Transformers: Dark of the Moon represents Richard’s first project for director Michael Bay and he graciously took the time out to discuss his work on the film and insights into the industry of being an art director in Hollywood.

What general elements in Transformers: Dark of the Moon can audiences pick out as being your work?

The streets of Chicago. The vast piles of debris… The physical elements were largely set in place by myself and [Nigel Phelps] on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. It’s a massive undertaking to take what is an intact, beautiful city and make it look like what it looks like in that movie.

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What would you say is the most challenging element of the film for you and what are you most proud of as far as what you accomplished on it?

Everybody contributes as much as they can and I’ve gotta say the overall look of the film is what I’d say I’m most proud of. It looks spectacular. It’s shot brilliantly by Amir (Mokri) and Michael (Bay). It’s pretty amazing to take a present-day world and make it look like that. The moon was the other thing. I didn’t have a huge hand in it. I helped develop the actual dust that was on the moon – the whole surface of the moon. It was a big deal.

What was the most difficult thing to put together?

I think the spacecraft. We were dealing with a world that was glimpsed at in the previous two films – the Autobot spacecraft that crashed on the moon. It was a complicated thing to visualize and pull together. I suppose Chernobyl. They go to the bowels of Chernobyl and what does that really look like? A handful of Russians know what that is and the rest of the world will never know. We’re not going to get there.

You’ve worked on so many film projects and they’ve ranged a lot as far as budget and genre. How does your approach change if you’re doing an action film like Transformers: Dark of the Moon vs. a drama like State of Play or a comedy like Tropic Thunder?

Transformers is a very fast-paced film where you want to do things in broad strokes because (Michael) Bay’s constantly cutting from one angle to another angle to a different angle and [with] his rhythm, you’ve gotta have something visual back there that helps the rhythm and doesn’t confuse the audience… In his films, the action itself is its own character. In say The Road to Perdition, that’s all about invoking the time and the place and Chicago in the 1930s. Oddly enough (it) was shot where Transformers was and it was a whole different approach there. It was muted colour and it was also to set a tone of The Depression and the feeling of what it was like in the ’30s. It was very desaturated, not because we were cutting it quickly, but because that was the feeling Sam Mendes was going for… Then there’s Tropic Thunder where it’s all about a mockumentary (of) what Hollywood does when they make movies… [Tropic Thunder] is more about having a good time, so you can be a lot looser and freer about things in a comedy.

You have a huge range of filmmakers that you’ve worked with – Michael Bay, Oliver Stone, The Coen Brothers, and Tim Burton to name a few. What are the keys to a successful collaboration between an art director and a film director in your experience?

It’s really tough. You’ve got to do a lot of listening. A director will come to you to help. Your job is to help realize their vision. It varies director to director. For instance, Tim (Burton) pretty darn well knows what he wants his films to look like and you’ve really got to pay attention to him and listen to what Tim’s doing and trying to do, then just help him get there with that as much as you possibly can, and just be patient and bring your skills to help him get what he’s after. Other directors like Ben Stiller – he’s not as visually-driven as someone like Tim, so you can [collaborate] a lot more with somebody like that… It’s all incumbent on someone like me to really pay attention and listen to what these guys are trying to do cause they’re the captain of the ship. To be a good crew member, you have to follow the captain.

What inspired you to get started to become an art director to begin with? What people or films influenced you the most?

A lot of European filmmakers, Bergman in particular. I’m Swedish by birth and his style of filmmaking is spectacular, in my opinion. There’s nobody today that even gets half close of that… Initially, I wanted to be an architect and found architecture to be a really closed loop – not that filmmaking isn’t, but as a designer and creator of architecture, you can really do a lot more in a hell of a lot quicker time in the film business. The palette’s so much bigger.

What advice would you give to people who are interested in working as an art director?

I would tell them to get a very, very, very strong background in graphics design and architecture. Proportion is the single most important thing a designer can have and there’s a hell of a lot of people out there that don’t know anything at all about proportions that are trying to be designers and it’s frustrating. It’s very key to the success of a look is proportion and balance and it’s taught best to graphics designers…. Study photography. It’s all about the look. Follow the world of photography – modern photography. Somebody like Annie Leibovitz, her images are striking. Or Mary Ellen Mark – she’s another brilliant, brilliant photographer. Just how they compose and what they do – and what’s that background doing because their eyes are following that background. Don’t for a second think that it’s just about the foreground. .. There’s a lot that goes into these films that the average person in the audience would never imagine.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is in theatres now.

