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Short filmTranscript
00:10Transformers, the toy that unfolded before the world, had tied itself into knots, expanding
00:21into TV, an animated movie, halfway through the movie, every kid starts screaming and
00:27crying. It bombed financially. And a whole new spin-off ecosystem. Robots in disguise! We knew it was over. So
00:35the iconic Hasbro franchise set its metal sights on Hollywood. Got to start thinking about how to transform these things.
00:43It was a very skeptical audience. That's enough. That's enough. But the transformation from script to screen. I woke up
00:50at two o'clock in the morning and screamed, which one's the jet? Through the mind of controversial director Michael
00:55Bay. He has a reputation.
00:57Let's go. Lift him up again. Do it again. Do it again. This is terrible. No, no, no. We've got
01:01to redesign everything. Would prove to be a rocky ride. It was a moment of terror. Terror. Just racing to
01:07get this thing up and running. Come on, let's stop admiring the truck. Let's shoot. It was chaos from day
01:12one. I wanted to transform. Come on, let's go. We're going to pop the cable. These are real things that
01:16were exploding around. He's apeshit crazy. He said to everybody on the set, you're at my movie.
01:54Transformers had earned billions of dollars for Hasbro.
01:57Can you make out how many, Spike?
01:59And by the 2000s, after years of rich storytelling and Transformers lore, it seemed like Hasbro had lost the plot.
02:07They weren't cars and trucks that you recognized anymore. They weren't necessarily Autobots and Decepticons.
02:13Combiners.
02:13BTR building sets.
02:15New Jetstorm and new Optimus.
02:16So separately.
02:17But if Transformers weren't Transformers, you really had to ask, what is it? And could it still make money?
02:28There was a very well established from the animated show and from the movie set of relationships in place already.
02:34I mean, you can't disregard that.
02:35Which is exactly what Hasbro's senior executive, Brian Goldner, was thinking.
02:41He wanted to go back to overall basic, reintroduce cars and trucks in the war and the voices and make
02:47something happen.
02:48And that's not all Brian Goldner was looking to recreate from the past.
02:53He was thinking in movies, new cartoons, studios.
02:56And come on, there had to be a market for new Transformers movies.
03:00Those animated shows, the stuff kids absorb between the ages of 8 and 12, that's the base.
03:06And it was a base that had now grown up with more than just pocket money to spend.
03:12And so Hasbro's primary creative liaison, Aaron Archer, got to work.
03:16My responsibility was to start to harness what we believed the brand to be about.
03:21Autobots are the good guys, Decepticons are the bad guys, core characters, core iconography, core story.
03:27So that Brian Goldner could then lay that out on the table when we went to talk to Hollywood.
03:33All too easy.
03:35I don't think it had an easy time.
03:37Um, or not.
03:38It was a very skeptical audience.
03:40They didn't know how a movie like that would work.
03:43They thought it was maybe going to be like Toy Story, where the toys are running around.
03:48You are a toy!
03:52I happen to know at one point Universal were offered the Transformer movies and turned them down.
03:58Jilted by Hollywood, the Hasbro's team's desperate search for a relationship to revive our beloved Transformers was on the rocks.
04:08And let's back up a bit and meet the White Knight who would sweep Hasbro off its feet and helm
04:14the franchise they dreamed of.
04:16This is Michael Bay.
04:18He's this hot young director.
04:21You know, he's a genius with what he does.
04:24And what he does...
04:27He likes toys.
04:29Isn't subtle.
04:30He has a reputation.
04:32This is terrible.
04:32No, no, no.
04:33We've got to redesign everything.
04:36And he loves fast things.
04:39Real pyrotechnics.
04:42Real stunts.
04:44Ingeniously designed action.
04:47Some fall for him.
04:49Love him.
04:51He's apeshit crazy.
04:55He gets excited.
04:57Like this conductor of chaos.
05:00Which makes some blow their tops.
05:03He has a reputation.
05:04A lot of filmmakers talk shit about Michael Bay.
05:07I don't know how much he paid attention in directing class.
05:13He's even a noun.
05:14Bayham.
05:15That's right.
05:16Bayham.
05:17Young Bayham started his career directing commercials.
05:20But he was destined for bigger things in Hollywood.
05:23He wanted to bring his way of making commercials to feature films.
05:28Steven Spielberg would eventually transform Bay's career.
05:32But first, he had to get badder.
05:34Let's hear one of those jokes, bitch.
05:36Bad Boys.
05:37I'm so sick of this bullshit.
05:39With a budget of less than $20 million and burning or earning over $140 million at the box office,
05:47studios would disagree that Bad Boys was a bad movie.
05:51In 1996, he completed his second film.
05:55Welcome to The Rock.
05:56He said it to Sean Connery at one stage.
05:58Don't destroy my movie.
05:59And Sean Connery said, well, I'll try not to.
06:03Losers always whine about their best.
06:05The Rock was still Michael having to prove himself.
06:08He liked working with a film student.
06:11In so many Michael Bay movies where a guy will start shooting with a machine gun
06:15and the next time you cut to him, he's got a pistol.
