Collider: You mentioned Bay and you mentioned Transformers 3. So how are things going on that shoot?
Lorenzo di Bonaventura: It’s going really well. It was very complicated to imagine the movie without the Mikaela character and that was something that took all of us a lot of time and effort. But the truth is we’re very excited what happened as a result is…it’s not just with casting Rosie (Huntington-Whiteley), but with casting John Malkovich and we’re Frances McDormand and we’re casting Patrick Dempsey and Ken Wong and it goes on and on and on. And so the movie feels like which you always fear in making the 3rd movie is it’s not replicating what’s been done before. And the breath of the new cast is I think helping you avoid that pitfall.
...how’s the 3D going?
Lorenzo: He is shooting a lot with 3D cameras and he is, as usual, a master of camera and he learned it very quickly. And it is going to be very exciting for all. I’ve had an opportunity to see it and it just looks fantastic. And so you know Michael is really enjoying shooting it, too. So it’s hats off to him because it’s working fantastically.
Friday, July 09, 2010
di Bonaventura Comments on TF3 Casting, 3D
In an interview with Collider, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura briefly commented on his current slate of projects including Transformers 3, Red, Moscow, and The Associate. Below is the TF3 related portion were he comments on casting and using 3D cameras.
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This is all a desperate pre-emptive damage control... he knows that the 3D like Avatar is going to be a mess, he knows that the lack of Megan Fox it's a disaster but being the producer still hopes that the general public will buy the movie despite being flawed down to the core and lacking plot and characters consistency and continuity.
ReplyDeletethanks for nothing mr buenavista
ReplyDeleteisn´t the name of the guy "ken jeong"???
ReplyDeleteThey better impress us, that's all I can say...
ReplyDelete@Anon 7/09/2010 4:18 AM
ReplyDeleteI'm no fan of the current 3D craze, but if a film is shot using 3D cameras, it is usually fairly impressive. Again though, I'm no fan of 3D and will always choose to see a film in 2D if I have that option. If the film was only being converted to 3D in post, then it would be a mess. That's not the case here, so your argument doesn't really hold water.
Also, Nelson over at Bay's message boards has hinted that the entire film might not be in 3D and that it might only be certain shots.
I also don't think your argument that this is all preemptive damage control is valid. Frosty over at collider.com(the guy who did the interview) is a HUUUUUUGE Transformers fan and it was most likely him who approached di Bonaventura and not the other way around.
And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, can we drop the whole "Megan Fox not being in the film is a disaster and no one will see the film because of it" thing? It's getting really, really, REALLY old. Outside of her rather obsessive(and not as large as you might think) fan base, there aren't many people who care about Megan's absence. In fact, most people I have talked to are glad she's gone.
7/09/2010 4:18 would you please SHUT up about megan fox its realy pissing me off. damnment it goes on and on! i dont know that your just doing this to annoy us but PLEASE stop.and would you cut the crap about how bay knows it will fail,thats just so stupid
ReplyDeleteI swear it's the same guy spamming over and over again, it's brought up in the same way in every comment section...yay for no post-conversion.
ReplyDeleteYeah, why doesn't the blogger ban this fool?? I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteI'm against 3D in every way, even shot in 3D is not impressive at all!! And that's the latest 3D technology??? Seriously, that in 30 years? Even Avatar got 'old' after 10 minutes!!
And they're not shooting the hole film in 3D?? That has got written FAIL all over it(3D wise).
I think most TF fans will see the normal 2D version, at least I will.
the film will fail because the all mighty sex beauty qween megan fox is gone
ReplyDeleteYou people insulting others you don't agree with and desperately trying to tell that Megan Fox being fired won't matter are the one spamming. Or you are Paramount employees desperately trying to sell the mess that Michael Bay did when he fired Megan Fox and killed the franchise.
ReplyDeleteshut up about megan fox already you idiots. blah blah blah cry me a river. this about transformers. let's keep it that way.
ReplyDeleteI don't really care for Megan Fox myself.
