First Five Minutes of DOTM from Cameron, Bay 3D Conversation

In a run-up to the release of the 3D version of the Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer on Friday May 20th with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a press event called "3D A Transforming Visual Art Conversation with Michael Bay and James Cameron" was held for local LA press by The Hollywood Reporter and Paramount Wednesday night. During the "art conversation", Cameron (huge proponent of 3D) and Bay (forced to embrace 3D by Paramount) discussed 3D before showing the first five minutes from the movie, clips and the 3D trailer. Side note, the 3D trailer is expected to just be an extended version of the recently released 2D trailer. The two talked about the good and the bad of working with 3D. Below is a video from Collider as discuss what they saw and after that is links to various other articles about the event along with choice segments.

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From Movieline:

So in order to shoot his film in 3-D, Bay had to adjust his preferred methods: shooting 10 shots per day instead of 50, for example. And the unique risks involved were unprecedented to the director. After the first day of filming on Dark of the Moon, Bay woke up exclaiming, “I’m in love with 3-D,” only to discover that the hard drives housing that day’s worth of footage had been corrupted and his precious footage lost.

Bay, then, is much more frustrated with the limitations of current 3-D filmmaking than Cameron seems to be; practically speaking, it requires him to change the way he shoots. But judging from the approximately 10 minutes of footage shown, including the first five minutes of Dark of the Moon and an extended reel of footage, 3-D might have been one of the best things to happen to him.

Perhaps because working with 3-D required him to slow things down in terms of action, Bay’s action sequences appear to be clearer and more discernible. Extensive hand to hand robot fight sequences, robot transformations, aerial scenes, and a show-stopping set piece involving a massive robot constricting itself around a skyscraper in downtown Chicago are much easier to follow than similar scenes in the first two films.

The extra cost of 3-D for a film, Bay estimates, is $30 million. To Cameron, that $30 million is worth every penny. “The question is, how many millions more will it make in 3-D?” Cameron asked, turning to Bay. “I guarantee more than $30 million.”

From MovieWeb:

After the slick 3D rendition of the Paramount Pictures logo, the movie starts off with some narration by Optimus Prime, describing the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, all set to some wonderful battle shots depicting this epic war. Optimus goes on to explain that, as the Autobots were sure the war was lost, a lone ship was dispatched, carrying some precious cargo, which we discover actually crash landed on the moon. We cut to Earth, 1961, and see footage of military personnel scrambling about, trying to determine how to react to this mysterious crash landing. ...While the nation is celebrating our first trip to the moon, it's all just a cover story to see what actually landed on the moon, which they discover is not of this earth. We see a NASA official terminate the transmission himself, telling the two astronauts they have 21 minutes. We cut back to the astronauts' triumphant return, the celebrations that follow, and then we see the money shot, what they actually found on the moon.... Sentinel Prime.

After that full opening sequence, we cut into a montage of interesting shots compiled from Transformers: Dark of the Moon. We start out with a few brief glimpses at Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, and the lovely newcomer Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Sam's new squeeze, Carly. They also showed us an interesting sequence involving soldiers using these "glider suits," these full body suits that almost resemble webbed feet, which allows skydivers to actually glide/fly through the air before they deploy their chutes. Michael Bay later revealed he wrote this action scene specifically for divers like this, after seeing a demonstration of what they can do in the air. This reel also included an interesting Reservoir Dogs-like standoff between a few of the robots, our first real glimpse at a wheelchair-bound John Turturro, and an awesome shot featuring the incomparable Ken Jeong, which had the whole audience in stitches. There was also more footage of this weird pterodactyl-like transformer, which is seen briefly in the latest trailer, but there is one shot that truly sold me on Transformers: Dark of the Moon. This shot features Sam riding with Bumblebee when he transforms out of the Camaro, throws Sam into the air, swipes aside any debris coming Sam's way, and then catches him, transforms back to the car, and has Sam back in his regular seat like nothing ever happened. It was truly a jaw-dropping shot and, even if that is the best shot of the movie, I truly can't wait to see it again.

Update: Added picture from event via TF3Movie tweet.