06:17And he goes, well, it looked cool when you saw the shot.
06:19It's a cool shot.
06:20It's not about that.
06:22He was trying to do stuff that works well in a commercial, but you've got to tell a story.
06:27Well, advertising sells, and so did The Rock, bringing in hundreds of millions at the box office and Steven Spielberg.
06:35I remember Steven Spielberg calling Michael after watching The Rock and loving it.
06:39Relationships blossom from simple things like that where you have this huge director saying, I love your stuff.
06:43That blossoming relationship may have had more in common than meets the eye.
06:48Both filmmakers were fans of...
06:50You know who his favorite movie is?
06:52West Side Story?
06:53Yes.
06:53The nets are in gear.
06:55Our cylinders are clicking.
06:56Which sounds nuts.
06:58Because Bay's movies weren't exactly music to the ears.
07:03She's very much attracted to movement.
07:05It's the choreography.
07:06It's the people in motion.
07:07It's the fact that every dance scene is people moving in foreground background.
07:10That you're telling the story through the camera movement.
07:13Isn't that beautiful?
07:15Ah, yes.
07:17For Bayham fans, a little song and dance might seem like the end of the world.
07:22Far from it.
07:23The great thing about Armageddon is when it came out, it was a huge hit.
07:28And then there was Pearl Harbor.
07:30When I saw that, I went, well, you know, he can do it.
07:33Because that was done pretty conventionally, you know.
07:39There's still things about it that are a little bit hokey.
07:44But generally, it turned out pretty well.
07:47Victory belongs to those that believe in it the most.
07:49Earning $450 million worldwide against a budget of less than $150 million.
07:56The list of Michael Bay fans and favorites kept growing.
08:00I met him back on Bad Boys 2.
08:02It was an amazing experience.
08:04Michael invented one of the greatest things in our industry ever, in action industry.
08:09He invented the Bay Buster.
08:13You have a camera that's only a couple inches off the ground.
08:16You have a high-powered vehicle.
08:17So you're getting exciting shots because the ground is rushing by.
08:20Bay was unstoppable.
08:22This is what I do.
08:23Creating mayhem at the box office.
08:26Bayhem.
08:26Right, Bayhem.
08:28And for his next film, Michael Bay would finally team up with Steven Spielberg.
08:33He absolutely thought Spielberg was a genius.
08:35It seemed like combining their filmmaking DNA would clone Bay's box office success until...
08:42The Island.
08:42The Island.
08:43An enormous flop.
08:44Are you saying there's something wrong?
08:46So in 2005, when the island dropped, those tropes were really overdone.
08:50And so with Michael Bay's mishandling of this sci-fi film and a collaboration with the great Steven Spielberg that
08:57really didn't work out, that's where our story could have ended.
09:02However, Hasbro's Brian Goldner had other plans because he was still looking for someone in Hollywood to take on Transformers.
09:10Hasbro had always had a strong relationship with Steven Spielberg going all the way back to the Indiana Jones toys
09:16at Kenner.
09:16Indiana Jones, at your service, Toad.
09:18Ah!
09:19And so Steven Spielberg and his company, DreamWorks, who had a deal with Paramount, made a deal with Hasbro.
09:27And just like that, this gray-bodied, dead franchise would surge back to life.
09:33Anything he wants to breathe life into gets the fast track in Hollywood.
09:37So fast, in fact.
09:39They already had the release date.
09:40Because when you have a big blockbuster like that, you have to clear out that weekend.
09:43You have to go, okay, who else is releasing something?
09:46We don't want to compete.
09:46We have to find an open weekend.
09:48And so, with an overwhelming deadline fast approaching, Spielberg needed a script that everyone could agree on.
09:55Hasbro had to approve the story.
09:57And Spielberg's company had been working on developing this for a while, but they could not find a writer.
10:03And they were hitting a deadline where they had to be making some sort of progress.
10:06I came in, I said, I have this idea for the movie.
10:09I want to do a soldier story.
10:10I want to do Optimus Prime.
10:12And those guys are, they're all veterans of a war, a really brutal war.
10:15A war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death.
10:20We are this little backwater planet, and the war has come to us.
10:24And we don't even know it exists, and there's giant robots, and it's all very terrifying.
10:27Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg was more interested in teenage earthly matters.
10:32Steven had pitched very centrally, he's like, I'm looking for a story about a boy in his car.
10:37I bought a car for not to be an alien robot.
10:40I took those elements and kind of jammed them together for that first draft.
10:43They said, this is great, we love this, we need Hasbro to approve it.
10:47I came into Amblin.
10:48It was me and Mr. Spielberg and other executives and 25 Hasbro execs.
10:54I do remember something like that.
10:55And I had the flu, I was actually running a fever, and so I pitched it to them.
10:59He presented it very dynamically and fun.
11:02For 25 minutes, scene by scene, this is what the movie is, this is what it's about, this
11:05is act one, two, and three, these are the characters we used, this involvement.
11:08At the end of it, the very nice Hasbro people went.
11:10Yeah, great, great.
