Chapter 648: Destroying Las Vegas

Several military off-road vehicles approached from the distance, kicking up clouds of white sand. When the vehicles stopped, Duke pushed his door open, and a wave of heat hit his face. The sun beat down on the earth like a fireball. The air was stifling and the ground scorched; just stepping onto the nearly white sand burned his feet.

Colonel Daniel Ferris stepped out of the vehicle ahead and walked over to stand beside Duke. Pointing into the distance with his right hand, he said, "This is it. Using this spot as the center point, a thirty-five-mile radius has been temporarily allocated for the crew to film in."

"There won't be any missiles hitting here, right?" John Schwartzman asked. He raised a hand to block the blazing sunlight pouring from the sky. "The sand is a bit white, which makes it a little different from the Middle East, but it's not a big deal. We can adjust it with lighting and camera angles."

"We'll do it here." Looking out at the endless expanse of white desert, Duke made his final decision. "We'll build the sets and shoot the Middle East scenes here. I imagine none of you want to go to the Middle East, either."

Just as he had zero interest in visiting Israel despite his mother bringing it up several times, Duke wouldn't go to the Middle East unless he had absolutely no other choice.

The Middle East scenes could easily be shot on sets built at the White Sands Missile Range. The only issue was that this nearly white desert still differed somewhat from the actual Middle East.

The White Sands Missile Range sat on the border between New Mexico and Texas State. As the name suggested, this was a desert national park as pure white as snow. However, the specific desert housing the missile testing grounds wasn't completely white; according to Colonel Daniel Ferris, they were about fifty miles away from the truly pristine white sands.

Most of the planned explosion scenes would be filmed here at the missile range. The crew's ability to venture so deep into heavily restricted military territory came entirely from the Pentagon's support. To build a positive image for the American military, the Pentagon was not only providing the shooting locations, but was also allowing the crew to film from the air alongside roaring fighter jets.

The group walked a short distance down a simple dirt road through the desert before Duke spotted a cluster of buildings. There were a few dozen structures, though they clearly hadn't been maintained in a long time. They looked dilapidated, with the walls in some places completely collapsed.

"Colonel," Duke said, pointing toward the structures as he looked at Daniel Ferris beside him, "what is that place?"

"An abandoned old barracks. It was originally supposed to serve as a missile target, but it never got used." Guessing what Duke was thinking, the colonel added, "If you can use it for filming, go right ahead."

"Hannah!" Hearing this, Duke waved to the back of the group. Art director Hannah Serena walked over, wearing a large face mask. Duke pointed toward the old barracks. "Would it be easy to use those to build sets?"

After carefully observing the site for a few minutes, Hannah Serena finally replied, "Yes. It should save us some work."

Following that, the group returned to their cars, checked out a few other locations, and drove out of the White Sands Missile Range.

After leaving New Mexico, Duke didn't head back to Los Angeles. Instead, accompanied by Colonel Daniel Ferris, he took Hannah Serena, John Schwartzman, and the others to Edwards Air Force Base, the Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas for on-site location scouting.

In Las Vegas, Duke was hosted by City Hall. The mayor of Las Vegas stated directly that if the city became one of the main filming locations for Transformers, City Hall would do everything in its power to coordinate with the crew. Things like closing down streets for a shoot would be absolutely no problem.

Having secured this kind of support, Duke decided to set the final battle in Las Vegas. Destroying half of Las Vegas seemed like a pretty good idea, after all.

Once he returned to Los Angeles, Duke first met with Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Both parties officially signed the equity swap agreement. By acquiring Duke's shares, on top of the equity they had previously purchased from other minor shareholders, Google smoothly became the largest shareholder of Instant Sharing. The voting shares in their hands now approached fifty percent. The next time the Instant Sharing shareholder meeting convened, it would mark the beginning of a massive management shake-up.

Duke naturally wouldn't do anything that didn't benefit him. After signing the equity swap agreement, he securely became Google's largest shareholder. However, the Class A voting shares in his hands were still lower than what Larry Page and Sergey Brin held combined; the two of them certainly wouldn't let him threaten their control over Google.

However, Duke had no intention of interfering with Google anyway. He knew he was purely a layman when it came to the IT industry. Just as he wasn't stupid enough to dictate things in front of Steve Jobs, he wouldn't bore himself by meddling in Google's affairs.

The signing of this agreement was a win-win situation for both Duke and Google, but for Donald Trump and the Trump Group behind him, it was nothing short of a heavy blow.

But Duke didn't take it to heart. Ivanka Trump was his ex-girlfriend, after all.

