The LA Times had a chance to sit down with director Michael Bay to discuss his career and next month’s eagerly anticipated Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The conversation touched on the extremely large scope of the film and the difficulties of having it completed in such a short amount of time considering the type of film and post-production work involved.
“This one… is barely going to make it to theaters. You have no idea how complicated my life is.”
Just to tease on the increased effort put into the sequel, Bay compared the digital size of Revenge of the Fallen and its predecessor, citing that the original sat around 15 terabytes with the new one hovering around a whopping 140 terabytes, breaking all records – an obviously massive increase. Much of this has to do with rendering extremely high-resolution and detailed scenes that were shot specifically in IMAX format.
On that note, here is the brand new IMAX poster for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen:
Click for larger version
How are Bay and his crew able to finish this film in so little time, considering the first debuted only two summers ago?
“The way I do it, we work hard, we work fast… We shoot 12-hour days. . . . One thing I can’t stand about Hollywood is waste. I’ve gotten to be a very, very efficient shooter. On average, these type of sequels run in the $230-million to $240-million range and we’re shooting this for a flat $200 million. A lot of these directors have second unit the entire time, that’s millions of dollars just wasted. We do it all ourselves.”
Commenting on Bay’s methods and hard-work ethic, screenwriter Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Transformers) had this to say about the Revenge of the Fallen shoot:
“We’re still not quite sure how he does it when he’s directing… People who work closest with him call his method ‘Bay-os’ because it feels like wartime chaos. There are explosions going off in every direction and half as many cameras flying all over the place, and you stand there thinking none of it’s going to make any sense, then you watch the scenes cut together and realize something shocking: He’s choreographed a ballet. He knows exactly which pieces he’s going to use from each camera and he’d already cut the scene together in his head.”
Well, there’s no questioning Michael Bay’s work ethic and his talent at making flashy, explosive scenes, but there are still quite a few folks out there who always seem to find a way to bash the director, his work and his techniques. Bay’s response:
“I don’t take myself so seriously… All these people think I do. Look, a lot of people think it’s fun to hate on Michael Bay. There’s a lot of poison on the Internet. People always try to knock someone who’s had a ton of success in movies. Whatever.”
He does what he wants and he does that successfully – All the credit to him for sticking to his guns and saying it as it is. Michael Bay’s honest and fun attitude came through clearly over the last few months in his public feud with director McG, debating over their respective Robot-focused movie franchises, where Bay basically accused McG of trying to copy his giant robots. In this LA Times interview, Bay admitted to calling up McG to encourage him to play along and have fun with it – obviously to drive hype for both of their films.
If you’re a Transformers fan and are excited for the next film, check out Screen Rant’s Revenge of the Fallen Character Guide. Also, if you’re in for a good laugh, check out this spoof trailer for the movie by Black20 which combines Terminator Salvation with Transformers 2 in an epic battle of humans vs. the machines (or in this case, the Transforminators).
What do you think of the poster and what do you expect of Transformers 2?
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 24, 2009.
Source: Los Angeles Times, kino-govno.com (via Collider)
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