So one takeaway I had from from the latest news was that the new movies will be low budget. I’m not sure what to think or feel about that; I don’t think the problem was the budgets, but what Bay did with them.
Might not be the end of the world, tho. After all, TF’07 was fairly low budget.

So how can they lower the budget? Less robots? Less robot screen time?
Personally, I’d be in favor of a simplification of bot designs to help economize the VFX.

I guess we’ll see more of what a low budget TF film will look like later this summer... with all 4 bots in it.

 

I'm hoping this is to see how a non-blockbuster take works.

However, if this is a runaway success then I hope it permanently alters how the TF movies will work. Because I'm tired of the 'Humanity can't see these are our allies until the planet is in danger' take.

 

I wouldn't exactly call 2007's $150 M budget small, of the top 20 grossing films that year only 4 had bigger budgets.

I'm just hoping that lower budget doesn't end up being reflected in % of screen time for the transforomers going down. I would be down with 100 minute movies with lower quality cgi and more screentime.

 

-Not hiring the most expensive stars in hollywood
-Lesser-named directors
-Less traditional marketing campaigns
-Smaller scale practical effects/pyro sequences (this could backfire, however, if you excuse the pun)
-Shorter run-times
-Less support for things like 3D or IMAX (again, might impact revenues however)
-Cheaper shooting locations or locations that offer greater tax incentives for filming
-Not featuring highest-end cars in the films (as in, do they have to chop up some Bugattis for stuntcars? Do they destroy a couple Mercedes during filming? Could those have been Malibus instead? If they're getting more in payments to promote these cars than they're spending on them in the film, this is a moot point, however)

Like, pretty much every aspect of creating a movie costs money, there are ways to cut corners and reduce budgets if they're smart about things. Simplifying the VFX may be another important way, however, or finding newer, more advanced ways that create the VFX more efficiently.

I'm not convinced a lower budget is a death sentence, though it's not necessarily a bad thing either.

 

This fool is terribly misinformed!


The manufacturers donate their cars either permanently or temporary. So budget doesn't 100% apply for that.

 

I figured that might be the case, hence the second part of what I said. The promotion of cars in these films is a big deal, so as long as the production isn't out of pocket for the product placement, its not a problem and not an area for improvement, unless modifying those cars or some other cost of use is hugely expensive in the long run compared to the use of an alternative model.

 

For the main films, I feel like The Last Knight did things partially right in having scenes on Cybertron be shot on Earth locations. However, I feel like too much CGI budget was spent on the tendrils and pieces of Cybertron moving around.

I think more scenes on other planets can be great, but I feel like rather than expensive CGI environments on Cybertron they should go the Star Wars route and film scenes in remote Earth locations. Like give me scenes on a jungle planet shot in real rainforests, or show Junkions or Beachcomber on an alien desert, or show some Decepticons in a volcanic landscape filmed on Earth as a stand-in for Chaar. That way you can have scenes that take place on other worlds.

In fact, showing Optimus stop on other worlds besides Cybertron filmed at remote, real world locations could have cost a lot less money than the CGI budget that went into Cybertron, and it would have felt more like a space adventure.

Also, more action scenes in rural or wilderness areas where property destruction is not necessary, and where you don't have to pay-off so many businesses on a city street.

 

No, quite often they are sponsored so they actually help with the budget.

And they don’t cut up real Bugatti’s either.

 

3rd PARTY BUGATTIS?! =P

Seriously, I get that they receive a lot of support in terms of product placement, the relationship with GM was (IIRC) one of the key things that allowed the first film to go forward as it did. I thought they might do a lot of expensive modifications to the stunt cars to make them more death-proof, however.

I still want to see a transforming Sonata though...

Another place they might be able to save a few bucks though?

Tighter scripts and more off-camera rehearsals/storyboarding.