As for what she and Donald Trump might think, Duke didn't care. He still had a considerable amount of work to do.

According to Duke's requests, the design team dispatched from Hasbro's headquarters in Rhode Island had once again completed the concept art for the Autobots and Decepticons. This time, they earned Duke's approval. After a round of revisions, the blueprints were sent to Industrial Light & Magic. Based on these designs, the model studio at Industrial Light & Magic would manufacture Transformers models in various scales.

In addition, with the exterior designs of the Transformers complete, another visual effects team from Industrial Light & Magic set up a VFX studio at Warner Studios, beginning the modeling process for the future CGI work.

All of this work required a massive amount of time; there was no room for cutting corners. CGI effects, to put it bluntly, were built purely on time and money. The only real reason behind effects that looked like they cost five cents was that not enough funds had been spent on production.

According to Duke's demands, the visual effects in Transformers had to be the absolute best available today. Never mind the CGI rendering—just looking at the model production alone, the model for Optimus Prime required nearly 12,000 individual parts. This was undeniably a massive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive project.

This also tied into another of Duke's requirements: none of the robots in the film would have thick, clunky designs. Just like elite soldiers in a human army, the bodies of both the Decepticons and the Autobots would possess a natural, fluid aesthetic. When they transformed on the big screen, every single part across their entire bodies would move simultaneously.

Furthermore, this design would extend to the related merchandise released by Hasbro. Hasbro had already drawn up plans: for their highest-priced toys, simply triggering a specialized component on the Transformer's body would allow Optimus Prime and Megatron to complete their transformations automatically.

Of course, toys like that definitely wouldn't come cheap.

However, as long as the movie was popular enough, a massive wave of fans would certainly be willing to pay for them.

Duke spent the entire month of August wrapped up in busy work. The prep work for a movie like Transformers was countless times more complicated than that of independent films, and it didn't allow for the slightest carelessness. A tiny mistake in pre-production could easily spiral into a very serious problem during filming.

Although specific tasks like drawing up schedules and continuity logs no longer required Duke to handle them personally—Hannah Serena's assistant team was more than enough to get it done—Duke still had to review every aspect of the studio's work. Even the areas he couldn't look after himself still needed to be reviewed by Tina Fey, who had taken on the role of production manager.

"Strictly speaking, you're the actual head of the crew." After finishing his review of a storyboard sketch, Duke looked up at Tina Fey sitting at the other table and asked, "How are you liking the job?"

"It's alright, pretty similar to what I did before." Back when Charles Roven was around, his main focus had also been assisting Duke, so this wasn't too difficult for Tina Fey. "It's just busier than before. I have to personally handle a lot of the negotiations regarding locations, props, equipment, and finances."

The funds were controlled by a third-party guarantee company. In the past, whenever Duke needed funds, Charles Roven would be the one to go ask for them. Now, of course, that responsibility had shifted to Tina Fey.

Third-party guarantees were a universal system in Hollywood. They effectively curbed the inevitable ulterior motives about money that many people in a crew might develop. All Hollywood directors worked under this system, and Duke was no exception. In some respects, Duke was even a supporter of this system; all of the past films invested in by Duke Studio had exclusively utilized third-party guarantees.

Even during his past collaborations with Tom Cruise and Warner Brothers, Duke hadn't been idiotic enough to hand the funds directly over to the other party or the crew to control.

A mature industry inevitably required corresponding systems to serve as safeguards.

"The second batch of fifty million dollars from Warner Brothers has already hit the account," Tina Fey said, glancing over a spreadsheet. "We need to make an advance payment to Industrial Light & Magic and the IMAX Company."

Duke waved his hand dismissively. "That's an issue for you and the financial director to consider. You don't need to tell me."

After The Dark Knight created an IMAX craze, the IMAX Company now had a certain amount of confidence. With Duke filming Transformers, they were no longer providing the cameras for free; the crew needed to pay the relevant rental fees.

This was a very normal situation. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world, and a business transaction was ultimately just a business transaction.

Moreover, now that IMAX technology had fully demonstrated its advantages, it was inevitable that many companies and films would follow the trend. With only a handful of IMAX cameras existing in the entire world, they naturally became a highly sought-after commodity.

Relaxing a little, Duke opened his folder again and continued reviewing the storyboard sketches. On the other side of the room, Tina Fey was also focused on her work. But after opening and flipping through a few document bags, she walked over to Duke's side holding one of them.

"The results of the first auditions for the three main roles." Tina Fey placed the document bag in front of Duke. "Anna just sent these over."