Mar

Leonard Nimoy Joins 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Voice Cast

Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com has the exclusive news that Leonard Nimoy has joined the cast of the third Transformers film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In the film, Nimoy — who also voiced Galvatron in 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie — will voice Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime’s predecessor who was last seen on the moon in the teaser trailer. (His wrecked body was discovered by Apollo 11 astronauts.)

Director Michael Bay tells EW he wanted to cast Limoy in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but he “was too scared to ask him. Plus, he’s married to Susan Bay, who’s a cousin of mine. So I had to be careful. I’ve met him at family functions. But he told me, ‘I would be honored. I’m glad to be back!’”

Mar

Michael Bay's Spring 2011 Victoria Secret Ads + Behind The Scenes

Mar

Michael Bay Talk 3D Within the Movie Business

From USAToday:

“The short answer is we did too much with technology that wasn’t ready for prime time,” says director Michael Bay, whose Transformers: Dark of the Moon was shot digitally, in 3-D and on traditional 35mm film.

“Studios are turning everything they can into 3-D without considering whether it should be done at all,” he says. “We’re already wearing the experience out. Look, there are simply some movies that shouldn’t be shot in 3-D,” he says. “It doesn’t add anything.”

But when it does, Bay is a 3-D booster. No stranger to eight-figure film budgets, Bay says that studios need to make the financial commitment to 3-D instead of doing clean-up work. “It’s different, shooting in 3-D,” Bay says. “You need more cameras. You need different sets. It needs to be a forethought. Right now, studios are treating it as an afterthought.”

Directors also need convincing, Bay says. Several months before Avatar was released, Bay says, Cameron invited Bay to the Avatar set. Shot primarily with computer-generated backdrops, the set consisted of bare walls, green screens and rows of computers.

“I first thought, ‘This is a fad. And a pain in the ass,’ ” Bay says. Then he began shooting the third Transformers film in 3-D, with a reported budget north of $200 million. “It isn’t cheap, but it shouldn’t be,” Bay says. “What I love is you really can create new worlds. But you have to commit to it. Fans are right to be more skeptical of it now.”

Mar

Michael Bay in Empire Magazine

“Ridley Scott once said, ‘Michael Bay and I have always been shooting in 3D.’ What he meant by that is that I always put background, mid-ground, foreground in all my shots.”

This time around, Bay decided to bring the third dimension in with style, bringing in James Cameron’s tech and team to take the shape-changing robots up a gear:

“Cameron was like, ‘Mike, directors like youhave to do 3D or it is going to die.’ I love it when you see these things: ‘The 3D event of the year!’ You see it every movie. There was a recent movie where you go in and before it starts they put up a little plate: ‘These scenes were not shot in 3D.’ Are you kidding? I think our 3D works really well with the robots, the size, the girth, the weight of it… it’s spectacular.”

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