This may come as a surprise (or not) but one of my favorite movies is Transformers. I use to watch the cartoon all the time when I was little. Here’s brief run through about the movie for those who don’t know. The story revolves around this kid named Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) who seems kind of like an outcast until he gets this car that keeps acting up. One night the car takes off in the middle off the night. Thinking his car was stolen he chases after it. Finally finding a cop car he tries to get its attention not knowing that the cop car is actually an enemy robot or a Decepticon. The cop car gives chase and Sam takes off running. His car that was “stolen” comes to his rescue as BumbleBee, an Autobot. This sets off a series of events for Sam for he’s unknowingly mankind’s last chance for survival. He holds the key to an alien power cube that could destroy the earth if the Decepticons get a hold of it. Throughout the movie other alien robots are introduced both good and evil.
The Production Company, DreamWorks SKG did so well in creating these gigantic robots that you couldn’t help but believe they were real. In the back of your mind though you know they aren’t. When you think about the making of the movie you can’t help but applaud the actors for their job well done. These robots aren’t really in the shot so to see them interact with each other on film is truly amazing. When I was little I use to watch Power Rangers, which had robots too. It’s amazing to see how far technology has come since then because the Power Rangers robots looked like toys and very fake.
There was a scene where a scorpion robot bursts out of the sand and attacks military soldiers. The effect was achieved by detonating a primer cord under the sand. Unfortunately this was really dangerous because the explosions had to be close to the actors in the scene. Before the scene was shot the director, Michael Bay, told the actors to run and keep running no matter what or else they could be hurt or even killed. The actors expressions of panic in this shot were 100% genuine. They used a lot of explosive equipment in this film and it made for amazing action.
I’ve taken a video editing and motion graphics course so some of this information isn’t new to me. The RenderMan Software was pretty cool though. I’ve heard of it but I never knew that it was used on all these well-known movies.
The morphing software was amazing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used this in creating Transformers.
It was cool to see that Industrial Lighting and Design helped create Transformers and another one of my favorites Pirates of the Caribbean. They won a lot of awards for their movies and they are well deserved!
