This scene in the back yard is so wonderful and so much of that is comic timing.  How did you create that comic timing with the characters not ‘being’ there?

What I do is I do a series of animatics, which are crude cartoons. And a movie really comes to life, I mean working with the writers and creating the script, but it all starts with the concept drawings. That becomes the tone of the movie. I showed Steven a picture of Megatron in the hanger and he’s like, ‘Omigod, I love it. That’s the movie!’ And I’m like, ‘I know.’ And that’s how you get the tone. It’s like you build off of there. So, in the backyard we kept coming up with the beats and whatnot.  I think the dog peeing was something we made up.  That’s where we tied a little string to his leg and lifted it up to nothing is there and they added in the squirt.  It’s just really good to work with someone like a Shia or a Megan where they can actually see a cartoon and they are looking at window washer poles, which is tough.  And, you just keep doing it.

Michael what directors do you like?

Oh, god. Everyone always asks me this question.  It’s just, y’know, from Kubrick, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Cohen Bros. ‘Raising Arizona’ was such an instrumental movie in how I’ve done some of my commercials. Just that comic timing. A lot of people didn’t get that movie when it came out.  From Steven to Cameron to Scorsese. When I was young, you’ve probably heard, I worked at Lucasfilm. And when I was 15 I was like a librarian and filed ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ storyboards.  Its how I got interested in the business.

When you were 10 or 8, who or what inspired you to believe in yourself to follow this idea that you could do something?  Who was it and what did they tell you?

Who was it? I dunno. When I was young I wanted to be a veterinarian. And I remember raising money because they took me to a place where they gassed the dogs and the cats and I was like, ‘Omigod, I can’t believe this exists in the world.’ I’ve had many different interests. I wanted to be a magician. So, I was inspired by that, but I realized there was no money in being a magician.  So, I gave it up and I liquidated all my tricks to another competing group that was 12. (Laughs.)

But you continued to dream. