Nerd Valhalla. That’s how I described it. That’s how another journo on my trip to San Francisco quoted me saying about being at the Presidio. For, if you’re like me, you have a soft and wet spot in your heart for Industrial Light and Magic. They, the company that George Lucas and his team of effects nerds formed after Star Wars, are pure even in the light of the prequel’s transgressions. For they have advanced moviemaking and cinema in ways that could likely not have been imagined 30 years ago when Star Wars first hit theaters. And in some ways that journey has taken them to the pinnacle they achieved in Michael Bay’s Transformers (and that’s only a slight embellishment)

Though I tend to abstain from the diary-esque travelogue approach to writing about an event, I can do little but swoon and recite what it was like to go to ILM to talk about Transformers. I assume it’s vaguely similar to Millhouse hitting the cracker factory, the amount of wonder and awe I felt at going to ILM is simply contagious so feel free to remove your E.T.-esque contagion suit and breathe deeply in my geekery. Being there I felt twelve. And I liked it. And it wasn’t in a dirty uncle way, I swear (and have testified to previously).

It was an early morning flight from Burbank to San Francisco. I didn’t get to bed before two (I went out dancing before, because, priorities, man) and three hours later had to ready myself for travel. But sleeping was useless. A car picked me and a couple of other LA travelers up as the hour long flight was followed by an hour long car trip where the latest movies were rehashed. I conversed, flirted (there was at least one woman, though married, amongst our group) and tried not to lose my poop in expectations of going to the ILM studio. Of course, full throttle geekage would have been more my cup if we were headed to the ranch, but as those who know know, the company is no longer in Marin county, but - as previously mentioned – is currently located at The Presidio. Driving in Bernard Hermann’s music swirled through my swooning head as the Golden Gate bridge could be spotted - though only in part - through the fog. All the better though. Morning was breaking, and not even a lack of caffeine or food could keep my inner nerd repressed.

Arriving there, you are greeted with a statue of Yoda. For the first time in forever  I could not contain my camera glee (I took three pictures while in London and there I was hanging out with Helen Mirren, Brendan Fraser, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) - then again, photographing props is slightly less intrusive than human beings. But within the first ten minute I had already snapped Yoda, Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Striding the halls of their campus, the walls are covered in movie posters from around the world. Though a couple of hallways feature ILM films exclusively, there are also foreign posters for Budd Boetchier films, Italian 40x60’s for Blazing Saddles, and posters for films like Gone with the Wind. Also, above one of the security guards is that rock and roll Star Wars poster where the OT kids are jamming (you know the one).

Then we were taken to one of their immaculate screening rooms for a sizzle reel of transforming Transformers and our first (of four) talks/interviews of the day. Second Unit Director and Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Farrar was the first and he sat down with an Optimus Prime toy and told us that it had 51 pieces, and the animated version had “10,108, and every one has to be built, modeled, painted and connected. There’s an underlying skeleton and it takes a lot computer power to do that, a lot of talent, so stuff looks right.” It was a lot of work, but that was just the start “The challenge was to make them not look like big dumb robots. Michael Bay wanted them to look like ninjas - nimble. We studied Hong Kong fighting movies where they used wire work. So with all that we developed an idea what these guys would look like. No lumbering. The next thing to do was give them character. And we had to animate the mouths to give them that character. There were over 100 lines for them, so there’s a lot of work involved. It took us a couple years to do the movie. And having come from a photo background, shooting spaceships and what not, working with really great talent (like Russell Earl) it takes people like that to deliver this work, and we really hit a new mark. The upshot is it turned out a lot better than we thought it would.”

Fan controversy brought up lips again “There’s a big difference between doing an animated version and a CGI one. We tried different mouth movements, so I just said let’s just put segmented lips on him and try it, and we tried and Michael said ‘looks great.’ Emotionally we weren’t keen on it, but logically, it was the only way to go. Because of budget reasons we had hero characters that would really have to hold up under scrutiny, and at the beginning we only focused on them. But the way the script changed, we had to do that for everyone. Part of that is the way films come together, and characters that weren’t in close up had to get in close up. With Michael you felt you had to do it.”

What about physics? “Here at ILM we have resident experts on how physics should work. In creating movement for rubble or springs, or whatever. We can get that absolutely physically correct. However... Michael Bay is keen on saying ‘I don’t care, it’s just gotta look cool.’ It goes back to the cool factor. And I completely agree with that, you always need a little pizzazz. This is showmanship. The transformation is a cheat. Pieces change scale. Optimus got a huge layering of parts – you’re making a movie, so you’ve got to keep in mind what the camera sees. We added a lot of movement we didn’t anticipate. It’s a learning process.”

Transformers 2 has been announced, so then where does that learning curve go? “We want to improve on some of the processes. Why do they look real? Partly it’s reflectivity. We were shooting environment with five cameras. We monkeyed with that, it’s laborious, and ‘bling; - or point reflections - we have to hand animate. And there’s a lot of trickery, a lot of parts that don’t reflect light like they do in the real world. We’re going to get quicker. And Bay is always thinking about new crazy actions. It’s a circus, and you’ve got to put the tight-wire up higher the next time. The commitment is to not chuck out a sequel. There’s a deep story for everybody. So they really want to keep the characters rich. We can go to much moodier lighting. It will be improved.”

“Michael’s very hands on, we had meetings just about every day. We had a live feed to his suite in Santa Monica. He’d get really obsessed about something. He’s very specific, but he can’t always express it - like most directors - though he’s really smart about lighting. He really cares about the shots. He’ll come up here and ask who’s working on the shot, and sit in and work with them. We gave warnings - he’s filled with rough language - and we told people that we’d protect them, but no one took us up on that. You make inventions for every show you do. One thing that had to be created for this was something to give the animators more control of the pieces. In this case it made it easier for the animator to do anything they needed. Everything is an advancement. Some elements are just as tedious, getting all the paint layers and such, but it’s the same in that if it doesn’t look right you go again. We’re kind of in the stone age, regarding computer graphics, because it’s still hard work, it’s laborious.”

Then Farrar talked about test screenings “We listened to all of that. We tinkered accordingly. The motivation of Sam killing Megatron was not there. It was more or less a stand off between Optimus and Megatron. So we added more dialogue to clear things up. Optimus wasn’t originally saying “I want you to stick in my chest” so it became more an act of heroism. Just trying to make it a little more heartfelt.” And the fans and their concerns about changes to the original designs? “We got brought in after the art department. When I first met Michael, they had already gone to a change of design in the characters. It’s a double whammy, ‘wow, that’s great’ and ‘wow, we have to build that?’ But you can’t go with the simple shapes of the cartoon or toys.”

I then asked about something I heard talked about in regards to The Host, that fire and water are still the worst things for VFX. “We had some fire on this one that I thought turned out pretty good, but it was spasmodic fire, it wasn’t lingering. In regards to the action I thought it worked well. Smoke too. But they’re difficult. Those are sensitive. And water is still hard, because it’s layers and layers and layers to make it look real.”