TRANSFORMERS - Q&A with director Michael Bay

What attracted you to making this film?

I obviously come from a huge action background and er they transform and I, it just kept hitting me - well what if they transform at 80 miles an hour, you've never seen that before, and er, you know I think I'd be the one in the world to show people how to do that.

Tell us about the effects in the movie.

These effects, they totally reach a new benchmark in the effects world, ILM I think it's some of the best stuff they've ever done because they're the most complicated effects, these are fully rendered, very extremely real looking robots, made out of 10,000 parts or 15,000 parts, different robots, different sizes, but, but when you see the movie you feel that they have a soul inside of them.

What is your impression of Shia LaBeouf?

You're hanging the whole movie on a 19 year-old kid. A 150 million dollar movie, is a... It's a scary thing and er... But this kid, I think I've struck gold with this kid. He is a, he is like a young Tom Hanks. He's just so funny and charming and he is like the everyday kind of guy, you know, very accessible to women and men.

Why the film released in summer?

I do summer movies that's what I do, and summer is about having fun, and enjoying your experience at the movie, and er, so comedy has always been a big thing in my movies and showing action that you've never seen before and visual effect that you've never seen and I think this movie is the movie that's really new and different this summer, so it's something you haven't seen.

Give us a brief outline of the story.

You've got good robots, you've got bad robots, um it's basically their war, our world and they're coming here for a certain reason that the movie lets you in on and, so it's basically an alien invasion movie and we're just bystanders.

Is this the biggest action movie ever made?

I don't know if it's the biggest action movie, it's, it's the most unique action movie that I've done. I guess you could say that, because these, these robots weren't there, so it's a lot of going into your imagination of what it's going to be.

I'm the old school guy shoot it real - you know a lot people A lot of directors like this blue screen world. I hate it, I can't stand it, it's just so stale and you can see it with the performances, so we only had two green screen days or blue screen days on this movie. I basically shoot it all in the real world. I do. I'm like the old school director that shoots real stunts, you know, it's a dying breed right now.

What gave you the idea to use a Porsche in the movie?

I think I drove by a Porsche dealership, it was very much my experience buying a car with my dad. Whatever I saved he was going to split, and mine was a VW Cheroko, um, but er, yeah, you know that, Shia's dad, he's just like the every day, blue collar kind of dad, you know.

Which actors did you enjoy working with the most?

Working with John Tuturro, first time, brilliant guy, he's just so funny and er, Jon, Jon Voight. He's the consummate pro, he's kind of like a leader among the cast, you know, the guy who's got the Academy Award, you know also breaking Shia and Megan. Shia's obviously done many movies before but this is his first gigantic movie, you know that kid's gonna go far.

Question and Answer text Copyright Paramount Pictures UK