Chapter 666: The Essence of Art

Editing a feature-length film often took more time than shooting it, and it was never a simple task.

Did the film's rhythm match the director's intent? Were the characters vivid? Was the story clear? Did the plot have hidden threads? If not, could the editing create one?

When it came to editing, it was impossible for every shot to be absolutely perfect.

Perhaps a shot contained an impassioned speech, a string of witty remarks, humorous banter, biting sarcasm, a flirtatious glance, or a fleeting glimpse of breathtaking beauty.

If the sole criterion for selecting a shot was the actors' performances, editing would be a fairly straightforward job.

But that was never the case. In Transformers, the actors' performances took a back seat. Duke and Mike Dawson also had to consider other factors: How did the protagonist's co-stars perform? Was the camera placement appropriate? Was the lighting just right? Did the weather conditions meet the requirements?

After the visual effects produced by Industrial Light and Magic were initially completed, temporary dialogue, music, and sound effects had to be inserted into the shot sequence.

The film was coming together step by step, gradually shedding its rough edges. However, the footage shot on set didn't always align with the exact effect Duke wanted. A thirty-second shot, once visual effects were added, might turn into a two-minute sequence.

To Duke, the challenge at this stage lay in carefully selecting the live-action footage while simultaneously making the Transformers look magnificent in the CG-generated frames—and, once those effects were added, ensuring the Transformers and the actors blended together naturally.

At the Transformers Studio, the daily production was reviewed every morning by the relevant department heads. They selected the satisfactory results and passed them on to Duke. Once Duke approved them, his assistants would send the cleared portions to the audio-visual technical department, where they were assembled into actual film clips.

If someone had no interest in this kind of work, it would undoubtedly be a painfully boring process.

But Duke maintained immense enthusiasm every single day of post-production. Every workday morning, he gathered all the department heads to discuss the production of the day's scenes in the fastest, most concise manner possible.

There was one point Duke emphasized every few days. He demanded that they control the live-action elements as much as possible to give the Transformers more screen time.

As the visual effects production neared completion, Duke grew busier and busier. Forget about sitting around leisurely drinking coffee and chatting like at the Oscar nominees' luncheon; the department heads had to race against the clock just to communicate with him.

"Duke expects us to have our own opinions, to work tirelessly day and night to figure things out for the best possible results," Mike Dawson, an Oscar nominee for Best Film Editing, once said during an interview. "He'll sit in front of the system and string the selected footage clips together in order. Instantly, those scattered parts come alive, flashing with brilliant, wondrous spiritual cohesion and vitality. He remembers every single shot we've taken, far more vividly than we do. He has an incredibly precise eye and a very strong sense of rhythm. Working with him, we have to do our best just to keep up with his pace. Duke's word is final, but he also hopes everyone can offer good ideas."

Without a doubt, the final cut of Transformers would set a record for the highest number of visual effects shots.

After Warner Brothers injected additional investment, the film would utilize over 2,000 visual effects shots. All of these were handled by Industrial Light and Magic. Their technological dominance in environments, lighting, physical effects simulation, and the compositing of CG characters into real-world environments was on full display.

The most difficult part to process among all the visual effects was the scene where Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironhide, and Ratchet transformed together. Duke used two cameras to shoot the raw footage from different angles, which Industrial Light and Magic then composited using CGI.

Outstanding visual effects also required equally outstanding sound effects to match.

Initially, Duke only planned to repeatedly tweak the film clips without generating a 5.1 surround sound mix.

The Transformers Studio had a 5.1 surround sound system, but they had been racing against time to modify the visuals, leaving no time to worry about the audio tracks.

However, if any errors occurred with the audio tracks and they had to go back and fix them later, it would undoubtedly add a massive workload. So, Duke came up with a compromise.

The production crew extracted and split the 24-track audio files, turning them into left channel, right channel, and surround sound mix files, or saving them as lower-quality low-frequency files. Then, they categorized and stored the video clips alongside their corresponding audio files.

When they needed to play them back in the 5.1 surround sound system, they would retrieve the original audio files that matched the video and sync them together.

The results of this method were flawless.

Furthermore, the military had representatives stationed at Warner Studios to stay updated and provide feedback on the progress of Transformers.

This also indirectly highlighted the influence of Duke's films. Anyone with a brain in America knew that Duke directed true blockbuster films that would spread far and wide, reaching countless people around the world through the big screen, the internet, DVDs, and televisions. Since the Pentagon had sponsored his film, it was only natural they demanded a positive image for the US Military.

In this regard, Duke had always maintained a stellar reputation. Having collaborated with the Pentagon for years, he didn't have water in the brain to the point of assuming the Pentagon was full of idiots.