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of other posted comments, I can take or leave 3-D, but I'm really excited to hear the confirmation that it's being shot in 3-D, instead of being done via some half-assed post production conversion.
ReplyDeleteAvatar 3D simply sucks. And Paramount won't be able to sell Michael Bay movies like it was James Cameron one. So this will simply fail twice. Firing your lead actress ruining your first trilogy it's the first big mistake.
ReplyDeleteThen filming in 3D after you confirmed that 3D sucks just because Paramount managers want to rip customers off it's just pathetic.
What are they going to do now, give us blue painted Transformers connecting with a giant tree and a lot of flowers and '68s pseudo-pacifist Transformers or what to mimick the silly nonsense of Avatar and grasp the commies into watching the movie?
@Anon 7/10/2010 3:53 AM
ReplyDeleteMichael Bay never said he was totally against 3D. When he made the negative comments against 3D, he was referring to the technology that was available at the time. Back then, the 3D cameras that were available were much more cumbersome than they are now and the results weren't nearly as good as they are now. The only other option available at the time was to convert the film to 3D in post and that process still looks terrible. Now, in my earlier post, I did say that when scenes are filmed in 3D using the type of cameras that Cameron used on Avatar that they look pretty impressive. I still stand by that comment. The 3D technology that was used on Avatar and that is now being used to film TF3 doesn't make things fly off the screen they way 3D images used to. What this type of 3D does is give the illusion of there being depth in the image... like looking out a window. And yeah, it is pretty convincing. Having said that, I still don't like 3D. Even the kind used on Avatar, as cool as it looked, still got old after about ten minutes and gave me a splitting headache.
Anyway, calling Bay a hypocrite because he didn't like the technology that would have been available to him on the first two films and is now filming the third film in another type of 3D that is much more convincing is just silly. There is no way Bay would have gone for converting in post and there is also no way Bay would have agreed to shoot in 3D if it was going to hinder his filming techniques or cause him to not frame the shots the way he wants to.
I won't be seeing the film in 3D(I don't care how good it looks), but since Bay is going about the 3D thing in the right way, I really don't have a problem with it.
Also... dude, please knock it off with the Megan Fox thing. I'm asking you nicely OK? We get it... you dig Megan and for you, TF3 won't be worth seeing without her in it. That's fine. Really though man, she isn't that great an actress and her absence isn't going to cause the massive FAIL that you think it will. The bottom line though is that most people will go see TF3 because of the robots and the action scenes. Megan was not what made the first two films successful. Whether Rosie is a good actress or a terrible one, nothing regarding her addition and Megan Fox's absence is going to affect the box office take of the film.
So yeah, man... please just start being a little more diplomatic. It's fine to disagree with people and have a debate... as long as it's civil, debate is a very positive thing. The way you behave here and the level of immaturity you display almost guarantees that no one is going to take anything you say seriously.
@DarthMuppet: do you work for Paramount and you are desperately trying to spin things up doing some damage control? http://transformerslive.blogspot.com/2010/02/transformers-3-in-3d.html "Hoping to ride that 3D train, Paramount seems to be attempting to force Transformers director Michael Bay to film Transformers 3 in 3D. Bay has said last year he thinks 3D is a gimmick saying "The way I shoot is too aggressive for 3D cameras. It’s a time consuming thing. Who knows… It might be a fad. I’m kinda old school. I’m old school because I like to shoot on film. I like anamorphic lenses, and that is old school.”"
ReplyDelete@DarthMuppet: you might be a Paramount employee paid to force disappointed people to not complain about the mess that Michael Bay did when he fired Megan Fox but you can't change facts. Only Michael Bay could fix his own mess by getting Megan Fox back on set now and complete the trilogy as it was planned. Otherwise the movie is going to be a failure. You can't kill or get rid off of the main female character on Transformers movies expecting that it is going to work and the majority of your viewers/customers are going to like it. It is not going to happen.