11:12And they said, good job, you're now going to go write the movie.
11:15And with those words, a reality sunk in for John.
11:20They already had July 7, 2007 picked.
11:24And they said, well, okay, we need six months to promote it, only six months to post it.
11:28Visual effects, close to a year.
11:29And then the date that we need to start is behind me.
11:34And there's just this moment where I said, so in theory, we needed a draft two weeks ago?
11:39And Mr. Spielberg said, absolutely, that's exactly right, good luck.
11:42And then everyone got up and just left me at the table to go, I'm already behind.
11:52With a crushing deadline, script writer John Rogers was feeling the pressure.
11:56I woke up at two o'clock in the morning, clutching my chest and screamed, which one's the jet?
12:02And just like a complete brain fog terror.
12:05And so I wrote that first draft in just this six week sprint.
12:09And then I turned in the draft and there's stuff they liked and there's stuff they didn't like.
12:12And they're like, well, let's go get a director and do the next draft.
12:15Well, Spielberg wouldn't be directing because he had someone else in mind.
12:20Steven thought Michael, he's a car guy.
12:23He loves cars.
12:28And so he said, okay, car movie, let Michael do it.
12:32But hang on just a minute because Transformers isn't just a car movie.
12:37Robots and cars, perfect.
12:38Well, there's a lot more to it than that.
12:42And this was Hasbro's chance to make a movie that this time gets everything right.
12:49Prime, you can't die.
12:51I know people who still cry over the death of Optimus Prime in the movie.
12:55So Hasbro needed to be sure that Michael Bay wouldn't be responsible for upsetting yet more fans.
13:01Steven wanted Michael Bay to work on Transformers.
13:05But Michael Bay had done The Island.
13:07The Island?
13:07Yeah, right.
13:09The Island.
13:09An enormous flop.
13:11And as the gatekeepers of this beloved franchise, Hasbro would be right to wonder...
13:17Um...
13:17...if Michael Bay was the right choice.
13:20He has a reputation.
13:21I don't know how much he paid attention in directing class.
13:25Even Michael Bay himself had doubts.
13:28And Michael turned it down.
13:29I think he told me he turned it down first and then he had a meeting with the ILM.
13:34Industry heavyweights, industrial light and magic would take on the gargantuan task of the film's ambitious, overwhelming CGI demands.
13:42And Michael Bay had concerns.
13:45Can robots act?
13:47You fail me yet again, Starscream.
13:50So I think there was a lot of questioning, like, how do we get performances out of these CG constructs
13:55for the first time in movie history?
13:58So unwise.
14:00I mean, because you'd had dinosaurs, you had Jurassic Park.
14:04You're not a robot that had to give the rousing St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V to rally the
14:10troops.
14:10You've never had that.
14:11We cannot let the humans pay for our mistakes.
14:14But without lips, you can't do mouth.
14:17Without mouth, you can't do speech and emotion.
14:19You know, how do we do this?
14:21But that was somebody else's department.
14:23Precisely.
14:23It was Scott Farrar's department and his problem.
14:27Michael Bay needed assurance.
14:29The one thing that Michael said, are you sure you can make those Transformers photorealist?
14:35And he said, absolutely.
14:37What are you, like an alien or something?
14:39Michael was also asked about the last time he'd worked with ILM.
14:43And that was on the island.
14:45A contamination alert has been issued.
14:47First meeting, he said, Scott, this last movie that the ILM was working on, you know,
14:52you're running out of time because the shots weren't ready and they weren't looking at it.
14:56So I said, Michael, it had nothing to do with ILM.
15:00And he sort of smiled.
15:00He says, okay.
15:02From that point forward, we had a really good creative relationship.
15:08Scott had assured Michael and Stephen had assured Hasbro.
15:12And with that, Michael Bay was on board.
15:15But sadly for John, he was off board because Michael Bay brought in a new writing team,
15:20Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orsi.
15:23He was already working Alex and Bob on a previous movie.
15:25The Island.
15:26You son of a bitch!
15:27And a lot of directors do that.
15:28They have writers they like.
15:29And so I was like, this nearly killed me.
15:32Good luck.
15:32And by the way, credit to Bob and Alex because they had to do the rewrites at a ridiculous speed.
15:36You know, they had to then take Michael's vision and execute it.
15:40And while they're prepping, actually do these rewrites.
15:43While Bob and Alex toiled away on a new draft, pre-production was in full swing, conceptualizing the stars of
15:50the film, the bots.
15:52Ben Proctor and the rest of the talented team had one almighty task.
15:57We've got to start thinking about how to transform these things.
15:59And with the 2007 premiere date for Transformers already in the calendar, there was no time to waste.
16:07But people sat down and dutifully did these like series of sketches that showed the progression of how the transformation
16:12would work.
16:13Eventually all that got more or less thrown in the garbage.
16:16Right next to the phrase, waste not, want not.
16:19And for the designs of the Transformers themselves.
16:22Presenting some of those 70s G1 cars was already fraught with danger.
16:27You know, you got a World War II Jeep, you got a 60s Volkswagen, you got a flat-nosed truck
16:32that didn't exist.
