Inside a studio converted from the Hughes Aircraft Factory, several agents were protecting a gray-haired old man, continuously firing shotguns at the opposite side, as if a powerful enemy were present in the air.
"The Air Force has responded!"
A sharp-looking Black agent shouted loudly from behind a computer desk, "They're dispatching F-22 Raptors to Las Vegas!"
"Cut!"
Behind the monitor, Duke shouted for a stop. "This take is good!"
More than a dozen crew members immediately entered the set to clean up the mess, while Duke led the crew to change locations.
In the just-shot scene, a Black character was a necessary choice, but Duke didn't turn him into some clownish fringe figure he's not Michael Bay and wouldn't add absurd toilet humor so he simply cut that Black character and reassigned the role to a Black agent from Sector Seven.
Every director has their own style. Even when shooting the same kind of commercial films, there's a huge difference between Duke and Michael Bay's styles.
The crew left the set that had been almost completely destroyed during the shootout scenes and moved to another part of the studio. The most eye-catching thing here was the towering Megatron model. Though made of polystyrene, it was vivid and lifelike so realistic that even to the naked eye, not just through the camera lens, it seemed to possess life.
Just as Duke said, what the film needed wasn't a clunky, cold, and rigid machine, but an advanced intelligent lifeform like a human.
Duke was methodically directing the entire crew's operations. It had been nearly a week since they returned to the studio to film. Compared to shooting The Dark Knight, Duke's performance requirements for Transformers were much more relaxed. Neither Sam nor Mikaela offered much room for the actors to showcase their skills. Let alone that Andrew Garfield and Amber Heard's acting was several levels below Heath Ledger and Christian Bale. Even if their skills were on par, the roles gave them no space to perform.
Sam was simply the screen's stand-in for teenage audiences, while Mikaela's role was even simpler just eye candy.
The relatively simple requirements allowed filming to proceed quite smoothly. Although Duke noticed a sharp conflict between Andrew Garfield and Amber Heard, he didn't pay much attention to it. After issuing a warning, both of them wisely kept their issues out of the shoot.
At least it didn't affect the filming process.
That was enough for Duke. Hollywood film crews were never harmonious. As long as it didn't affect the movie, Duke didn't care if Andrew Garfield and Amber Heard saw each other as mortal enemies.
Duke wasn't naïve enough to think that a few words from him would make them put aside their issues and become loving friends.
In fact, most Hollywood film crews were in the same state.
In this fame-and-fortune-driven industry, actors with genuinely close friendships did exist, but no one would casually trust or get close to others.
Filming a movie and then becoming lifelong friends with its lead actors only a brain-dead director would believe in that kind of stupidity.
Take Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, for example. They may look like good friends, but as someone within the industry, Duke knew clearly that their professional relationship far outweighed any personal friendship.
The vast majority of actors who've worked with Duke were just simple work associates.
After so many years of struggle in Hollywood, Duke knew how complex and volatile the industry could be. Forget about being friends—even "besties" like Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts could fall out over competing for a single role.
You could also put it another way none of the actors Duke had worked with ever became part of his team, not even Tom Hanks.
His style of producing also determined that acting skills weren't especially important to the process.
Since entering Hollywood, among all the films Duke had shot, the only roles that truly allowed actors to show their full range were Captain Miller and the Joker.
As various departments of the crew took their positions, Duke walked up to the massive Megatron model and gave a few instructions to Andrew Garfield and Amber Heard. The former needed to deliver lines revealing Megatron's true reason for coming to Earth, while the latter had almost no lines but would still get camera time. She had to do what she always did show off her sexy figure.
"Scene Twenty-Seven, Shot Nineteen…"
The slate clapper's voice rang out, "Action!"
A group of people looked at Megatron in amazement as they approached it. Sector Seven agent Simmons introduced, "This is NBE-1!"
"Sorry, sir," Andrew Garfield said, hands in his pockets, cutting in, "I'm not trying to interrupt, but that's Megatron! He's the leader of the Decepticons!"
"He's been in a frozen state since 1935," another agent said, pointing at Megatron. "Your great-great-grandfather discovered him. It's the greatest find in human history."
