Chapter 664: Filming Completed

Right after Christmas, Duke heard back from ICM. Charlize Theron would adjust her upcoming schedule to accommodate his new film.

They had only reached a preliminary agreement, and the specific details still had to be negotiated. Duke wasn't in a hurry. After all, filming for Transformers wasn't even finished yet.

Once the holidays ended, the crew reassembled. For the first week, Duke and Anna Printz each led a team to shoot miscellaneous pickup shots on the soundstages at Warner Studios. As the calendar turned to 2008, the entire crew regrouped and headed to eastern Nevada.

A stretch of highway there had just finished construction. Duke had his eye on one of its overpasses, planning to shoot a car chase and a Transformer battle sequence.

The latter, of course, involved shooting the base footage and handing it over to the visual effects department to complete.

To secure the filming permits, two of Tina Fey's assistants had been negotiating with the authorities for the past two months. After paying a hefty sum, the road construction company and the relevant departments finally signed the contract.

Hundreds of vehicles were hauled onto the highway by tow trucks, including mine-clearing vehicles provided by the Pentagon. As soon as Duke arrived, he threw himself into work, directing the crew as they set up the location.

"Our goal is very simple."

Standing on the cherry picker, Duke told Anna Printz, "Try to destroy every vehicle we brought."

On this highway, the Autobots protecting Sam and the pursuing Decepticons would break into a fierce battle. Optimus Prime would showcase his incredible power, slaughtering several Decepticons.

For Optimus Prime, the live-action film utilized quite a few elements from the animated series, such as his combat strength.

Compared to the fierce Megatron, who had not yet rusted at the bottom of the sea, Optimus Prime was indeed slightly outmatched. He wasn't entirely powerless, however. Moreover, when facing the other Decepticons, Optimus Prime was just like Megatron dealing with ordinary Autobots—he operated on a completely different level.

There weren't many shots here that showed the actors' faces. The greatest need was for stunt drivers, and the crew had hired over thirty of them to pull off this highway chase.

Shooting this kind of sequence had been Duke's specialty a decade ago. Now, with cameras being smaller and higher definition, along with the availability of high-speed motion capture cameras, the resulting footage would carry far more visual impact.

Transformers was a 3D film. Just like in their previous shoots, James Cameron's modified 3D camera would inevitably be mounted in the primary camera position.

This was also one of the reasons the film's budget was so massive.

Warner Brothers had already approved the plan for additional funding. They were injecting another 20 million dollars into the project, driving the production cost up to a staggering 220 million.

The additional funds were essentially all allocated for visual effects. Duke knew perfectly well that the biggest selling points of Transformers were nostalgia and special effects—everything else was secondary.

Take the plot, for example. The story in his version was much simpler; as long as it maintained basic logic, it was enough.

The highway scenes wouldn't amount to more than ten minutes of screen time, but filming them would take a full week. These were also the crew's final scenes. Once this portion was wrapped up, Duke could transition into post-production.

As with all films, large-scale sequences—outside of wide-angle establishing shots—were stitched together from individual scenes. Duke naturally broke the shoot down into countless fragments. A rollover here, a collision there; each was practically treated as a separate shot to be filmed individually.

These shots would only last a few seconds on screen, but they required an incredibly long time to set up. The crew spent the vast majority of their time on preparation.

Collisions, explosions, flames, rollovers...

These elements were the running theme throughout the week of filming. Although the safety measures were stringent, a few stunt drivers still suffered minor injuries. Fortunately, they were only superficial scrapes and bruises, nothing serious.

As mid-January gradually approached, filming neared its very end.

To Duke, Transformers represented a profound sense of nostalgia. He held a special affection for the franchise, so much so that even though he rarely enjoyed making cameos, he decided to make an appearance in the film and act opposite Optimus Prime.

Beneath the overpass, a Ford was parked off to the side of the battlefield-like set. Duke sat in the driver's seat as a camera assistant mounted a Steadicam, filming his facial expressions through a specially modified car window.

"Cut!"

Anna Printz's voice rang out from the other side. "Duke, your expression isn't quite right."

Pushing the door open, Duke stepped out of the car and walked over behind the director's monitor. Anna Printz replayed the footage they had just shot. After reviewing it, he crossed one arm over his chest and pinched his chin with his other hand.

"You only look panicked," Anna Printz pointed out, "but not surprised."

Duke was merely playing the role of a random bystander. Seeing Optimus Prime and Brawl locked in brutal combat, his character would definitely be terrified, but also shocked—how could such beings possibly exist on Earth?

