Be sure to check Michael Bay Dot Com tomorrow evening (for those in North, South & Central America) to view and download the new Transformers 3 Super Bowl ad.
Super Bowl XLV starts at 6:30PM (EST) on February 6, 2011.
Interesting article that looks at the new Transformers Dark Of the Moon film and looks back at Revenge of The Fallen.
“I’m still having fun and especially with this movie,” Bay said. ”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 postproduction 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.”
Instead of giant military operations and armada imagery, this third ”Transformers” film is “lean and mean,” Bay says, and the script by Ehren Kruger (“The Ring“) presents more of a small-team, commando tension. Bay says he thinks of this film as a sort of homeland version of ”Black Hawk Down” — but, you know, with giant alien robots. Instead of Middle East deserts, the majority of the action will be set amid the smoldering boulevards of Chicago where humanity continues to fight against the hulking mecha-warriors from outer space, exploiting their one known weakness (their eyes).
To everyone following this site - Nelson and I want to thank everyone for their support, and have a very happy and healthy New Year. I won’t disappoint on Transformers 3.
If you’re having problems viewing the teaser on an iPad or iPhone, view it here. Otherwise click on the play button below. For optimal viewing, make sure to have the HD on.
As part of the new “Epic Mini Movies” advertising campaign featuring the Samsung Epic(TM) 4G smartphone,Sprint (NYSE:S) today launched a new element of the campaign - a national contest that encourages consumers to submit their own Epic Mini Movie moments for a chance to win $25,000.
With this contest, consumers can be the director, producer and star of their own mini movie of epic proportions. To enter the contest, videos up to 30 seconds in length should be uploaded at www.youtube.com/sprintepic. Fans will select the top-10 finalists by voting online for their favorite video, and the winner will be chosen from the top 10 as judged by acclaimed movie director Michael Bay, who directed box-office hits Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Iraq and Bad Boys I and II. In addition to the $25,000 grand prize, the top 10-finalists will receive free movie tickets for a year from Fandango. Videos must be uploaded by 11:59 a.m. PDT on Nov. 1, and voting begins Nov. 2. For more information and contest rules, visit www.youtube.com/sprintepic. See official rules for details.
Shia LaBeouf gives this advice to an actor working for the first time with fiery director Michael Bay: “You can only do so much. Fight or flight. A tap on the back and a ‘Good luck!’ “
LaBeouf’s “Transformers 3″ co-star John Malkovich — himself an intensely focused pro — needed no such well-wishes. Although it might seem like a collaboration between Bay and Malkovich would be ripe for an on-set conflagration, no such thing took place. In fact, the actor offered effusive praise for Bay during a recent interview with MTV News.
“I found Michael delightful,” he told us. “I found him fun, filled with ideas, many of them different than the take before, which I’m perfectly used to because that’s how I work anyway. I found his reputation, at least in my case, my experience, utterly unwarranted. But what do I know? Maybe he’s changed.”
Malkovich is no stranger to studio-driven action sets — he starred in “Con Air” and the upcoming “Red” — and noted how stressful it is for a director to manage a massive production with so many moving parts. He compared his role on the film, in which he plays LaBeouf’s cruel boss, to that of a relief pitcher in baseball.
“You also have to try and give them some relief from the stress of doing that every day, all day long, 14, 15 hours a day for months,” he explained. “I think with all the pre-planning and all the pre-production and all the storyboards and all the meetings, [Bay is] a filmmaker, so the film is really in his head. I think there are two kinds of people, then, who show up to work, whether they be actors or people on the crew: Either you’re trying to help him define and communicate what’s in his head, or you’re not — or you’re just there eating craft services.”
Bay reciprocated that creative respect and support to his cast, Malkovich said, including first-time actor — and Megan Fox replacement — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. “I thought he was very good with [Rosie], very patient, very pleasant and helpful,” he said. “For her, that’s a strain, if you’ve never done that before.”
Ventura County lawyer has learned that you don’t screw around with Michael Bay.
Six weeks after including the “Transformers” director as a defendant in a pistol-whipping battery lawsuit stemming from a fight at a Hollywood club, attorney Christine Renshaw of Renshaw & Associates has put her tail between her legs, dismissed the case against Bay and issued a written apology to him.
“On behalf of our clients and our firm, we sincerely apologize to Michael Bay for his inclusion as a defendant in a lawsuit that was recently filed on behalf of our clients Joshua James Stewart and Paul Klimczak arising from an incident at the Kiss Nightclub,” according to the statement given to TMZ.
“Mr. Bay was not at the Kiss Nightclub on the night of the events in question, and he had nothing to do with the alleged incident. We are satisfied that, contrary to the allegations in the lawsuit, the man involved in the altercation and identified as “Doe #1″ was not Mr. Bay’s employee or private security guard.”
The veteran orbiter is also enjoying a weekend at the movies, as filming of Transformers 3 picks up at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
Scenes are expected to be shot at Pad 39A on Wednesday – understood to be timed with Discovery being on show with the RSS retracted, meaning the Shuttle may gain herself some credits in the movie.