The camera moved in for a close-up of Andrew Garfield and the closely-standing Amber Heard. It lingered on her for two seconds, giving her a prominent close-up before panning to Agent Simmons.
"What you're looking at is the source of modern technology," the Sector Seven agent said, walking back and forth with hands behind his back, prideful. "Microchips, lasers, space flight, automobiles—all of them came from reverse engineering him."
He stopped beside Andrew Garfield and emphasized his tone. "NBE-1—that's what we call him!"
Perhaps because Duke wasn't strict about performance, the morning scenes went smoothly. Even the group shots had very few takes. By afternoon, the scenes involving the AllSpark and the robots were completed within a few takes and passed. The crew was able to wrap early.
Although the crew finished early, Duke's work wasn't done. Returning to Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, he went to Industrial Light & Magic's special effects studio to check on the progress of the VFX.
The number of special effects shots required for this film far exceeded those in Iron Man.
The first installment of Transformers was once considered the best in the series in terms of professional reputation and the most coherent in plot, but it was also the one where the Transformers had the least screen time. Not to mention how late Optimus Prime, the male lead,occupied most of the scenes featuring Transformers were just fleeting glimpses.
In Duke's hands, he performed a major overhaul on the film. One of the most typical changes was simplifying the plot and reducing the number of human characters to allocate more screen time to the Transformers.
Especially Optimus Prime. According to his vision, Optimus Prime must appear no later than twenty-five minutes into the film.
This inevitably led to a reduction in the human character scenes.
That would definitely draw criticism from some professionals, but who cares what they think?
Once the movie is released, what audiences care about will be the fate of the Transformers, the fight scenes, audiovisual effects, and the special effects.
More scenes for the Transformers meant more VFX shots. One year is a very tight schedule to complete the effects for such a film. From the moment the designs of the Transformers were finalized, the VFX artists at ILM were already hard at work creating the effects.
However, Duke also imposed limits on the CGI dependence of Transformers and background elements during action scenes. Most car crashes and explosions would be shot in real settings, with cameras placed right in the collision and blast zones to make the sequences look more exciting.
The Transformers' designs were extremely complex. Even a simple movement like twisting a wrist required dozens of visible components. Each of Ironhide's guns was made up of about 10,000 parts. Bumblebee used a single panel as an eyebrow and had multiple rotating facial components to show a smiling expression. All Transformer characters' eyes were enhanced with dilation and brightness.
Among these, Duke specifically instructed ILM to slightly brighten the eye glow of Optimus Prime and other characters, so that during chaotic scenes, the audience wouldn't confuse Autobots with Decepticons.
The distinction became very simple red eyes were Decepticons, and blue-green eyes were Autobots.
For the past few months, ILM had been designing and creating CGI animations of the Transformers' transformations. They carefully matched every detail on actual car models. At first, their transformation animations followed the laws of physics, but the result was that the sequences didn't look thrilling or smooth enough.
For a movie that relies heavily on special effects, this was practically fatal.
Later, ILM even proposed a ludicrous idea of using liquid metal for the Transformers' surfaces, for which Duke scolded them harshly. He gave ILM just one reply—"This is Transformers, not T-1000!"
Eventually, ILM chose to completely abandon physical laws and adopted a "cube-style" transformation. Whether in static or dynamic form, the Transformers would now look more interesting, realistic, dynamic, and fast, rather than like clunky beasts.
One of ILM's important decisions during the effects production process was to keep the wheels in contact with the ground as long as possible. That way, Autobots could continue moving while transforming, maintaining a basic sense of realism.
These solutions won Duke's approval. He knew exactly what the film's selling points were. Chunky, blocky, and slow Transformers would be a disaster for a sci-fi blockbuster like this.
In addition, Duke had action coordinator Jimmy Carter collect several freestyle fighting demos and numerous action movie clips featuring styles like judo and Muay Thai. These were provided to ILM's animation artists to study, hoping the fight scenes in the movie would appear more graceful.
Visual effects were undoubtedly the core of this film. During the studio shooting phase, Duke and ILM constantly discussed and exchanged ideas. By the time Duke left Los Angeles for Las Vegas, the visual effects production had basically gotten on track.
...
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