Did 9/11 change the way you make action movies – I kept thinking of 9/11 with the plane going through the building – did that enter your mind at any point?

Are you kidding lady? That’s a silly question. Of course it, of course it entered my mind. I don’t even want to go there. Let’s go onto the next question.

I liked the women in this, they weren’t just hot babes, they were brainy, how conscious were you trying to appeal to a female audience, and were Josh and Tyrese chosen for being eye-candy.

I actually met with Josh for one of my Platinum Dunes movies and I really liked him. Got a sense of him in the room there, that was like four months prior, and this thing came up and it was a very efficient budget, I honestly didn’t – I had no money for stars, so I had to be very creative in picking people that I thought were going to break, and after meeting him I really liked him so I wanted to work with him.

And Julie White’s character was great too, they’re great women in this movie.

Awesome. She didn’t have that many lines in the movie and I just kept – Kevin and her were just funny, we just kept doing stuff. I just love his blue collar sensibility and I’ve always wanted to do that joke with the grass, that’s my lawyer, he does that to his kids, he doesn’t let them go on the grass.

So you were thinking about your female audience?

Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

As a filmmaking you seem to get more of your budget on screen than almost anyone else. You get $150 million it looks like $250 million – what’s your secret?

My secret is, I shoot very, very fast. An average director will shoot 20 set ups a day, I do about 75, and they’re real set ups, it’s not like – we work 12 hour days, I don’t go overtime, but we work very hard, I work with my same crew, I gave 30% of my fee because they were going to ship me to Canada or Australia, and I said, ‘No, I want to shoot with my guys.’ It’s a team that I’ve worked with for close to 16 years, and it’s just – I like to keep the movies in Los Angeles if I could, and especially keep them in the States, and the money – we just saved so much money, because I have really good people. I don’t know, we just make an efficient day. I think music videos give me a sense of – I’m able to shoot fast and when the shit hits the fan, which it always does on a movie, you’ve got to figure out your plan A and B, and I do this system called leapfrog. Like I said, the whole A.D. thing that gets out there, Michael Bay yells, Michael Bay’s being the assistant director, okay, three shots, we’re doing this, I want you to prep that, so we’re leapfrogging, we’re almost ready for the next shot. It’s almost hard, actors don’t even go back to their trailers, if you’ve probably already heard. ‘Tyrese, put your clothes back on.’ He would always take his clothes off. And that’s a lot of stuff to put back on.

How did you guys arrive at the tone of the film?

I think it was just my gut, I knew its Transformers, you can’t take it too seriously, but you wanted to give that sense of realism. That’s why the military involvement was very important, that we make it very real and credible. Like those guys in the AWAC those are all the real guys. I told them, this is what’s going down on the ground, what would you say? And literally within two minutes they were, ‘dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,’ I just photographed what they said. So I think you mix the realism with Tyrese being in the worst situation, and he says, ‘Man, if you could see this shit,’ that sounds real, but it comes in a funny way. I made little jabs here and there like, that’s way too smart for Iranians scientists, or, how much do you get bugged by these outsourcing calls, you know, the calls out there. It just bugs me. When I forget to pay my AT & T bill, I get a call, ‘Mr. Bay,’ and they’re calling from Bombay, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t pay it.’ (feigns hanging up the phone). Anyway.

Tyrese made a joke that he was running and dodging cars and everything and then he had to say a joke. As a director, you somehow manage to get real emotion in an action film. What is more important for you and is there a balance you are seeking?

Yeah, you want it to feel real. What I try to do, especially when actors are doing action stuff – the crew jokes – Ian, don’t you call it ‘Bayos’?

Ian Bryce: Yeah. Bayos is one of them.

Try to have a little bit of chaos. It’s very organized, but you get them a little fritzed, y’know? Because it just gives them more adrenaline. It’s a little bit of the unknown and they will have a lot of loud bombs and stuff like that on the set if that’s what it calls for. And I like to see the real emotion when they are inside these action scenes.

So what’s more important to you? Is it story or action?

No, it’s both. It’s a balance. It’s both.

You are your own AD is that because of the scale of the project or because you can’t find the people who work at the pace you want to?

I just love it.  I dunno, it’s just my thing. It keeps me interested. My thing is I will get to set usually 45 minutes after everyone is there, because I don’t like people – watching them eat burritos and their eggs? I want to go to work. It’s like, so, they always go on the radio, ‘Bay’s coming in hot. He’s coming in hot.’ (Laughs.) It just keeps me really involved. That’s my thing, I dunno. That’s the creative things for me.

What was going through your head last night at that first screening?

We’ll I’ve got to apologize, the print was way oversaturated.  Way too much color.  Way too much red, so I was having a freak-out on that. We are trying to figure out what the problem was.  Bad projector or something. But, I thought it was fun. I said, I mean, when I said, ‘You guys are the first in the United States to see this,’ it was true.

Was it loud enough for you?

Yeah, I turned it down. (Laughs.)  I said, ‘Turn it down. Turn it down’

Is it always stressful watching it on the screen in front of people for the first time?