Hundreds of extras have received security clearance to be in the grounds of KSC during the filming, while Cape Canaveral sources noted Atlas and Delta resources will also be involved in some scenes. Director Michael Bay had previously filmed at KSC during the making of Armageddon – which involved scenes with Atlantis and Endeavour.
It seems some web sites and laziness go hand in hand. All they do is “report” anything without verifying it first.
The web site states that a “source close to Michael Bay” has told them that Bay and Co have ditched the 3D cameras and will do the rest of the movie in 3D conversion. It was also stated that they ditched the 3D cameras before the Chicago shoot.
Really? I was on the set on Chicago in July and I took a photo of this:
All you guys gotta do is e-mail me, the webmaster or ask in the forums. But that would get in the way of advertising cents and a quick hit, wouldn’t it?
Director Michael Bay is ready to deploy legal firepower against the two men who sued him Tuesday claiming they were pistol-whipped by his security guard outside a trendy nightclub.
“It’s 100% frivolous,” Bay tells us from the set of “Transformers 3″ in Chicago. “We’re all pretty perplexed by it. But we’re not going to be perplexed when I go after these moneyhounds for malicious prosecution.”
Bay isn’t blowing smoke. The firebrand director has hired Hollywood litigator Marty Singer and plans to fight the battery and negligence suit.
Joshua Stewart and Paul Klimczak claim that in 2008, an intoxicated security guard working for Bay smashed the men in the face with a gun outside the Hollywood hotspots Beso restaurant and Kiss nightclub. Bay says he was indeed at Beso that night having a friendly dinner with seven couples, but he says he left by 11:30 p.m. and doesn’t employ a bodyguard, let alone one who might have been inebriated.
“Why would I have a drunk security guard when I know the best Navy Seals in the United States?” asks the director of “Pearl Harbor” and “The Rock.” “A lot of people don’t want to be bothered and they’ll just pay people off (to settle cases), but I’m not that guy.”
A call to the plaintiffs’ lawyers Steven and Christine Renshaw was not immediately returned.
From explosions and gunbattles on Wacker Drive to parachutists plummeting from Trump Tower and celebrity sightings on Michigan Avenue, the “Transformers 3″ film shoot provided plenty of free entertainment in downtown Chicago last week.
It also has caused more disruption than any previous movie filmed in the city — snarling commutes, clogging sidewalks, distracting office workers and cutting off retailers from foot traffic.
So is it worth it?
Steve Shern, general manager of Hotel 71 on Wacker, says yes: “We’ve been sold out each of the past seven nights,” largely due to “Transformers.” The hotel, located on the block where battle scenes were filmed last week, peddled “Transformers”-themed packages that included screenings of the first two installments and promises of some live action out the front door.
Next door, Bella Bacino’s restaurant closed down for most customers Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, serving only those with previous reservations and Hotel 71 guests. But co-owner Linda Bacin says film crew members “filled the bar for a couple of nights. Michael Bay came in, ate pizza, said ‘thank you,’ tipped appropriately.”
She says film company Paramount Pictures has agreed to reimburse her for lost business. She hasn’t yet calculated the total.
THE LOCAL ANGLE
Figuring the overall financial impact on Chicago is trickier. Movie productions hire local workers, buy from local companies and generate publicity for the city. They also collect tax credits from the state and interrupt the normal flow of downtown commerce.
Paramount says “Transformers” will bring in $20 million and 200 jobs; Betsy Steinberg of the Illinois Film Office says the job number will be closer to 400.
So far, “Transformers” has hired 184 locals as production assistants and 27 Illinois National Guard members to play soldiers, a spokeswoman for the movie says.
“We try to hire as many local crew members as possible, but we did run into the issue that a lot of crews here were already working on other projects,” she says, including a Ron Howard-directed comedy starring Vince Vaughn that’s been shooting in the city since the end of May.
The caliber of those jobs, which range from a few days of on-set work to months of set-building, has been debated. An experienced camera operator can earn more than $900 a day, while low-level production assistants make about $100 to $200 a day.
“Even though some of these camera crews might be working 16-hour days for six weeks and then not working for a month, they’re still taking home enough to support their families,” says Tom Fletcher, an executive at Chicago-based Fletcher Camera & Lenses, which rents camera equipment to film crews.
Location scouts for the movie struck deals with local business owners such as Ms. Bacin, promising to compensate them for lost business and damage caused by the filming. Damage appears to have been minimal: Bella Bacino’s lost a few patio chairs and a carpet ruined by debris. An explosion blew out a window in the business offices of Crain’s Chicago Business, which overlooks one of the film sites. No one was injured.
The Ron Howard movie, tentatively titled “What You Don’t Know,” has actually spent “significantly more” here than “Transformers,” Ms. Steinberg says. The movie didn’t release a local spending estimate, but its overall budget is $79 million. It will shoot for more than three months in Chicago, compared with six weeks for “Transformers.”
Chicago Film Office chief Rich Moskal says the city won’t bear any of the costs of shooting “Transformers.” The studio pays for all security personnel (including about 15 off-duty police officers and firefighters hired at $30 per hour) and cleanup expenses. A spokeswoman at the Chicago Transit Authority says the rerouting of 27 buses to accommodate filming has had no financial impact on the agency.
