the skies above the street, his eyes widen and yells, "Threat at 12 o'clock! Threat at 12 o'clock!" And then it's a cut.
Bay wanted a pause in there as Duhamel's character stops frantically reloading and looking around for enemies. Whatever Tyrese tells him weighs heavily on his character and Bay wants us to see that. Duhamel took a few more takes to get it right, but he eventually did. I was watching the takes playing on the sound man's little TV. If I have a problem with what I saw Megan Fox doing, then my opinion of Duhamel is completely opposite. I could see the gears turning as he processed what Tyrese was telling him, letting the bad news sink in. This guy has it and if he picks the right projects he's going to be a massive star.
The other scene I saw actually had a couple transformers in it! Pretty good Autobot sequence, actually. They were only in vehicle form, but it was still very cool. This was a long shot of the Army group running down the length of Broadway, for the entire block. Explosions are all around them. At least half a dozen. They're firing up the air again, but this time Ironhide and Ratchet drive, backwarRAB, around the corner in front of the group. They drive backwarRAB down the block, giving cover to retreating men.
You've probably seen Ironhide and Ratchet by now, but if you're not sure which vehicles they are, Ironhide is a big, black pick-up truck and Ratchet is a combo-hummer/ambulance, yellow. On Ironhide's tailgate is an embossed Autobot logo and stuck to the rear of Ratchet is a giant circular sticker that is divided into 4 sections, each depicting a rescue scenario. The slogan on the truck is something like To Rescue and Protect. In the middle of this circular sticker, connecting all 4 images, is the Autobot logo.
They broke for lunch, which was my cue to leave. I waited a minute while the crew cleared out and then approached the two Autobot vehicles. I had to touch one. They were parked one in front of the other, Ironhide's front bumper close to Ratchet's rear bumper. Up close the embossed tail gate was even cooler than far away. If this movie turns out to be complete, unwatchable, unrecognizable crap, I still guarantee there will be a huge influx of Transformers customized cars. Hell, I want an Autobot logo stamped into my piece of crap 95 Ford Escort.
Ironhide is huge. The bottom of the driver's side door was about 4 feet off the ground, with no footstep. Ratchet also looked cool up close and personal. After I had my geek moment of respectful appreciation, I left the set.
Once again, the overall feeling I got from my time on the set is that Bay is going for broke in terms of the scope of the film and the action involved. This will be a huge action spectacular, no doubt. The only real question is really how much Transformers fans will be able to recognize. Bay's making progress into the fan's territory. He's hired Peter Cullen, he obviously reaRAB what you guys say whenever a story is posted. But it's clear he's making his movie. We'll see if he hits that balance of fun movie for the masses and one respectful to the source material. No matter what, he's certainly a fun character to write about and I've had a lot of fun watching him work. I hope I'll have just as much or more fun next summer in the theater. I mean, is it really that hard to mess up a giant fighting robot movie?"