Michael Bay is a director known for 'shooting for the edit', but he, or his successors on the franchise, may still have ground to grow in that regard. This means the cast and crew doing what they can to limit re-takes while the cameras are rolling (time is literally money on set), limiting the number of shots that need to be made to get to a 'final' body of footage, and reducing the number of times things need to be set-up/moved/re-set up during filming. Maybe this means more more cameras rolling at once, maybe it means the cast and stunts and effects crews going through more training or practice before the 'real' moment of truth. Maybe they're all already a well-oiled machine, I don't know. But anything to reduce the amount of proverbial celluloid that ends up on the cutting room floor.

Which brings me to the tighter script part. A script that, while still likely needing some drafting, comes out in a first-draft form needing less meetings, less discussions with the director, less notes and re-writes. This means a good understanding by the writers of the expectations of the studio, the financiers, and of the director. It also means a script where elements that won't make it into the final film are removed or reworked as soon as possible. Any scene that is filmed, but ultimately left out of the film is at the end of the day a significant waste of money (sorry, dvd special features nuts). Same goes for sequences that are cut down in the final product from their original filmed length, though there's usually some of this that ends up being required to get an overall 'flow' in the final film.

 

Probably less robots, I hope. I would rather have less robots but enough screen time for each robots

 

If the films concentrated less on star power and more on building up legitimately good stories, less on killing off the entire cast for shock value and replacing them with cheap stereotypes and more on making people care about the robots (and don't fucking mention Hound, so many tears over that Bulkhead knock off and he didn't even die! At least the whining about Ironhide's cheap death was warranted!).

Unfortunately...John Cena is in the BB film.

Yeah but it negatively impacts the film production when said cars suddenly are not able to actually be used.

Like, Dino in DOTM didn't do much of anything because Ferrari were absolute dicks about how to handle a representation of their brand - he actually dies in the novelization as I recall but his entire purpose in the film was pointless and was only there because Michael Bay has a fixation on expensive european sportscars.

And when it comes to transformer films, the worst kind of car you can have is a hideously expensive foreign sportscar. Or did everybody forget the entire point of the transformation is for the robots to hide in plain sight? A fucking Ferarri in the middle of anywhere that is not a specific area of Italy is going to attract attention as being out of place.

Ditto for the Bugatti - which had to be changed mid-production of AoE because the company sold the actual car, which was orange, so they had to change the character to blue because that was the only replacement car they were going to get. And then that car got sold so they had to make Drift change alt. modes entirely to something actually more affordable (and thus not already sold before even being built).

The films seem to think making the cars be super exotic gives character, when in reality it doesn't. I'm absolutely sick of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and anything else that appeared on Top Gear and wouldn't be affordable if you weren't a millionare - they all look the goddamn same. Give me a Chevy Suburban with a bumper sticker, give me a Subaru WRX with an off-color hatch cover, give me a goddamn mini-van with a vanity plate. None of those would stick out and thus can be actually modified to look unique and have character - something that was a key attribute of the original Camaro BB.

 

There are 4 robots?

 

I'm all for lower budget films. Look at what Bay accomplished with a sizeable budget...

And yes, he worked his butt off, so did his crew... His work ethic is to admired and even emulated, but he worked better on the physical aspect of things, he wouldn't have been able to hack it in the writing department.

Fresh blood, a new director, will want to impress and find a way to film well within budget and really put in some effort because they're only going to get one chance to really impress.

 

I want Ray Harryhausen-esque stopmotion transformers. :3

I'd settle for dropping to more affordable cars, or at least dropping supercars. 70s and 80s American cars would be nice, there's still plenty of these around and they look much better than the modern rubbish.

Cya
Raziel-chan

 

I can definitely done without all of those high end supercars and superstars in the films. I love supercars as much as the next guy, but those Lamborghini, Chevrolet, and Mustang supercars takes up more screen time than the robots, to the point of the films feels more like a 2-hour car commercial than an actual Transformers movie. If I want to see supercars, I would just watch Top Gear or Doug Demuro on YouTube.