ReplyDelete@Anon 7/10/2010 9:29 AM
ReplyDelete7/10/2010 9:33 AM
If you want to think I am a Paramount employee... go right ahead. I'm not, but think whatever you like.
And dude... quit being so damn single-minded! Why are you so hung up on the Megan Fox thing? The bottom line is that Megan Fox is not in TF3 and it seems that neither she, nor Bay has any desire to change that. Was she fired? Did she quit? Who knows... The truth is, we'll probably never know the ins and outs of why she either left or was fired.
If Megan Fox was fired and they tried to bring her back now, not only would it most likely cause quite a bit of tension on set with all the actors, but a good deal of footage would have to be completely re-shot. Not only would that cost a tone of money, but it would also put the production behind schedule. If Megan Fox was the one who quit and really does have absolutely no desire to be in the film, what then? What would you have had them do? Cancel the movie altogether? The TF3 crew made the best of a bad situation that came up at the very last minute. This is purely my opinion and I have nothing to back it up, but judging from some of the comments Bay and Fox made about each other over the last year, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they already had some sort of plan in place on how to handle the story if Fox did leave the franchise.
Megan Fox is NOT what has made the franchise so successful. She was a virtual unknown when the first film was released and it still made a killing at the box office.
Seriously man, Mikaela is NOT the main character and never has been. These films are about giant alien robots whose story we see through the eyes of Sam. I won't dispute that Mikaela was one of the lead human characters, but that doesn't mean she can't be replaced. I have no idea how they are going to handle her being gone or how her absence will affect the story, but I'm going to wait until I see the film before passing judgment on it. I really enjoyed her character in the first film, but not so much in the second.
As for Rosie, yeah, I get why people are a little nervous about her being cast as Sam's new love interest. She's a wild card at this point. Due to her lack of acting experience, we don't know what to expect with her. It could go either way. I've seen performances by first time actors/actresses that are terrible and I've seen performances by first time actors/actresses that are so good they rival some of the best. She could go either way, but I'm willing to give her the chance to prove herself before I pass judgment. If she's a terrible actress, believe me, I'll be the first to say it. I have a feeling she's going to surprise us and knock it out of the park though.
Alright. In regard to the 3D being a gimmick, Bay was talking about the post production conversion to 3D. When he was talking about not being able to shoot the way he likes using 3D cameras, he was talking about the cameras that were in use at the time, which were not very good and were limited in what they could do. Before Avatar, no one had shot a film in 3D the way Cameron did. Bay said in several other interviews(that I am not going to waste my time looking for) that he would not do TF3 in 3D unless they could show him a post production conversion process that looked good, or they could find a 3D camera that was easy to film with and could give him the type of shots he wanted. Do you really think someone like Bay would have just caved to studio pressure and not get the shots he wanted?
Just FYI, I wish Bay wasn't shooting in 3D. I don't like 3D and I find it to be more distracting. But since he is shooting it that way, I'm at least comforted that he is using one of the absolute best 3D cameras that exist right now.
@DarthMuppet: if Michael Bay got Megan Fox back on set no he would still be able to save the movie and the franchise.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you sound like a Paramount employee.. telling that if Bay got Megan Fox back on set that would have caused troubles, tension among actors and need to re-shoot scenes it's something that only someone involved in the production and with an interest to see the movie fail might want.
Because people still remember the Paramount employees letter telling Bay to fire Megan Fox. That was such a pathetic unprofessional kindergarten like thing to do that is just crazy that Michael Bay actually fired her committing a financial suicided by destroying his own first trilogy.
@Anon 7/10/2010 1:54 PM
ReplyDeleteDo you have even the foggiest notion what it takes to film a movie? Every day of filming costs more money than most of will make in the next twenty or thirty years. If Bay did somehow get Fox back in the film(which by all accounts, is something neither of them wants), then every single scene that has been shot with Rosie(which is probably the majority of the scenes filmed thus far) would need to be re-shot. They have already been in production for over a month. Trust me, even if Bay wanted to go that route, at this point, the studio would not let him.