Yes, it is so nerve wracking. Do you want me to describe the testing process?  Real quick.  I do little focus groups on my own. I’ll take like 30 kids into a screening room. I’ll do like 9-year-olds to 15-year-olds, and I did like 16 year-olds to 25 year-olds and I have someone who has nothing to do with the movie come in and say, ‘You can say whatever you want about this movie.’  I show it in rough form and they were great, because they will fill out little pages about what is confusing them, what lines they thought sucked. They are very blunt about it.  And there was something where they hated Megan. She said one line and the women just turned off.  And I’m like, ‘We’ve got to deal with that.’ And then I get to the big test in Phoenix where we did 450 people.  It was all families and I’m like ‘Ah, the kids are cute because they are applauding at different things.’ ‘Oh, they all laughed at the masturbation thing and they are 9-years-old.’ (Laughs.) ‘ dunno. Must be younger now.’ Ok, so then I went to the adult screening next store, introduced that. And I’m doing this little sound button thing and this guy sitting next to me goes, ‘What’s that?’ ‘Oh, it’s just the sound.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘Oh, I’m the director.’  So the movie stats they were like laughing and applauding at certain things.  And I’m thinking, ‘This sucks.  This movie sucks. It’s a kiddie movie, alright?’  And I said to the guy sitting next to me, ‘Do you like this type of movie?’ And he goes, ‘Eh.’ I’m like, ‘Ugh. It’s a kid movie. It’s a kid movie.’  So all these emotions go through your head. And then we did a focus group.  I ran out and we did a focus group with the kids and the parents in the focus group. 26 out of 26 gave it an excellent.  I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’  Our scores were gigantic.  I’m like, ‘That’s O.K., because it’s a kids movie.’  Then I went to the adult focus group and we got the same score. We got like a 95.  And I was like, ‘That’s weird. A lot of the older ladies, like 35, 40, they are like, ‘I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want to see this. I was dragged here.’ It’s true! This one lady goes, ‘This kinds of reinvents super heroes.’  She said this great line. She goes, ‘We’re tired of the suits and the whatever. This is totally new and different.’ Anyway, It’s still nerve-wracking, you know what I’m saying? That is a long boring answer.

John Turturro said that he based a lot of his character on you. (Laughs.) Wondering what you guys discussed?

No, I was scared to work with John Turturro. I was like, ‘Oh, John.’  He came out a little quirky. When he had that hat -- that was the first day I worked with him – at the damn.  I said, ‘I don’t know about this. I dunno.’  I dunno, I grew to really like working with John.  I don’t know if he based it on me, but I do think criminals are hot by the way. No, I’m kidding.  I dunno if he based it on me.  He said that, but you should see his Scorsese imitation.  It’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Michael, some of this movie plays like almost a recruiting vehicle for the military.  Can you talk about all the military elements in the film that you said grounded the film more in reality?

Here’s the thing.  You’ve got to have more than the external alien invasion.  To make it credible, you have to have the military.  I just don’t like when you see like an ‘Independence Day’ and they don’t get military support and you’ve got like a few jeeps and you’ve got this and everything is kind of mismatched and it’s all digital planes and it’s like, it’s just not credible. So you need that reality so you can ground this little kid’s story. I had a good relationship with them on ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Pearl.’ And, so I somehow convinced them. This is the largest cooperation since ‘Black Hawk’ and ‘Pearl’ for them.  And Linesfield Stroup (spelled wrong-I did the best I could), who is the liaison at the Pentagon, he’s like, ‘Well, y’know, if aliens do land, I mean the US military should be involved.’ (Laughs.) And I’m like, ‘That’s appropriate.’  So, but, I am always good at weaseling stuff that’s never been shot like the F22 and all that stuff. And I think they like me because I really respect the military. I respect the soldiers. The people, the men and women who really will sacrifice themselves.  Those guys around Josh and Tyrese, they are all the real guys. They are all special ops seals and it’s fascinating. I’m just enamored by people who will really go to combat.  It’s just a wild thing.

A lot of equipment and ships and planes going.

If you look at the theme, ‘No sacrifice, no victory.’  I think that’s how they see it. They just want to be treated credibly. They want it to be shown in a real light.  If you are fighting Scorponok how would they do an air strike? So we literally show you how it happens?

So are the guys in the movie retired?

No, those were guys who have either taken leave.  Some of them were actually going to get called back to Iraq. And I mean, they all, this is the thing that happens to all of them.  They get the Hollywood bug. We call one of them Hollywood. He trains U.S. Seals down in Coronado and we’re like, ‘Dude, just go back to getting a seal.’

Can you talk about GM and the introduction of the new Camero?

O.K., I mean, I had $145 million. I needed to find a car company that can give me a bunch of vehicles and save me three million bucks. And I opened it up to every car company.  And I have a relationship with GM because I’ve done commercials with them and they have helped me out on my other movies by giving me flood damaged cars or cars that had to be destroyed. And they took me to Skunkworks, which is where they do the prototype cars, it’s a secret place somewhere.  And I saw that car and I said, ‘That’s Bumblebee.’ And, so, to help save $3 million and it was a great looking car.

We heard there was a GM guy on set who wouldn’t let them touch the leather, but when he wasn’t around you raced the car through gravel at 145 miles per hour.

No.  We did have the one prototype.  The prototypes are really hard because they cost like $5 million to make.  We made our own, we had the cab out there with a celine chasse, and we made it in like six weeks in Detroit really fast.

PR person: This is the last question.

Couple more, couple more.

How have you changed as a filmmaker over the past few years?

I’ve gotten older, crankier. No, I’m not cranky.  No, I don’t. I don’t. I crack a lot of jokes. I tease people. A little bit. 

I mean, do you think this movie is different from your predecessors?

I mean, someone said to me in Australia, ‘Well, after ‘The Island’ did you want to go back to your more safe roots?’ And I just thought this idea if it was done in a cool way could be a big idea and a fun movie idea. And a fun summer movie and I liked the challenge of taking something that hasn’t been done and trying to working with my team of artists for months, 8 months, 9 months and my digital effects companies, to try and create characters made out of thin air. And it was something really challenging for me.  It’s like doing an animated movie. Working with animators is such a great process.  And the end result, it’s like, you look at Bumblebee and it’s like there is a soul in this thing.  That was a fun challenge for me. 

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