"Let's do it again." Duke headed back to the car.

The scene itself wasn't difficult, but given his limited acting chops, performing to empty air was still a bit of a challenge.

When it came to acting, Duke knew his talent was painfully average. He had rarely made cameos in his past films, and his appearance this time was just going to be a fleeting shot.

"Action!"

At Anna Printz's cue, Duke instantly got into character. He mimed a sudden braking motion, then whipped his head to look out the window as if he had just witnessed something completely unbelievable, his face morphing into a mask of terror and shock.

Watching the feed on the monitor, Anna Printz gave a slight shake of her head. It only confirmed that her boss simply wasn't cut out for acting. However, for a background shot in the middle of a massive Transformer battle, Duke's performance was more than adequate.

"Cut!" Anna Printz called out. "That's a print!"

With the final take approved, the crew members—who had endured a grueling week of filming—finally let relaxed smiles wash over their faces. Another long break was just around the corner.

As usual, there was no wild excitement or grand celebration, only the palpable relief of being freed from heavy labor and immense pressure. Even though the team had worked together for years, there had been no room for carelessness during the filming process.

This was a blockbuster with a budget of over 200 million dollars, not some niche independent flick.

"We have all afternoon to head over to Las Vegas."

Duke understood the importance of striking a balance between work and play. He grabbed a megaphone and shouted, "I've already had Tina book us into the MGM Hotel! Tonight is a night to party!"

Las Vegas was undoubtedly the perfect place to let loose and party.

Of course, it was impossible for the crew to book the entire MGM Hotel. They had merely reserved its largest private suite and hired dozens of strippers to perform for them. A wild party like this naturally featured plenty of marijuana and cocaine. Though Duke never touched the stuff himself, he never interfered with the rest of the crew's choices.

This was simply the norm in the industry.

It wasn't just actors and stars; drug abuse was equally widespread among cameramen, makeup artists, and other professions across the board.

Duke didn't linger in the suite for long. He and the core members of his team were long past the days of endless partying. Once the wild festivities kicked off, they left the room and headed down to the hotel's casino. Duke exchanged ten thousand dollars for chips, then wandered between the gambling tables, continuously testing his luck.

Duke didn't possess any gambling skills whatsoever. In fact, it was his very first time stepping foot inside a casino, so he was mostly driven by sheer curiosity. Unfortunately, his luck was incredibly average; he lost far more than he won.

After just a few rotations around the tables, Duke lost interest.

"How much did you win?"

He had just retreated to a nearby lounge area when Tina Fey walked over. "Don't tell me you lost it all?"

"I still have quite a bit left." Duke showed her the chips in his hand. "My luck wasn't great. I lost more than half of it."

"What about you?" he asked.

Tina Fey gave a slight shrug. "My luck was even worse than yours. I lost the whole ten grand."

Watching the gamblers staring wide-eyed at the tables, Duke lost whatever shred of interest he had left. He shook his head and said, "Let's go."

Tina Fey took the remaining chips from Duke's hands and cashed them out. They then left the casino together, skipping the suite party entirely and heading straight to their rooms upstairs. They planned to turn in early so they could head back to Los Angeles first thing in the morning.

Upon returning to Los Angeles, Duke rested for a mere two days before diving straight into post-production. Mike Dawson and his editing team were, of course, the undisputed choice for the job. After about ten days of grueling work, Duke and Mike Dawson completed the rough cut. However, this version lacked any visual effects and ran over six hours long.

Although the film's shoot had lasted just under three months, Duke had still managed to accumulate nearly a hundred hours of footage.

The editing style for the film returned to Duke's original roots. Much like the movies he directed when he first entered Hollywood, Transformers was a pure popcorn flick, meaning that sharp, rapid-fire editing was undoubtedly the smartest choice.

The most time-consuming phase was undoubtedly the visual effects production. From the pre-production stage until now, the two visual effects teams at Industrial Light and Magic had only completed a fraction of the scenes. Fortunately, the arduous modeling work was already finished, meaning the subsequent progress would begin to speed up.

Industrial Light and Magic guaranteed that all the visual effects would be completed by early May. The two sides had been working together for over a decade, so Duke had absolute confidence in them.

Duke spent the entirety of January buried in post-production. He also cut a 30-second commercial spot, which aired during the Super Bowl halftime show, just as he had done in the past. However, due to the incomplete visual effects, the commercial featured very little actual Transformer footage; glimpses of Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and Megatron flashed by in the blink of an eye.

As the calendar flipped to early February, the annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon was held right on schedule.