Whether you were enthralled by Transformers: Dark of the Moon with its stunning visuals and exciting action sequences, or whether you tutted your way through it at the misuse of Shockwave and the erratic pacing, there was a more interesting element to the movie, at least from a behind-the-scenes perspective.
For example, the work done on the movie by Industrial Light and Magic’s team of 156 digital artists saw close to half of the shots being filmed in Singapore. The special effect’s company’s lone satellite office is located in Singapore, despite the company itself being based in San Francisco.
Visual effects expert Brennan Doyle, who led the team in Sinagpore, says that expectations for visual effects and digital art are increasing all the time.
“Motion picture production is becoming an increasingly complex art and it is valid to say that almost every movie produced these days would have some form of visual effect. Digital artists must deliver increasingly immersive entertainment experiences for moviegoers, and this means creating more sophisticated and realistic visual sequences. For Dark Of The Moon, our artists created 19 out of the 36 sequences, which comes up to 24 minutes screen time”.
Doyle worked with the supervisors at ILM to make sure that the work was in line with the specifications set by megalomaniac Michael Bay. He began by reading the script and then breaking down the required effects.
The digital wizard says that the team had quite an experience working on the movie with the biggest challenge coming from working on stereoscopic 3D. Only 50 percent was shot on film, with the other 50 per cent being shot with digital stereoscopic camera equipment.
Just a couple of months ago, we knew that Paramount wished to render his services once again for not one, but two new movies. They obviously peaked the interest of the director as it is now close to being confirmed – despite Bay insisting that DOTM was to be his last foray into the Transformers world.
The ride should enable the greatest 3-D battle yet between the Decepticons and the Autobots with stunning effects produced by Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic.