If the movies focused more on the writing and storytelling instead of pointless gimmicks like supercars, Megan Fox and bombastic CGI scenes, I think the movies will be a bigger success, in terms or profit and reception among the audiences. There's no reason of why the valuable budget need to be wasted on things like the "falling building scene" in DOTM or any similar pointless gimmicks instead of hiring better writers and more skilled directors.

 

No offense to anyone here, and I get what you're saying, but it's supposed to be fantasy...

What alien robot is going to pick a rusted out crap box, when they could be a Camaro or a Lambo? You guys are talking about them being KIAs and they're over here like "We want to at least LOOK cool..."

Besides, this craziness has been a part of the franchise since its inception, longer than that if you count Diaclone (and you should).

That's not the problem with the movies, the writing is. The directing is.

 

I have a bad feeling that lower budget Transformers movies would be doomed to the same fate as when Paramount said let's cut the budget for GI Joe 2. GI Joe Rise of Cobra was a horrible movie but it was a horrible movie with lots of big budget destruction. They rip Paris a new one, they set a world record for number of cars destroyed, they tried to sell the whole thing on the levels of spectacle you'd get from other tent pole event films. When GI Joe Retaliation came out people were talking about how cheap it looked and how it was scaled back to the point of seeming like a made for TV movie.

A place like Marvel/Disney can scale back on their superhero movies because they are sold on the personality of the superhero. You can have the Avengers dealing with an Avenger's level threat then scale back Ant Man because people aren't expecting Ant Man to handle an Avengers level threat alone. But with the Transformers movies it's been sold on spectacle alone so we don't know the human or robot characters enough to go we can scale back the wow factor to focus on the characters.

Plus without a reboot it's going to be hard to make the robot time more affordable without making the robot time look bad. The bar was set way too high with the billion parts in photorealism.

 

Why so many people on this forum are like my mom - constantly complain about everything they see? I honestly love supercars (Lockdown as Chevy Malibu and Barricade as VW Polo? No, thanks), love city battles, respect top Hollywood actors and love all the explosions and visuals. I want to see Transformers as they was until 2017. I will never tired of such Movies, because my everyday life is not so impressive  (despite of my travels around the world and not-so-boring speciality in astronomy). I can complain about Russian government or my supervisor, about someone, who owes something to me, but I can't complain much about TF Movies, because they don't owe anything to me, only to themselves (TLK case).

 

... uh, you do remember that Bumblebee was a rusted out PoS Camaro (with a rockin' spotless engine) and only changed because Mikayla said his alt. mode sucked in the first film, right?

Furthermore, what alt. mode did Optimus Prime take when he wanted to lay low? A rusted out PoS truck. And it actually worked for the most part.

No, it really is a problem because there's absolutely no goddamn reason the cars have to be at the tip-top of stupid expensive rich kid toys - especially when you get crap like Dino who never got an official Hasbro toy because Ferrari wouldn't provide the license. Or impacts the production itself due to availability, which was a problem when the original Bugatti for Drift was sold before production finished on AoE. And then the second car got sold before TF5 so they had to change it to a Mercedes-Benz!

You can have cool cars without having to actually use vehicles that A) you can't damage, B) can't actually modify, and C) can actually make toys of in case anybody forgot this movie is supposed to sell toys. Ford Mustang GT, Nissan R35/Skyline, Honda S2000, Dodge Viper, Pontiac GTO "The Judge" spec, etc. you don't need super-streamlined expensive cars made in numbers less than a thousand or even hundred to have a cool alt. mode!

I mean, at the end of the day, the whole point of disgusing is to hide, and what would be the better disguise - a red mass-production Ford GT40, or a one-of-only-twenty-five-built black-and-yellow Lamborghini Centario?

Then Bumblebee should be an interesting film because for the first time since 2009, there isn't a goddamn supercar in a TF film.