16:33It did look a bit old.
16:35You're old, Megatron. Yesterday's model.
16:38Bumblebee did not have to be a Volkswagen in Hasbro's eyes.
16:41Hey, lighten up, you guys.
16:43Not the most aggressive looking car.
16:46I must need an overhaul.
16:47They were trying to find a unique look, one that made sense.
16:51You know, and Michael Bay, he's always like eager for what's coming.
16:55And something perfect was coming.
16:58I had been working in a very secret location on the development of an all-new Camaro concept car.
17:04And I was contacted by Chevrolet.
17:06They wanted me to show that very secret project to Michael Bay.
17:10Once Michael saw the car, I mean instantly he said,
17:13This thing is wicked.
17:15That's Bumblebee.
17:16But if Bumblebee was a Camaro, it would only make sense to make Barricade his Decepticon rival of Ford Mustang.
17:24For Mustang to have the bad guy role as a very sinister police car, okay, you know, that made sense
17:32to me.
17:33Well, after all.
17:34Michael, he's a car guy. He loves cars.
17:37But did he love Transformers? Changing Transformers willy-nilly?
17:41Oh, God, no!
17:42It was really interesting.
17:43We started with these kind of creepy characters that weren't really looking metallic.
17:48Even the main bad guy, Megatron, would be getting a major overhaul.
17:53The biggest changes on Megatron, where in the 80s he was a real weapon that was going to be a
17:58no-go.
17:59I am...
18:02You're not going to have him turn into a pistol.
18:03There's all the scale issues from the original, you know, animation that everyone laughs at.
18:07And, you know, it's sort of, you can't do that stuff in live action.
18:09We had Megatron transform into an aircraft, sort of like an alien spaceship sort of a thing.
18:15Even producer Spielberg got his hands on transforming these classic characters.
18:21Steven thought it would be good if Optimus is transforming from a Mack truck, it'd be good to have the
18:27blinkers on him.
18:27So if he's running down the street and he turns left, the left-hand blinker goes on.
18:32But how did Hasbro feel about all these changes to their legacy characters?
18:37We decided we were willing to go for the ride a little bit, and we drew very few lines in
18:42the sand.
18:43Well, it turns out the line in the sand was put down by Michael Bay himself.
18:47Michael's number one goal always was make it look cool.
18:51So Michael had a big blow-up.
18:52This is terrible. No, no, no. We've got to redesign everything.
18:55So it was a total redesign from top to bottom.
18:58And the problems didn't end there.
19:01Remember what happened to all the work Ben Proctor did transforming the bots?
19:05All that got more or less thrown in the garbage.
19:07It was VFX supervisor Jason Smith's problem now.
19:11At the very beginning, I remember us taking the Optimus robot, a beautiful model that was being worked on, the
19:16actual truck,
19:17and trying to make one turn into the other very literally, like the toy. It doesn't work.
19:22And while the leader of the Autobots was giving the team trouble, luckily the designers had a leader of their
19:28own.
19:28There was this one fella became kind of our hero guy. His name was Keiji, and from Japan, he was
19:36able to visualize ahead of time what he wanted
19:39and how to change these shapes and move them in a way that was pretty, pretty real.
19:45But when Keiji got a look at the prime designs, he had one mild criticism.
19:50Keiji Yamaguchi stood up in dailies one day with Michael Bay in the room and said,
19:55this model is an embarrassment to the Japanese people.
19:58Transformers was in trouble.
20:00I'm sure that Jeff Mann probably was a little bit spooked at trying to, like, how are we going to
20:04solve this
20:04and find this robot language that's never been seen before?
20:07Because as the department head, it was his responsibility to make sure it got done.
20:11And they were running out of time.
20:13Autobots, roll out!
20:16While the wizards at ILM and the film's art department tried to figure out how to transform the Transformers,
20:26Michael Bay had started hunting for the perfect mix of heartthrobs and hard asses.
20:31But there was one character who would represent Steven Spielberg's main vision for the movie.
20:37Spielberg boiled it down to a boy in his car.
20:40Spielberg had a boy in mind, thanks to a young actor who dug his way into the spotlight.
20:46Steven Spielberg saw him in holes.
20:49My name is Stanley Yelnats.
20:51Well, technically, it's Shia LaBeouf.
20:53And thought he'd be perfect.
20:54I think I might have found something.
20:55He kind of fit the idea of this naive kid
21:00who is sort of shocked by what he's found and goes on this adventure.
21:05But he wouldn't be adventuring alone.
21:08Sorry, I'm just working out the cakes, you know, so far.
21:10And co-starring, along with this boy in his car, would be Megan Fox.
21:15When Megan came in to the first Transformers, I think she was new to Hollywood, fresh from Kentucky.
21:21I don't know how much training she'd have.
21:23Well, there were 48 episodes of Hope and Faith where she played Sidney Sandowski.
21:28I want to say goodbye to my dad.
21:30And in case you missed it...
21:32Megan Fox was actually an extra in Bad Boys 2.
21:35She's right there.
