While once a rarely used gimmick, 3D has become a normal part of filmmaking for your major blockbusters and animated films. We'll see it used a lot this summer, but Michael Bay says that Transformers: The Last Knight has all the rest beat. You see, while most 3D is done in post-production, where a normal 2D image is converted into 3D, the new Transformers was actually shot using a pair of 3D IMAX cameras, making its 3D presentation clearly superior to all the rest. According to Bay...
I'm here to keep 3D alive, and the only way to make it the best experience for you is to shoot it natively. That means two cameras, two eyes to see exactly what you're seeing. We're the first movie to ever shoot IMAX 3D. We placed these two cameras on top of each other to give you amazing resolution. Just like your eyes, you see depth. It's beautiful. It's something you can not fake. We're going to spend the extra 10 to 15 million dollars, and we're going to do it right. We're the only movie this summer that was shot in native 3D.
As Michael Bay points out in a Transformers: The Last Knight featurette, most movies have to have editors go through and transform a flat two-dimensional image into 3D by moving different parts of the image in each frame one at a time. By shooting the movie with a pair of IMAX cameras, each camera captures the information the way each of your own eyes would, then, when combined together, a 3D image is created in exactly the same way our own brains work. In addition to it not requiring intensive post-production work, it also should simply look better because it's more natural.
While Michael Bay has been criticized by many for the types of stories that he tells in his movies, there's little one can be critical about when it comes to his commitment to technical excellence. He's always focused on making sure his movies do everything they can from both a visual and audio standpoint. Previous Transformers films have been nominated for Academy Awards because of the quality of their sound work and clearly Bay wants to be sure the visuals reach that level of quality as well.
Check out the director's full comments in the video below.
Since we here at CinemaBlend are always judgemental when it comes to 3D, we're certainly looking forward to checking out the quality of Transformers: The Last Knight when it comes to the 3D presentation. If native 3D filming turns out to be as good as Michael Bay says it is, we can only hope that more movies follow suit.
