Michael Bay Gives Detailed Info On TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

Michael Bay recently sat down with several journalists to an early screening of the new teaser trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon which premieres online later tonight.  Here's a few spotlights from the screening.

• Buzz Aldrin is actually involved (appears) in the film, modern day.
• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley‘s character Carly works at the English embassy in Washington D.C. “as kind of an assistant”. She met Sam Witwicky sometime after he has been dumped by Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox’s character who does not appear in the third film), and now they live together (she pays the rent because Sam is looking for his first job).
• 500 women auditioned for the role around the world.
• The shots in the teaser will appear in the film.

Comparing Transformers 3 to Transformers 2:

“On the second movie we got burned. We had a writers strike, we had to agree on a story in three weeks, and then we knew they were going on strike. It was a fucked scenario all the way around, it wasn’t fair to the writer, it wasn’t fair to me, it wasn’t fair to anybody. It was still an entertaining movie, but I think we failed on certain aspects. What we did with this movie is I think we have a much better script, and we got back to basics. I think there’s some really cool action on this movie, there’s some very cool conspiracy, there’s great robot stuff in this that people were missing in the second one, you’ve got great robot conflict. So I’m excited about this movie. It’s more serious. I got rid of the dorky comedy, I mean we’ve got two little characters, that’s it, but the dorkiness is not there. Dork-free Transformers. It’s much more serious. It’s still entertaining, it’s big looking. I think it’s much more compelling, what we did, how we funneled our action, what we’ve got our characters doing, they’ve got a lot more to do.”

          

Talking about the cost of shooting in 3D:

 “…These studios are rushing through their 3D. There is a right way to do it and a wrong way. I think, personally. If you want to do proper 3D it’s a $30 million price tag. You don’t to admit it, but that’s what it really is to do proper 3D. Studios will sometimes do it or $10 million, or $12 million. $30 million, in terms of the equipment, the crew. That camera equipment is really expensive to rent. And if you want to do dual eye-rendered robots, you got another 30% charge, because you got two eyes now, two different visual effects that have got to be blended. There’s more work on the visual effects shots.” … “Depth, you can’t really appreciate 3D because you need like 3 or 4 seconds, most people do, to really feel 3D. …. But it’s actually changed my style on this movie—I’ve got many more wides, the camera’s not wild. So it does change my style a bit.”

Also shooting Transformers 3 on 2D Film ( will be converted to 3D in post):

“We shot most of my close-ups with faces with anamorphic film, cause that stuff’s easier to convert and it’s just more beautiful than the digital. And then there’s stuff where it’s just not ready for primetime: it can’t really do slow-motion, it can’t be around giant dustballs, I mean you’re dealing with electronics here.” …. “I figured the rate of converting stuff is about 30-35% when I average all my native shots to conversion shots. So we think we’ve found a happy medium where we’re able to keep it looking really sharp and make it promising 3D.”

On the third film being the conclusion of the series: 

“I think this has gotta be it. I think someone else will take the torch from here.” … “There’s a couple of things that are left open. I think you’ll see some finality to this, you know we’ve made it very clear that when things die they die now. They’re not magically being brought back.” … “The nice thing about Transformers is that you’ve got so many stories to tell, you’ve got Cybertron. It’s just that I don’t think you could do it again with Shia and everybody, I think it’s time to move on.”

I'm really looking forward to this trailer later tonight and the darker movie this go-around! what about y'all?