21:37And in a flash, she's gone.
21:40Megan would play mechanic Michaela Barnes.
21:42But before she was turning wrenches and dodging Decepticons,
21:46Sam's companion was set to be a very different kind of character.
21:50What kind, exactly?
21:51The young woman who's the hacker, Rachel Taylor,
21:54in my version, she's Sam's partner all the way through the movie.
21:58Hold on, it was you?
21:59It was basically everyday mechanic guy and, you know, girl scientist.
22:06Yeah, you have a great female character.
22:08She's a scientist, she's smart, she saves the world.
22:10Good.
22:11You have to let me talk to Defense Secretary Keller before you go to war with the wrong country.
22:15And then basically, when the guys came on, they were like,
22:18well, we want to put her over here on the science plot line,
22:20so let's give the sort of working class person that Sam already knows,
22:24so that's the Megan Fox character.
22:26I can't believe that I'm here right now.
22:27Another unexpected addition was Josh DeMille,
22:30who first heard about the project straight from the top.
22:33I was at the time working on a show called Las Vegas.
22:36My character had just come back from Iraq.
22:37I was suffering from PTSD.
22:39Are you on leave?
22:41Discharge.
22:41It was a DreamWorks show.
22:43Steven Spielberg saw the work that I did on the show,
22:45and he recommended to Michael that he see me for this part of William Lennox.
22:50Couldn't believe that he would actually recommend me for anything.
22:53And while Josh was flattered for the opportunity,
22:56he had his own reservations.
22:59Transformers.
22:59Sounds like a terrible idea.
23:01You know, because I remember the cartoon from the 80s that I grew up on.
23:04Can you transform?
23:05I don't know if I can do it.
23:09Luckily, technology had come a long way since the 80s.
23:12We've got to get this thing back to the Pentagon right away.
23:14They've got to know what we're dealing with here.
23:15And while Josh was skeptical at first,
23:17Michael Bay doubled down on an actor he inadvertently double cast in the movie Pearl Harbor.
23:23Uh, me.
23:25We were filming aboard the USS Lexington.
23:27They called me and said,
23:28We feel like we dropped the ball a bit because the role Admiral Bull Halsey has been double cast.
23:34They feel Europe is the greater danger, Admiral.
23:36And they said,
23:37Well, Michael really likes your essence and likes your presence and still wants you in the film.
23:42And Michael just threw some lines my way.
23:45So instead of getting on a plane and leaving, I've gone on to work with Michael Bay six times.
23:50If you do not comply, we will use deadly force.
23:54By the time I did Transformers, I had elevated to being the number one military guy in all of Hollywood.
24:00I played more military roles than anyone living or dead.
24:04Spielberg actually thought he had found me in the military.
24:06And I've had an entire career, not specifically military, but anything authority-wise.
24:11But casting the Earthlings was only part of the challenge.
24:15Finding someone to replicate the almighty prose of the most eloquent Transformer that Cybertron ever produced
24:21Are you Samuel James Witwicky, descendant of Archibald Witwicky?
24:26Would be impossible.
24:28Unless, of course,
24:29Roll out!
24:30You get Peter Cullen, the voice of the original Optimus Prime.
24:35Transform for action!
24:37But for ILM, the speaking Transformers posed a further challenge to the current directive from Michael Bay.
24:44We've got to redesign everything.
24:45I think we knew from the start that Optimus would have to have a face and be able to deliver
24:49his lines and not just muffle through his battle mode mask.
24:52Bye-bye-bye.
24:53There's no enunciation, no lips to animate.
24:57The team had to get creative about how he'd express emotion.
25:01And luckily, Scott had just the solution.
25:04I said, we ought to put little metal pieces here on the upper lip and maybe lower lip where we
25:10can actually emulate a talking mouth.
25:13My name is Optimus Prime.
25:15He's got to look elegant and powerful.
25:17Michael liked the idea right away, and so we just had to figure that out.
25:21Optimus Prime ended up being effectively over 10,000 parts.
25:25But ILM's elaborate plan wasn't just groundbreaking, it was budget-breaking.
25:31Trying to do it for a price that was reasonable was very, very difficult.
25:41Giving Transformers the ability to emote pushed ILM's animators and their budget to the brink.
25:47The solution?
25:48The faces behind the pixels.
25:50We did some tests using different actors.
25:53I remember we did one with Robert De Niro and one with Al Pacino.
25:57And how the different voices and mannerisms, based on what the look of the actor was, how it would influence
26:04the look of the robot.
26:05Wow, that was tingly.
26:07It was fantastic.
26:08It was amazing.
26:09And I think we were also trying to say to Michael, is it a good idea to photograph the voice
26:14actor when they're doing the acting?
26:16And the answer is absolutely, because we can get nuanced facial animation derived from whatever they're doing.
26:23The breakthrough came just in time because ILM still had work to do on perhaps the most expressive bot in
26:30the film.
26:30We have to figure out Bumblebee, who's going to be the heart of the story in so many ways and
26:33have the relationship to the humans first.
