Industrial Light & Magic (or ILM for short) is the heart of the Transformers Live Action Movies. They give birth to the Cybertronians we know and love. It so happens that they are celebrating their 40th Anniversary and has reserved a special place for Director Michael Bay and the Transformers.
“In the early 1980s, a teenager named Michael Bay had a summer job at Lucasfilm, filing artwork. Two decades later he would become ILM’s mosthands-on collaborator.”
You can read the Transformers related parts of the article after the jump. Wired has the full scoop.
In the early 1980s, a teenager named Michael Bay had a summer job at Lucasfilm, filing artwork. Two decades later he would become ILM’s most
hands-on collaborator.
SPIELBERG: Michael Bay is the most demanding special effects director ever. When we do the Transformers movies, Michael lives at ILM with them. He just goes up and camps out there.
MICHAEL BAY (DIRECTOR, PRODUCER): They’re always thinking about story, that’s what I like about ’em. It’s not just paint-by-numbers there. It’s a very involved shop.
JAEGER: I’ve worked on seven of his films now. It’s come to the point where he asks for me, like, “Make sure Alex takes a look before you guys send it out.” But on Pearl Harbor I was just “the guy.” I didn’t have a name.
BAY: Pearl Harbor was the first time I worked with ILM.
JAEGER: At the beginning of the process he came at us like, “I want to see real explosions, real planes, real ships.” We built a 35-foot-long battleship with teak decking, but as the model was getting prepped, we developed a computer-generated version.
BAY: We filmed 20 real planes, but we would’ve never been able to do the shots without making those digital planes.
JAEGER: In one scene where we fly over the USS Hornet, there’s supposed to be a whole deck full of B-25 bombers. We only had two on the real aircraft carrier. We sat down with Michael and said, “Pick out which one is the real plane and which ones are the CG planes.” And he’s like, “I was there, I shot this.” He probably looked at it 10 times, and he’s like, “Well, the first one’s gotta be real because you wouldn’t put a fake one first.” “Nope, it’s CG.”
BAY: After Pearl Harbor, George Lucas wrote me a note saying we’d raised the bar at ILM.
BAY: A lot of artists worked on Optimus’ face. Getting it right was very important. But it’s like a bad face-lift. And I’m there meeting with the artists and we can’t figure out why it doesn’t look right.
PHILLIPS: One of our technical directors—the artist who designs how parts move relative to each other—is a guy named Keiji.
BAY: Keiji wasn’t even on Optimus’ face, but he had a meltdown.
KEIJI YAMAGUCHI (TECHNICAL ANIMATOR): I wanted Optimus Prime to look like a hero, but he didn’t, and I exploded. It was very gentle; I wanted the transformation to be huge, like a wrestler in a sumo ceremony. I said, “You’re insulting the Japanese idea of animation.”
PHILLIPS: Nobody talks to Michael Bay like that.
BAY: I just smiled and I’m like, “Oh my God, I want you to do Optimus Prime.” So he took it and fixed the face. And he also was the genius who helped us figure out how to take these 10,000 parts and make them transform.
JEFF WHITE (VFX SUPERVISOR): It’s equal parts technology and artistry.
WAYNE BILLHEIMER (VFX EXECUTIVE PRODUCER): The second Transformers was my first real working relationship with Bay. I went into a couple of early preproduction meetings with him where I began to get what was going on: “I’m going to shoot it, I’m going to give it to you guys, and you guys are going to have to come up with some stuff. It’s going to be brutal.”
BAY: It has gotten heated a few times. Directors like me love our crew and we love the people we work with, but we push ’em and push ’em and push ’em.
BILLHEIMER: There was a point toward the very end of production when he lost it. He had just come from a screening with Jerry Bruckheimer and didn’t have a complete third act. He called me, screaming: “I just saw a movie that I can’t fucking release!” It was nuclear-level Bay screaming. All I could do was scream back at him. There was a good five minutes of screaming along those lines. The next day he goes, “That was a fun little yell yesterday.”
BAY: They never let you down.
BILLHEIMER: He gets very hot very fast, and very sweary, which is always entertaining.
PHILLIPS: He’s a tyrant. He’s a nonstop string of obscenities. He’ll berate you and tell you you’re an idiot. But he always makes your shot better.
BILLHEIMER: And the movie makes a billion dollars.
Paxtin
And depending on who you ask, they never did figure it out.
Seeker
Don't feel too bad I was born in the fall of the previous year.
Moy
Thanks ILM for being part of the Transformers films, and looking forward to more in the future.
Ømnidrive
I feel a few people are missing here really
Yet congrats to this great company
Autovolt 127
That was a pretty cool montage.
I bet it's easier to list the movies that ILM didn't do the effects for.
Shepard Prime
I feel you. I'm 40 this September and it creeps me out watching basketball players for the length of their career and they're younger than me and retiring.
Sinestro00
Yet another thing younger than me. Only 5 months, but still. Damn, I'm old.
Russian fan
Wooow! THANK YOU SO MUCH, GUYS!!! I always ADMIRE the work of ILM, because they literally give birth to characters – this incredible sum of technology, ideas from many-many people and art glue from the director produces life, individuality and gives us priceless feelings, emotions, thoughts and experience!!!
AND HUGE THANKS TO MICHAEL BAY, camping out at ILM, providing his master guidance for 24 hours (Yeah sometimes brute, but effective )!
Burnout00012
Hell sounds pretty cool, then.
nstanosheck
Hell has also reserved a special place for Michael Bay and his Transformers movies. 😀
bman29
Huh, I didn't know he worked there. Bet he saw some awesome film history at that time.
Edit: Where's James Cameron in that photo? Probably off playing in the jungle with cat people or diving the ocean.
AshleyCuadra
That's awesome they really like Michael bay and awesome group shot of all of the director's
Shin-Gouki
Well the first 20 years were awesome anyway, I lost a lot of interest and respect when everything went CGI. Give me Physical Models any day.
SilverOptimus
News Post: ILM Celebrates 40 Years Of Making Magic