They did. It's sad that they thought the only way they could get it noticed was by sticking a load of fake details on it and a Property of ILM thing.

Shows a lack of belief in your work in its own merits.

 

Your right they do it to get fans hopes up
but when a test shot actually comes out we will know about it trust me it will be big news

 

Well, Don Murhpy can SAY it's fake, but that doesn't mean he could be lying. Sure, there is a damn good chance it is fake, but you just never know....something about it just still seems 'real' about it.

 

Fake or real, I rather liked it, for the following reasons:

* The fairly solid, "G1-bot" look. People can rave about the Citroen commercial, but that thing always looked like an Erecto set with car parts attached to me.

* The motion gave a pretty good mix of mechanical realism in the transformation, and "life" in the robot staggering and settling into place at the end of it. Only shortcoming I see there is the robot motion was a little light-feeling for a robot made out of a car.

It might not really indicate, or have any connection at all to what the movie effects would look like, but they could still take a page from it. What will impress me in this film is not if they can make big transforming robots, but if they can make big transforming characters.

 

I agree. In this day and age, it isn't going to be any problem for a company like ILM to produce the special effects required for this film. Whether or not there is a good script & story behind those effects is what is going to make or break this film.

 

Precisely. If it's fake, the guy responsible for it will turn up eventually, as it happened with the VW clip. This footage has been highly praised, so there should be no concern from the part of the author that anyone in the fandom would feel their movie experience was ruined just because of his "joke".

On the other hand, Don Murphy has made clear in the past that he doesn't have much respect for the TF fans, so he could indeed be lying and laughing all along. To say that it's fake wouldn't cause much damage (he can always say he didn't know better), and would take annoying fanboys off of his back. I mean, if you believe what he says and you give enough importance to what he says so you think he always tells the truth and depend exclusively on his approval/denial of such footage, and you actually asked him, twice, by phone, at 3am, you /will/ get off of his back now. For myself, I couldn't care less about his opinion, and I still think that going through all the trouble of making a high detailed/textured/animated Sideswipe mesh mixed with a totally unrelated model car, blending with a live action footage and make it all work smooth is too much and too good work for an april's fool kinda joke. The author either is employed in the industry with a nice NDA on his back, or must be dying to get his due credits.

 

How about trying some tact next time.  

 

Like most of you, I've watched this video a thousand times and it still looks legit every time I see it. As has been stated, it would be very difficult for your average fan to make this. Maybe it's not official "test footage" but just something done by an eager ILM artist. Sorta like the Takara "lunch time specials". They're fake, but still made by the real people.

 

even though it is a fake it is yet another great example of how good a CGI Transformer can look when brought to life. This, the TF beetle, the copy machine, etc all just prove how cool these things can look. Fake or not it is still cool.

 

That's because Michael Smith made it  

 

I think it is some sort of test footage...it might have been one out of many the animators brought fourth for ILM to look at. They usually assign teams to come up with various models so that the director or lead animator can pick which one is more suited for the film. That's why I still think its vaild as part of the movie test footage. Its too short to be someone's little project at home, if they worked on it that much they would have made the clip longer....

Ah well...you either do or you don't think its real. But you can't deny it looks pretty slick.

 

Yeah, I'm tempted to agree.

By the way, the looped sprocket holes, complete with repeating dust specks and other flaws is a bit of a give away that it's a fake. Just watch it in slow mo.

 

Or that the person showing has a certain amount of vanity for detail... I've seen it done in other circumstances, and it's easy to set your presentation software up to overlay one video with another...

It's not film reel, that's for certain. Not much is these days. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the BotCon footage was either.)

edit:

If true, yeah, it is. Stands on its own just fine.

 

Ian Bryce just added his comments:

 

I'm gonna have to agree with the Michael Smith thing, as it has some of his trademarks. The most blatent is the "bouncy" transformation (look at the rear wheels for LOTS of bouncy).

Excellent fake. Sorta fooled me (I never thought for a minute that Sideswipe would end up as an old Nissan). It looked like good test footage, though.

 

When I mentioned it to one of the guys I know from ILM this morning, he knew nothing about a sideswipe test. and its true, there would be alot more legal fuss if it was real.

 

Ha Ha told you.

 

I knew i'd seen that somewhere.......on his site.........thank you for reminding me.

 

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22178

Michael Bay comments on the "Test Footage"