26:35Which would, in theory, enhance Spielberg's all-important boy-in-his-car plotline.
26:41What is it that's going to make Bumblebee be really aspirational and cool?
26:44To emote all of the sort of feelings of connection with Sam.
26:47Can you talk?
26:48XM satellite radio.
26:50Digital cable.
26:51What is your broadcasting system?
26:52He's basically a puppy dog.
26:53You know, he's like a lost puppy.
26:55And domesticated dogs present the same issue as domestic cars, if they're a main character in a movie.
27:02We're going, well, Sam has this car and it does weird stuff.
27:06I sold a car the other day.
27:09If you can talk to it, it doesn't make sense at all.
27:11And so that gave birth to the idea that Bumblebee didn't have his voice.
27:15He had lost it in the war.
27:16His vocal processes were damaged in battle.
27:20I'm still working on them.
27:21But it's worth noting, this was a further departure from the original Bumblebee.
27:28Come on, let's go inside.
27:30And come to think of it, there was another character who wouldn't be speaking in the movie.
27:34In fact, this one wouldn't be appearing at all.
27:38We always pitched R.C. because there's not a lot of female Transformers.
27:42Michael was like, it costs a million dollars to transform one of these characters.
27:46So we have to be very strategic about which ones we show.
27:49And there just wasn't a place in that movie for her.
27:52So we definitely talked about it.
27:54Well, perhaps that talk will turn into action if they make another movie.
27:59Principal photography for Transformers began on schedule at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
28:05And the Bayham began from the very first slate.
28:09Slates?
28:11To navigate rushes and sync up picture and sound, slates like this are critical.
28:17But Michael Bay didn't think so.
28:19Why?
28:20Because when he would sit and he would look in the playback and see the frame, the slate coming in,
28:27it would like ruined it for him.
28:28So he would like, get that out of there.
28:30Because he just wants to move and shoot.
28:33But the confusion wasn't just limited to the post-team syncing rushes.
28:37The Bay-os.
28:39Bay-hem.
28:39Sorry, Bay-hem was everywhere.
28:43When I walked on the set of this thing, it was like the most, it is an absolute.
28:51It's just the biggest production you could imagine.
28:56It's just a massive crew.
28:57So it's pretty intimidating.
28:59You feel like a tiny cog in a giant machine.
29:02And when it's your time to go, you better be ready.
29:05We're in White Sands, New Mexico.
29:07It took probably two hours to set up this one shot because it was explosion after explosion.
29:13I had to run from one thing and avoiding one explosion.
29:17We got a beam rider incoming, right for it.
29:20Run through another one.
29:21Run through another.
29:21I need a credit card.
29:24Run through another explosion.
29:26I get to the end and I have to deliver like this line.
29:29It wasn't very long, but it was enough to terrify me.
29:31No, I don't want a premium package.
29:33They spent two hours setting up the shot.
29:35If I get to the end right in front of camera and I forget my line, he's going to be
29:38so pissed off.
29:39So in my mind, I don't want to screw this thing up.
29:42I have to get this right.
29:43Premium line read delivered.
29:46DeMell had survived.
29:47For now.
29:48The adrenaline was just incredibly high.
29:50But anything could set off the...
29:52They had.
29:53Yeah, that's right.
29:55Especially an empty stomach.
29:585.36 o'clock, Michael starts to get kind of agitated when Michael needs something to eat.
30:05He's getting hangry.
30:06And so the chef would make him a milkshake and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
30:11And we'd be like, we'd hear on the walkie, Bayham, Bayham, Bayham.
30:14And that meant that it was time for Michael to have his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
30:18And he would do it.
30:18It would neutralize him and he'd be all good.
30:20Even the script was subject to Michael Bay's ways.
30:24Michael likes to sit behind the camera and shout out ideas.
30:27Like, God, I'll say this.
30:27The script is sort of...
30:31I need you to say something.
30:33My God.
30:35He looks at me and I said, well, Jesus on a popsicle stick.
30:40I just held that look and he goes, Jesus on a popsicle stick?
30:44What does that even mean?
30:46And I looked at him and said, I do not know.
30:49Michael Bay's nickname on set was Bayham for a reason.
30:53But the Transformers director was surprisingly hands-off when it came to the aerial photography.
30:59He doesn't really do anything with us on the aerial thing because he doesn't like to fly that much.
31:05It was Bay's fear of flying that protected aerial DP David Knoll from total Bayham at 10,000 feet.
31:14But the sky was not the limit for Bay's relentless Mission Impossible demands.
31:20Get me what I need.
31:21I don't know what it is, but you know what it is.
31:23Go get it.
31:24Somehow, Nowell always got it.
31:26Whatever it was while losing it.
31:30It drives me nuts because he doesn't know what he wants.
31:33You know, I have to figure it out, make it up.
31:35But he can be a real pain in the ass.
31:37Well, there was one shot Bay knew he wanted.
31:40He just didn't know when.
31:41He said, go get me this really cool shot of the sand dunes.
31:44I might use it later on.
31:46And he meant later on, as in later on in another movie.
31:50His company is called Platinum Dunes.
