http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-12-28-transformers-main_N.htm
12/28/08
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. The United States military has
declared war on giant, shape-shifting alien robots.
Amid blinding platinum dunes baking in the 105-degree sun, scores of
elite servicemen and women cluster in and around real tanks, rocket
launchers and personnel carriers as they unleash a machine-gun
barrage at an invisible (and entirely fictional) enemy: Transformers.
These troops, many of them recently returned from the actual
life-and-death realities of Iraq and Afghanistan, aren't professional
actors. But for the moment, they are the stars and this is the
climactic battle of next summer's sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
"I'm convinced. If we were to actually fight Transformers, this is
how we would do it," jokes Lt. Col. Francisco "Paco" Hamm, the Air
Force liaison to the film, who oversees the use of the branch's
humans and hardware.
The U.S. Department of Defense gave its official stamp of approval to
the Michael Bay-directed film, not only allowing production amid the
pristine dunes of the Army's New Mexico missile range, but also
letting filmmakers follow jets and fighter planes through the sky
from nearby Holloman Air Force Base. More scenes were shot on the
Navy's aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, and Marines fill the
ranks of the strike team battling the invading Transformers.
The DOD has long seen benefit in joining forces with Hollywood,
though its participation depends on script approval. The Pentagon
demands some measure of realism at least in how the military
behaves, despite the giant robots. And it expects the films it
partners on to shed a generally positive light on the service. Movies
such as Top Gun, regarded as a major boost for recruitment in its
day, and the recent Robert Downey Jr. blockbuster Iron Man received
military cooperation. Films that are darker or more critical, such as
A Few Good Men, are on their own.
One reason the military cooperates with filmmakers is to provide a
boost to the rank-and-file, Hamm says. "The morale level goes through
the roof. There's nothing like an airman taking his family out to
Transformers and watching the kids see something their father or
mother does on the big screen."
Borrowing machines and men
What makes the sequel to 2007's Transformers different from other
Defense Department movie partnerships is scale.
The film's Army liaison, Lt. Col. Gregory Bishop, notes: "As far as I
know, this is the biggest joint military operation movie ever made,
in terms of Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. I can't think of one
that's bigger."
Among the equipment the movie is using in this desert sequence alone:
two A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" tank-killing jets; six F-16
Fighting Falcons; 10 armored Humvees; the Army's Golden Knights
parachute team; two Abrams tanks; two Bradley tanks; two
missile-launcher vehicles; two armored personnel carriers; and a
quarter-mile of the missile testing range, cleared of unexploded
ordnance and built into an Egyptian town and temple. (Signs warn not
to cross a perimeter just over the gypsum dunes, because live bombs
could be hidden in the sand.)
Among the most important military assets, however, are the off-duty
enlisted men and women paid to be extras or play bit parts, Hamm
says. "They are absolutely loving it. It's a great opportunity for
them. Not only do they get to be in the movie, but they get to
showcase what they can do. When Michael Bay's directing them, they
know all the basics of their weapons and what they're actually
supposed to do, so it's easier for filmmakers to direct the scene
because they're real soldiers and airmen."
So many people are firing so many guns that civilian crew workers go
through between shots, gathering up buckets full of empty brass shell
casings. Having so many scattered around clutters later shots, and
the workers say they can trade them in as scrap and get enough money
for a few cases of beer.
There's a standard rivalry between the Air Force and Army, but it's
even more intense in this part of New Mexico, with the Army's White
Sands Base and the Air Force's Holloman so close to each other. The
military extras split into camps favoring the two main military
characters: Josh Duhamel's Army Ranger Capt. Lennox and Tyrese
Gibson's Air Force Master Sgt. Epps.
Gibson taunts Duhamel that he's the one with the promotion this time,
from tech sergeant in the original. "They moved me up in rank," he
says. "I felt like in the first film we were following him and
chasing him around. Now, I break down all the coordinates and let
them know where to drop bombs and bring the rain."
Duhamel says the leader they're all following, military and actors
alike, is Bay, who is known for such large-scale blow-'em-up popcorn
movies as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, both films that also had large
military elements.
"He's like a big kid who loves to do stuff like this," Duhamel says,
gesturing with his arms to indicate a massive explosion.
'The run of things' on base
The final battle the military is helping Bay create is supposed to be
an enormous firefight in Egypt, but much of it is being shot in the
White Sands dunes in a town built over the roughly quarter-mile
cleared span. There are rundown, mud-brick homes and shops, and along
the edge of the town, a giant temple with smokestack-sized columns
all of it built so it could be blown up.
After completing work in New Mexico, the cast and crew moved to Giza
for scenes at the actual pyramids, getting first-time access to the
5,000-year-old site from the Egyptian government. "It plays a big
plot point," Bay says, noting that they were allowed to shoot on the
pyramids not just around them.
No foreign government would allow a U.S. military force like the one
Bay assembled to march in, guns blazing, fighter jets swooping
overhead, which is why so much of the climactic sequence had to be
done in the USA, preferably on military property.
"They let us do the run of things," Bay says. "We have so many
military assets because this is a great middle ground between a bunch
of bases. Plus, this is a missile range we can just fire into the
set. It's a great place."
The Army allowed the M1 tanks to fire dummy rounds, which count as
training for the tank operators, into the set. Bay, though, was
angling for live ones. The studio has to reimburse the U.S. Treasury
for live munitions and other requests for troops or equipment that
unit commanders don't consider to be valid battle simulation or part
of military training, Bishop says.
Jets are the hardest thing for moviemakers to procure, and producers
have to negotiate with multiple layers of Air Force brass to allow
planes on training missions to do flyovers during filming often as
Hollywood-rigged strafing fire is set off below.
During this shoot, an F-22 Raptor roars by like a mechanical
arrowhead, blasting the earth with the banshee scream of its engines.
It circles the set dozens of times before heading off to complete its
scheduled training.
In the movie, the F-22 will become the machine-shape of the
Decepticon Starscream. "Well, you know," Hamm says, "somebody's got
to play the bad guy!"
As evening draws near, the sun sets off its own pyrotechnic show
above the distant mountains, and Bay is setting up his final shot of
the day: a massive battle sequence involving all the military
vehicles and dozens of troops.
The only problem: Everybody wants to get in the shot, so rooftops are
jammed with soldiers. "Too many lookeeloos!" Bay bellows through his bullhorn.
Bishop looks up at one house with about 20 soldiers on top, clutching
their machine guns, and says, "You'd be a real high-value target. You
know what that means? It means I could kill a lot of you with just
one shot, one grenade. Spread out!"
He tells some to move to a less conspicuous place. They're the
unlucky ones; they won't easily spot themselves on-screen when the
movie comes out.
"Plausibility!" Bishop bellows. "It has to be realistic!"
Army Sgt. Matt Hibbert, holding a prop sniper rifle, calls down: "But
sir, this is Hollywood! I'm shooting at invisible aliens and firing a
gun that never runs out of ammo!"
Bishop bursts out laughing and lets him stay.
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