Clip from 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'

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New 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' TV Spots

Lots of new ones. I like these.

A Great Start to the Day -- 'Tranformers: Dark of the Moon' Soundtrack Promo

Some very nice new imagery.

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More on Michael Bay

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley on the Cover of Maxim

She answers some tough Transformers questions:

Is Megan Fox’s disappearance explained?
Yes, it’s explained, but that’s all I’m saying.

Is it explained with explosions? This is a Michael Bay movie, after all.
Well, Shia and I are explosive together! The movie begins with us in a new relationship, and then we go from there.

Nice tap dancing. Way to sidestep that persistent reporter.

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Snip

Transformers 3 "Biggest Adventure" HD from Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Featurette

Transformers 3 "Birdmen" Featurette (HD) from Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

'Transformers' TV Spot

New footage at :15 and :21

'Transformers' Featurette

New Transformers Poster

Love the placement of the license plate

Improved over previous efforts but still looks too painted. Where's the photo-real imagery? Saving that for later, suppose. Roll out the good stuff closer to opening. Okay, waiting...

New Transformers Trailer and Featurette

Here's James Cameron and Michael Bay talking 3D. Some new footage.

Money Well Spent

Sometimes the budget of a movie is so high and the entertainment value so low you have to wonder who's running the show in the executive suite. 'Transformers' is a case where the money was well spent. Look at that image. Can you imagine how much it costs to make such a thing -- let alone how much it costs to make such a thing run around a city destroying stuff. /film has a bunch of new images from 'Transformers' that look pretty damn good. Each shot can be clicked for a high-res version. People rip Bay, but the guy knows how to deliver product.

Cost Per Frame

It's Sunday morning so let's talk movie budgets. I was catching up over at Variety and found this write-up on big budget movies by Diane Garrett. Costs are always spiraling but Diane brings us up to date on current costs:

"...there was much handwringing when "Titanic" doubled its budget to hit the $200 million mark. But it was clear that the old $100 million ceiling was shattered, as the mark quickly crept to $150 million and then $200 million.

This summer, despite studio chieftains' vows over the past year to cut costs, the threshold could well be $300 million."

Sure. These productions cost a lot of money. But, not the way they used to -- the money isn't spent the same way. In the good old days you paid location costs -- transportation, catering, etc., -- and production costs that mainly consisted of salaries/fees and the cost of film (buying and processing it, then the production of dailies, then post production). Sure. We all knew that.

Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) has changed all this. Most summer blockbusters are effects-driven and the CGI costs of producing effects sequences are calculated on a 'per second', or 'per frame' rate. Most movies are still projected at 24 frames-per-second, so it follows that, if you're using a per-frame unit of cost, you multiply by 24 -- then you have the per-second rate.

Garret quotes Michael Bay as saying on his blog that the CGI in 'Transformers' is some of the most difficult (read costly) ever done, requiring up to 38 hours per frame. Sure. Why not? You have to draw all those pictures, photograph the models, make them move around and do stuff, then insert the imagery into the footage (then add sound, etc). Sure. Costs a lot.

How much? How much does it cost to produce CGI sequences. Okay, I'll cut to the chase -- it costs millions -- but why?

ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) is the effects house behind 'Transformers'. So, purely for the sake of Sunday morning fun, let's say ILM has 38 people working a sequence (like the one the still above is taken from), and they each cost $1000 per day (what with their salary, the fancy computers they use, administrative overhead, the best snacks money can buy, et al). It would take this crew one hour to produce a frame. So, that's 24 hours to produce one second of final product. If the workday is 8 hours that means it would take 3 working days to produce one second of sequence. So -- 38 people x $1000/day = $38,000/day. Multiply that by the number of days it takes to produce one second of imagery and you get $114,000/second.

Sure. It costs money to make a Transformer chase a car down a freeway. Sure it does. If the chase lasts ten seconds our sequence would cost $1.1 million. One minute of CGI fun -- $6.6 million. Ten minutes -- $60 million +/-. And, that's just for raw footage -- the studio would then have to pay for sound, editing, and more high-end snacks. Sure they would.

And that's why CGI-driven movies cost so much. Right now, the (publicly admitted) budget for 'Transformers' is $150 million (of course, that depends on who you ask). No wonder it's called 'Runaway Costs'.

Okay, now I'm going to get another cup of tea and maybe make some toast. Figuring on an expenditure of about 1.25 cents per second and adding the price of materials the total projected cost for this production should be fifty cents, or maybe a dollar, or something like that. Sure it will.