The post The Biz Interview: Richard Johnson of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” appeared first on Biz Books.

Having already teamed up with director Michael Bay on past films like Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, The Rock, and Bad Boys, Ken Bates served as the Stunt Coordinator/Second Unit Director/Co-Producer on Transformers: Dark of the Moon and last worked in the same capacity for his friend and director Michael Bay on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

He joined us from Prague to discuss his refined approach to stuntwork with the added challenges of 3D and CGI in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Transformers is a series that uses a lot of visual effects and action sequences. What’s the creative process like for coordinating sequences that involve actors, stunt performers, and combine them with CG footage later on?

The most difficult thing that people don’t realize is that we’re shooting the movie with things that aren’t there, so we’re working with previews, we’re working with ideas and concepts. It’s not like we have solid scripts… Half of what we shoot is not on the page. It gets really complicated, but I mean the biggest challenge is story structure (and) characters… I think what we didn’t deliver in the second one – and what we delivered in the first – is definitely in the third. I think we have a story structure. I think the characters are great. I think Rosie did a fantastic job. I think Shia really stepped up to the plate. I mean we had so much great talent. The story, it just flows better.

It’s easier to build action when you’re building it around your characters and it goes within your characters and your story, but what people don’t understand is there’s a whole blind side to it. There’s the previews that no one sees that we have to shoot. We’re always shooting around things that aren’t there – for instance, we have to make frame size for robots that will be put in later and we have to know where they are, where they’re coming from, where they’re going, and where what moves, and don’t cross these lines and make space. I think it’s much more complicated than shooting a real film. There’s so much CGI. A real film has like one side to it, but when you get into so much action in Transformers, it’s got like 5 layers to it. This is a CG layer, this is the action, this is a CG layer, this is the visual effects layer, this is the 3D layer, and this is the coverage. I mean it’s just so much and we shot so much 3D. I’ve never worked on a film in my life where we shot so much 3D, just about every day… A lot of films are like 15% 3D or 10% IMAX. I mean we shot a lot of 3D and I think the audience is going to love it. I think we really went overboard in delivering a great film.

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to Independent Filmmaking Recommended Reading Producing for Profit Click a cover for more details Directors Tell the Story The Cheerful Subversive's Guide
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You’ve worked with Michael Bay for a long time. What is it that makes the two of you a great team?

I think the fact that we can talk to each other very badly on the set and go to dinner at the end of the day, but we don’t hold back. Michael – actually, to his credit – he respects me and I respect him. We have a very unusual relationship, but I don’t think it’s something that somebody else could walk into. We’re pretty close. We’ve spent a lot of time together and work is work and fun is fun… we always joke about it cause we clock in and it’s like kind of hitting the time card and going to work and we fight like hell all day long. It’s not about him and it’s not about him. It’s always about the movie, but we get into it. We fight a lot and the result is fantastic. I think we make great movies together. We always have and Michael will continue to make great movies and I will continue to support him.

What advice would you offer to anyone who’s interested in working in the stunt side of things?

The first thing is to do their homework to know what it’s all about because it’s not just about action. It’s about characters and story. It’s about vision and it’s about comprehension of the director. If you’re missing one of those elements, then you’ve missed the boat. Homework is homework. There’s a lot of stunt people, but there’s a select amount of stunt people who have the imagination to offer something to the director. I would like to think I’m one of those guys… For every picture, there’s a different approach. I think that knowing the style of filmmaking, knowing the style of the director – what he’s done, where he’s been, and what you need to do – it’s all part of it. I mean there’s stunt people that come to work that don’t even read a call sheet and they have no idea what they’re shooting, and they ask people sometimes “Hey, what am I dong? What do you want me to do?”. They don’t really keep the call sheet, they don’t read the scenes, they don’t ask questions, and yet they are very big in participation in the film. Without action, without stunt people, there wouldn’t be big action movies.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is in theatres now.

The post The Biz Interview: Ken Bates of Transformers: Dark of the Moon appeared first on Biz Books.