Transformers2: The bots have arrived

The second edition of the Transformers movies, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has created world-wide interest through its army of robotized aliens, Read More">including the favorite car-transformer Bumblebee. Let’s now have a look at the film’s cast and cutting-edge visual effects in the words of the director Michael Bay and his crew. Says Michael about hisRead More

The second edition of the Transformers movies, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has created world-wide interest through its army of robotized aliens, including the favorite car-transformer Bumblebee. Let's now have a look at the film's cast and cutting-edge visual effects in the words of the director Michael Bay and his crew.

Says Michael about his choice of Megan Fox for the female lead, "I literally found Megan from nothing. The studios were saying that she hadn't done anything. But I kept bringing her back and auditioning with her and showing tapes that she could do it. She has really improved on this movie and done some great performances.

And on Shia Labeouf, who plays Sam Witwicky in the film, "Shia is a gem! He is a pain in the ass 22-year-old but he is a gem."

Read More">The film’s vfx supervisor Scott Farrar has a very interesting tale to tell about using poles as spatial proxies in shots involving computer generated (CG) robots like Optimus Prime – which were only added in the post-production much later.. “It is very sophisticated! It is a window washer pole! I believe in low tech forRead More

The film's vfx supervisor Scott Farrar has a very interesting tale to tell about using poles as spatial proxies in shots involving computer generated (CG) robots like Optimus Prime - which were only added in the post-production much later.. "It is very sophisticated! It is a window washer pole! I believe in low tech for high effect. How it works is like this…if you have robot and I want the actor to look at the robot then you could have a big head (to represent the robot); but those are really heavy. So we just have the pole and the actor uses that to get an eye line."

The film involves a sequence which was shot in the pyramids of Egypt. This is all that Michael reveals: “Everyone always wondered how the Pyramids got built; well we explain it to you in Transformers.”

The film involves a sequence which was shot in the pyramids of Egypt. This is all that Michael reveals: "Everyone always wondered how the Pyramids got built; well we explain it to you in Transformers."

On the amount of time, money and effort spent on creating the bot-army, Scott says, “It takes roughly about six months to put a robot together. This may be surprising, but you have to build all the pieces. It is like going into your workshop and making those parts, Read More">except it is a computer graphicsRead More

On the amount of time, money and effort spent on creating the bot-army, Scott says, "It takes roughly about six months to put a robot together. This may be surprising, but you have to build all the pieces. It is like going into your workshop and making those parts, except it is a computer graphics workshop. Then some shapes have 4 to 16 layers of information in the computer, so that it looks like plastic or glass or shiny chrome or brushed steel, plus all the pigments of colour."

"That is a lot of stuff, for every piece. The building of it is one thing, that takes 12 to 16 weeks, and then you go into paint and textures. Then there are the people who connect all the pieces and that can take even longer. You have to work it all out so that basically the skeleton hangs together in the computer. Then you are about ready to start putting it in shots, but even then it is not finished. You keep working on it. The money? It is millions of dollars for this kind of thing. It is all based on how many weeks it takes to do each thing."

In the end, some cool factoids about the movie: 14 robots last in Transformers 1, Read More">46 robots this time Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots. Devastator’s hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid. All robot parts laid out end to end wouldRead More

In the end, some cool factoids about the movie:

• 14 robots last in Transformers 1, 46 robots this time


• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.


• Devastator's hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid.


• All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles


• Transformers 1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes, seven times as much!


• If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year's premier!