I do not have ties to Paramount, but I do have several close friends and a few family members in the film and entertainment industry(although none have anything to do with Paramount or the Transformers films, which is what I know you're thinking). It's not as easy as just re-hiring Fox. Almost every single actor or actress who was in the scenes that have been filmed would need to be brought back. Some of these actors and actresses have probably already finished all of the filming they were contracted to do. Bringing them back would require getting all the schedules cleared and paying them more money. This is why films stay in pre-production for so long. Every single minuscule detail has to be planned out, budgeted, and worked into a very tight schedule months in advance. My father is a news anchor at the local CBS affiliate. He and the other anchors, reporters, meteorologists, producers, editors, cameramen, interns, station managers, news directors, make-up personnel, accountants, station legal team, and and electricians spend almost ten hours putting together the thirty minute live broadcast that makes up the local evening news. Don't even get me started on what it takes to put together a morning news broadcast. Are you starting to get an idea just how complicated this sort of thing is? I'm trying to be as polite about this as I can...something you are not making very easy with your absolute refusal to even attempt to understand the complexities of creating a two to three hour film. And not that it's even remotely any of your business, but I work in the medical industry.
(Continued from above)
ReplyDeleteDo you realize how silly this is getting? You are saying that TF3 is going to bomb at the box office due to absence of one actress, who is mediocre at best, who has nearly destroyed her natural beauty, and who has thus far been incapable of bringing in the money that would be required for the other films she has starred in to make a profit, and who more and more people in the general population are starting to tire of.
Megan Fox had a good run. She was passable in the first film and for two years she had almost every single heterosexual male(and a few gay men and woman) thinking she was the most gorgeous thing on the planet. I'm one of those people dude. I was rooting for her to really grow as an actress and prove that she was a good gamble on Bay's part. Every time she was announced as the lead for a film, I wanted that to be the one where she showed what she was really capable of. Sadly though, as of now, she has failed to live up to that promise. I'm sorry man, but based on all the examples she has given us, she just ain't cutting it. And don't even get me started on how many of my female friends who over the age of 21 actively despise her. I'd say that unless she does something extremely drastic to prove herself as a serious actress, well... let's just say that the stopwatch is now at about minute fourteen.
When people walked out of TF1, most people were hoping she would become the next drop dead gorgeous action heroin who actually had some acting skills. Going into TF2, most people I know were exited to see if she had improved any. Coming out of TF3, most people I know said they hoped she wouldn't be in the third film.
As for the infamous letter that was written by allegedly written by the TF2 crew... Michael Bay himself spoke out against it. He defended her when that came up. He didn't need to do that. Hell, if one of my employees said that I was "basically a Nazi", I'd have fired them right then and there. Most people would. Bay didn't, which, considering he is Jewish, really tells you something.
I don't know Bay or Fox, although some of the friends I mentioned earlier in this post have either been on a set when she was working, or have interviewed her. From what I have heard, if that letter was genuine, the people who wrote it weren't saying anything that was all that far from the truth. And about the tension on set that I said bringing her back would cause. When a director and an actor or actress don't like each other, well, go look up what happened on the set of "I Heart Huckabees" between Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell and how it was affecting the rest of the cast.
I swear, it's like talking to a crappy 1970's era Fisher Price turntable that skips on every piece of vinyl that comes in contact with it. You can believe whatever you like. If you think that no Megan Fox equals financial doom for TF3 when all the facts point to that not being true... whatever man. You must like eating crow.
Also, just because I'm curious and because you have a certain distinctive manner in which you phrase things, does the name Wingzero mean anything to you?
And just one other thing, given the amount of say and creative control that Steven Spielberg has when it comes to the Transformers films, do you really think he would have allowed Bay to cast Rosie if he didn't think she could pull it off?
@Anon 7/10/2010 3:53 AM
ReplyDeleteI'll make it easy for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMVILMo1Cq0&feature=related
what is the transformers that is shown in the teaser for tf3 on the moon seen by nasa?
ReplyDelete