Even in North America, tanks and fighter jets weren't things you could just borrow casually. If you wanted to use them in a film, you had to contact the military.

During post-production, Duke also ensured that the US Military maintained a strong and positive image in the film.

Whether it was the combat scenes, the dialogue, or the uniforms, everything reflected the values of the modern US Military. For example, the soldiers in the film referred to the Transformer robots as "Non-Biological Extraterrestrial Organisms," capturing the military's habit of using overly pedantic and bizarre technological jargon.

Presumably very satisfied with the production crew, the Pentagon even sent personnel to participate in several promotional events for Transformers at a comic convention in New York in February.

"Director Rosenberg handles the Hollywood side of the film, and we manage the military aspects. Our collaboration has been extremely smooth," Colonel Paul Hiller from the Pentagon's public relations office said during an exclusive interview with CNN. "Cooperation between the military and the entertainment industry makes the military look more human. We aren't just protecting the nation, though that is our primary job. This film will show the public that the military has a human side, too. Wherever protection or help is needed, we will be there."

Although the colonel's words reeked of Great Americanism, this was, after all, a promotional campaign aimed at North America.

Naturally, the focus of the promotional events remained on Duke. Though he wouldn't be staying in New York for long, he still accepted an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair magazine during the event. Producing the film was important, but promoting and marketing it was equally so.

Because the interview time Duke offered was extremely limited, the female reporter sent by Vanity Fair didn't beat around the bush after sitting down across from him. Her questions cut straight to the point.

She pointed at the massive promotional poster and asked, "Is the main theme of the film really just 'a boy and his car'?"

"My colleagues and I put a lot of effort into ensuring the narrative perspective genuinely starts from the kids' point of view." Resting his arms on the armrests of his chair, Duke spoke rather quickly. "However, I added some military elements right from the start to make the film's style tougher, more intense, and more suspenseful."

The reporter glanced down at her notebook and asked, "Have you thought about who the target audience for this movie will be?"

"I used to think this film would mostly appeal to kids and twenty-somethings," Duke said, recounting something that had happened during filming. "The military sent some people over to help us. The first day I worked with them on set, I was actually a little embarrassed..."

He made a greeting gesture. "At the time, I told over forty soldiers, 'Hello everyone. I know what I'm about to say sounds completely ridiculous, but please imagine a forty-foot-tall robot standing right here. He's going to launch into the air and then land over there.' They immediately asked, 'Which robot? Starscream or Megatron?' I was the one who ended up shocked—how did these military guys know about that? At that moment, I realized the crowd influenced by Transformers was much broader than I had previously thought."

The reporter pointed to Optimus Prime and his transformed semi-truck mode on the poster and said, "You changed Optimus Prime's design, which infuriated a lot of Transformers fans. There are even rumors that you received death threats?"

"No, I just received a lot of very interesting feedback." Although someone had indeed mailed something similar to the studio, Duke didn't take it to heart at all. "They said things like, 'Damn it, Duke Rosenberg, you ruined my childhood dreams; Duke Rosenberg, I'm going to kill you.' I can somewhat understand their feelings. You know, people always look back on their childhoods with deep affection and indulgence."

At this point, Duke laughed. "To be honest, they only have that cartoon in their heads. Very few people are willing to seriously think about what a Transformer should actually look like in reality, because they refuse to let go of their childhood memories."

"Duke, at the beginning of this year, several European directors criticized you for lacking ambition..." Seeing that their time was almost up, the reporter asked a sensitive question. "They claimed that what you shoot isn't even cinema, and that you are destroying the art of film."

"I don't think so. I'm proud of the cinematic style I've chosen."

Early in the year, the media had indeed hyped up that incident. But Duke had been too busy with the post-production of Transformers to bother responding. Besides, it wasn't impossible that those so-called European directors were just using the controversy to hype themselves up.

Duke thought about it seriously before continuing. "I'm very optimistic in life. The people who attack me don't truly understand me; they think what I do isn't art. For example, a foreign Hollywood reporter came to see me this morning and flat-out asked, 'Don't you plan to pivot toward art-house films and shoot something of greater value?'"

He spread his hands. "I told her, 'Are you kidding me?' This picture of Optimus Prime hanging behind me took the combined energy of an entire team of artists. Action blockbusters are far more difficult to make than going to the south of France to shoot a low-budget art film. Take Optimus Prime, for example. Making an object that doesn't actually exist look as if it has a soul and intelligence—that is the essence of art. The weird thing is, so many people think it's just a cheap parlor trick."