Will Transformers 3 Go 3D?

It’s the newest fad, and it seems like Michael Bay is now caught up in it too — 3D.

Bay, who once called 3D a “gimmick” (before Avatar came out) recently revealed in an interview on Starz that he’s been testing the process to see if it will work for Transformers 3:

It’s a process we’re testing with some Transformers scenes.  [And] how successful it is with my movie in terms of a lot of real stuff coming out of the frame, real dirt, real complicated little particles coming towards the lens, because hopefully that process will work. I’ve seen some tests that look great on other movies. I just want to see how it looks on my footage.

The way he puts it implies that he’s using the technology that converts 2D film to 3D — which James Cameron, for his part, recently declared was “not the right way to do it.”  Cameron prefers shooting from 3D from the get-go, using 3D cameras, but Bay has previously said that his shooting style doesn’t lend itself to be able to use the more fragile 3D tech.

So in other words, the current 3D phase consists of (1) some filmmakers denouncing some types of 3D, (2) some filmmakers not caring what kind of 3D they use, (3) some filmmakers not liking any kind of 3D, and (4) studios not caring as long as they turn everything into some kind of 3D because they can charge more for it.

But back to the original question: will Transformers 3 end up in 3D?  Bay usually ends up doing what the studio tells him to do, so…probably.

Source: Slashfilm

Transformers 2 Indeed Gunning for An Oscar

When the Oscar nominations were announced, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen didn’t make the Visual Effects category like I had predicted earlier.  (Avatar, District 9, and Star Trek were the three nominees.)  But it did manage to grab one nomination, for Sound Mixing, which it will compete for at the ceremony on Sunday, March 7th.

Unfortunately, it faces stiff competition: The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, and Avatar are all also competing in the category.  And all four of those movies also showed up in the Sound Editing category, where Transformers was replaced by Pixar’s Up.

That doesn’t exactly give it the best chances.  In all likelihood, the award will go to Avatar in a sweep of technical awards.

But hey, it’s the Academy Awards — surprises happen.

Transformers 3 Location and Screenplay Updates

Michael Bay has been posting some brief updates on Tranformers 3 on his official “Shoot for the Edit” site lately and he’s dropped a handful of hints:

Busy scouting - Chicago, Detroit, and Washington D.C. for Transformers last week. Things are going well. The script is feeling very different from the other two.

And, in quoting an L.A. Times article:

“There will be a nice crescendo ending,” Bay said. “It gets much more into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the robots; this time you’re gonna get a much cooler landscape.”

Considering how disappointing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was, it’s nice to hear that the script is feeling “very different.”  Maybe this time they’re actually bothering to fashion a coherent film before filming begins.