31:52Part of it was used for the POV of a drone coming in.
31:55It's the beginning of his movies that are produced by Platinum Dunes.
31:59But there were some things Michael Bay didn't know he needed.
32:02We need to get something done.
32:04Sometimes it's like we've got to talk to Ian.
32:05Producer Ian Bryce, an expert on delivering Bay-sized demands like access to the Hoover Dam and the Pentagon.
32:13One of the best producers in the business.
32:14Ian is probably, yeah, one of the secret weapons on that, yeah.
32:17He's got a lot of influence with a lot of people and stuff.
32:19And he jumps in and, you know, gets it done.
32:22In Southern California, Bryce opened the dome of the Griffith Observatory.
32:26Michael had sent us out to get a shot.
32:29Again, we didn't quite know what it is he wanted.
32:31He says, I'm going to be putting robots there.
32:32They're going to be sitting there talking.
32:33So as long as I keep the camera moving, whether it's a dolly shot or high to low,
32:38or if I just went there and did a static shot of that, he doesn't like that and stuff.
32:42But there was no time to waste.
32:44As shooting progressed at a breakneck pace.
32:47Many times, you know, you have one take.
32:50There's not going to be a second take if you miss it.
32:53Bay found himself stretched across multiple scenes in multiple locations.
32:58We were waiting and waiting for Michael.
33:00And then all of a sudden, Michael roars up and just goes, why are we not shooting?
33:05Let's go.
33:05But you've been waiting there for hours for him.
33:07And Howard Berger was on set because Michael Bay's commitment to realism called for puppets when possible.
33:15With Scorponaut, it was a traditional operated puppet, you know, cable operated and so forth.
33:21And then we had this big giant tail section that could do all this stuff.
33:24But it was really gigantic and really segmented.
33:26So Michael had us build a full-size head that comes out of the sand.
33:30On this Michael Bay set, sparks were flying in every sense.
33:34These are real things that were exploding around here.
33:37Incoming!
33:39And those are real reactions.
33:42Shells of these guns, they weren't shooting anything, but the shells would still pop out.
33:46They were super hot.
33:48So hot that they would stick to your neck.
33:50And I'd be like, oh my God.
33:51Left cheek! Left cheek! Left cheek!
33:54Live, real-time action.
33:57Michael Bay is completely ridiculous.
34:00I've never seen this in my life.
34:01Like, every day I was just like, have you seen this shit?
34:04This is so overwhelming.
34:08I think all around, it just makes for a more authentic performance.
34:12And Michael Bay's commitment to authenticity extended all the way to the U.S. military.
34:17The Air Force told us, what do you need?
34:19So we had F-35s, F-16s and stuff.
34:22Whatever it is that Michael wants, they pretty much let him have it.
34:25Michael Bay has literally became the biggest commercial for all things military.
34:31We don't take orders from people that don't exist.
34:33Simons?
34:33Yes, sir?
34:34I do what he says.
34:35By now, you've probably noticed.
34:38Everything is all real.
34:43Every explosion, they're all real.
34:46He does that stuff real.
34:47In real cities.
34:49I don't think he really told them how much explosions were going to go on in the middle of a
34:53street,
34:54you know, in downtown Los Angeles.
34:56And it looked a lot more real.
34:58And if you ask Shia LaBeouf, real, real high.
35:02Is it fear or courage that compels you?
35:06We were shooting at the top of one of the buildings in downtown L.A.
35:09And it's with Shia LaBeouf.
35:10And he gets up and he's going around this corner piece of the building.
35:15I remember looking at the harness going, I can't believe it.
35:18I just can't believe he's doing this.
35:20And that's what Michael wanted him for.
35:22He thought this kid will do stuff for me.
35:24And there's a shot overhead and it's all real.
35:27You can see it's eight stories down.
35:29And there's people walking.
35:30There's traffic going.
35:31They don't even know what's going on there.
35:32And Michael said, do it again.
35:33Do it again.
35:34And probably about six takes in, Michael says, okay, let's start from the top.
35:37And he's literally still hanging off the back.
35:39And he goes, Michael, I'm done.
35:41I'm done.
35:41I'm done.
35:42So, you know, and Michael said, okay, we got it.
35:44But for all the realism Michael Bay was striving to add to Transformers, there was that one thing.
35:51This model is an embarrassment to the Japanese people.
35:54And Michael Bay's main problem fell far short of his need for realism.
35:58I was tasked with, you know, figuring out how to rig the robots and how to get the transformations going
36:03as well.
36:03We had never done anything like that before.
36:05What in the universe is going on here?
36:07And while ILM had been struggling with this particular problem, luckily Jason had a solution.
36:15I wrote a series of tools I called at the time TFM, transformation, right?
36:19And the transformation tools let an animator push a button and then hinges appeared.
36:23And they could place those hinges.
36:24I'll put one hinge along the side of the window.
36:26I'll put one hinge right in the middle so I can spin the window.
36:29I don't think anybody had actually done mechanical rigging and animation at this scale like we did on that movie.