TAX INCENTIVES
According to the Illinois Film Office, movie studios spent $476 million in Illinois from 2005 to 2008. The state returned $39 million under a tax credit program enacted in 2004 to help Illinois compete for Hollywood productions.
Some 42 states offer film tax credits, often more generous than Illinois’. Here, the 30% credit applies only to spending with local companies and wages for Illinois residents up to $100,000 each.
Michigan offers a 40% rebate with no residency requirement. That tax break applies to the huge salaries for non-Michigan-based actors, directors and producers. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm estimates the state will pay $155 million in tax credits to the film industry in 2010, causing some state officials to question the value of the program.
Experts say tax credits can be worthwhile if they help a state establish a permanent local film industry. Illinois is third behind California and New York in terms of having a strong local crew presence, says Cornell University professor Susan Christopherson, who studies film tax credits.
“Chicago might be able to make a go of the film credits because it does have a strong production presence related to advertising,” Ms. Christopherson says. “But in other states, you have to ask why you’re giving subsidies to movie workers coming in from other places.”
Michael Bay talks ‘Transformers 3′ on set in Chicago
As Mayor Richard Daley stood on Michigan Avenue in shock after watching a series of explosions go off on the set of “Transformers 3″ July 17, director Michael Bay — no stranger to things that go “boom” — stood next to the wide-eyed mayor and laughed.
“His face was funny to watch,” Bay recalled during a break from filming on Wabash Avenue and Wacker Drive Sunday afternoon. “He was in shock, like ‘That didn’t hurt anybody? It looked very dangerous.’”
Bay has built a career on making action scenes look dangerous, and, in the case of the Michigan shoot, destructive. The usually photogenic street looked like it had been hit by a natural disaster when Bay brought “Transformers 3″ there from July 16-18, with junkyard-bound cars and charred, fake chunks of cement scattered around the area.
The 45-year-old director and his production team began talking about Chicago as a potential location for the “Transformers” sequel in late October/early November. They liked that it was new territory for Bay and had a “wide” structure. (“We can show off the city more and have spectacular attacks that we couldn’t have in cities that are more canyon-like,” said producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura). The tax incentives offered by the city didn’t hurt either, they said.
A scout was sent to Chicago immediately, and by December, Bay and company were meeting with Daley. During the mayor’s visit to the Michigan Avenue set, Bay reminded him of a past conversation the two had.
“I told him, ‘Remember how I told you I was going to make your city beautiful? Well, I kind of lied,’ ” Bay said. “But it will look beautiful in the movie. It’s in the third act.”
Filming in Chicago began on LaSalle Street July 10 and is expected to continue in the city through August 23. Plot details have been scarce — “I don’t say much,” Bay said — but it has been reported that the film deals with the Transformers’ role in the space race between the U.S. and Russia.
On Sunday afternoon, Bay filmed actors Shia LaBeouf and Patrick Dempsey on top of a pile of what appeared to be building remnants. Bay stood on the pile of rubble with the film stars and yelled “More smoke” as he motioned up with his hands.
“He is very much in command of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it,” di Bonaventura said of Bay. “He’s a little more intense on set — I mean, he has a lot of people — but he’s a fun guy to be around. Even in middle of a take, he has a joke.”
As busy as he is with the robots in disguise (between takes, Bay ate off of a plate sitting on a monitor), he has taken notice of the spectators standing behind barricades downtown. He said the large crowds have been the biggest surprise of the Chicago shoot and added that he enjoys hearing them cheer after an action-packed stunt.
“I look at other movies, and there’s not that,” Bay said. “I heard one director complain that nobody ever comes to see their movie. Maybe it’s the (Transformers) franchise. It has a lot of fans and is kind of a big spectacle.
“We had someone here Skype-ing — they were holding their laptop out the window — with a camera on us,” said Bay, pointing at a floor of the Hotel Monaco high above South Water Kitchen. “Women were flashing us as well. Chicago has been amazingly receptive.”
Um, you’re welcome?
Fewer than three weeks into the shoot, the crew already has filmed car chases on LaSalle Street, fireballs on Michigan and gunfire-heavy battle scenes on Wacker.
According to producer Ian Bryce, the most nerve-wracking stunts to film were the basejumping and skydiving scenes.
“Having guys jump off helicopters and (Willis Tower and Trump Tower) is very unusual,” Bryce said. “We’ve done a lot of stuff, but we haven’t had that. That’s a little scary and unnerving. But logistically and aesthetically, it went great.”
Bryce felt the Chicago shoot is “definitely the most complicated shutdown we’ve tried to orchestrate,” which is why he said he was grateful things have run so smoothly and accident-free — for the most part.
“I got hit by gigantic, gigantic piece of foam,” said Bay, laughing, as his cast waited for his signal to start the next scene. “It fired too late and wacked me in the head while I operated a camera. It gave me a neck ache for three days.”
The interview ended on that anecdote and Bay, not one to waste time, was back to work before the tape recorder stopped.
Michael Bay Dot Com