36:35The TFM tool was the fix they needed, even if the producers weren't happy blowing up a fixed budget.
36:42I was explaining to the producers, like, we have to go back through every robot and put these little things
36:47inside the rig so that they can accept TFM animation.
36:50And people were like, we're not budgeted for this.
36:52Why didn't we know this before?
36:54It's like, well, we didn't know how to do any of this.
36:56Jason had cracked the code, but it was about to crack the budget wide open.
37:06With the release date rushing towards them, Transformers had a potentially big problem.
37:12ILM had figured out how to animate the Transformers, but had left the producers to figure out how to pay
37:18for it.
37:19What are you adding?
37:20Why are you doing this?
37:21Why are you complicating things?
37:22Why didn't we know this before?
37:24It's like, well, we didn't know how to do any of this.
37:26Transformers was officially over budget, but some things are worth blowing up.
37:31VFX budget aside, Michael Bay was finally happy.
37:36But then again...
37:37Robots and cars, perfect.
37:38Michael Bay might have been happy, but keeping it real made things real hard for ILM,
37:44specifically adding digital robots to Bay's practical explosions.
37:48It wasn't easy for ILM because they often had to take out half the smoke, put a robot in, and
37:52then put the smoke back on.
37:54It's crazy how complicated a smoke looks when you start seeing an animated movie frame to frame,
38:01and you've got to match the look or put something in there where it's casting shadows.
38:05And that's what makes it so cool, I think, when you actually watch it, is that they feel like they're
38:11more organic.
38:13I think he put them through their paces on that one.
38:14I don't think they made any money on that movie.
38:17It cost them so much to deliver.
38:19Despite the costs, ILM had gone above and beyond.
38:23This is easily 100 times cooler than Armageddon, I swear to God.
38:27Pushing hard all the way to the finish line.
38:29Well, three frames short of the finish line.
38:32I remember this panicking call from a producer at ILM going,
38:36we're outputting this shot for a week, and we're three frames short.
38:41Can you fix it for me?
38:43And she was, like, literally in tears.
38:45And I said, okay, I'll do it.
38:47And I just took the shot before it and just made that shot three frames longer,
38:51because we couldn't screw the timing up for the music and sound.
38:55Everything was already half-mixed.
38:57And I didn't tell Michael.
38:58Three frames probably weren't worth unleashing a baypocalypse.
39:02Besides, it was time for a Baywatch.
39:05We went up to Michael's house, watched the movie with Spielberg for the first time.
39:10Spielberg had taken a big risk on Transformers.
39:13The stakes were high.
39:15Pull out our notepads, right?
39:17Don't want to miss a line Steven Spielberg says, right?
39:20And then he said...
39:21He wanted to tone down Shia.
39:23Why?
39:24He didn't want Shia to run the show too much, if you know what I mean.
39:27And here we have some of the basic instruments and tools used by 19th century semen.
39:32He would say, a little bit of Shia is a lot of Shia.
39:36That was his line.
39:38But the question everyone had was, what would Hasbro think?
39:42That's when we found out about Optimus having a sword arm.
39:47It was what Hasbro feared futzing with an icon.
39:51Optimus Prime doesn't have a...
39:53And we're like, we can make that.
39:55Not only can we put that in toys, but we can make a sword.
39:58So seeing that early cut actually put things into production.
40:01Not only that, Aaron got to include a fan favorite from yesteryear.
40:05We also suggested a Transformer iconic line.
40:09One shall stand, one shall fall.
40:13We saw an opportunity for that and we told them about it.
40:16And that's how that got put into movie one.
40:19At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.
40:24But now it was time to find out if Transformers and Michael Bay would be the ones standing or falling.
40:29You still fight for the weak.
40:32That is why you lose.
40:35This meant a lot to the stock price.
40:37This meant a lot to future partnership.
40:39It was stressful.
40:40And don't forget the base.
40:41Those animated shows, that's the base.
40:44It had been more than 20 years since they'd seen the Transformers on screen.
40:48Chances are they would be expecting this.
40:51I want you to make a special run to Autobot City on Earth.
40:54But instead would get this.
40:56You hold the key to Earth's survival.
40:59You make these things and you hope that they're going to do well and sometimes they do and sometimes they
41:04don't.
41:04The sense of responsibility to the franchise, to these characters, oh my God.
41:08But also they had a responsibility to their director.
41:11Whether they agreed with his vision or not.
41:14We all have a tough job working for Michael to keep that guy happy, right?
41:16Because he has incredibly high standards.
41:18He knows what he wants.
41:19But was it what the fans wanted?
41:21Would an 80s cartoon become a new millennium milestone in filmmaking?
41:26Or would the bayhem of Michael Bay take down the Autobots and Decepticons
41:31before they could transform into big bucks at the box office for a whole new generation?
41:49So.
41:50So.
41:50Are you somewhere else?
41:51So.
41:51Yeah.
41:53Yeah.
41:54Yeah.
41:59Yeah.
42:00Yeah.
42:00Yeah.
42:00Yeah.
42:01Yeah.
42:01Yeah.
42:02You
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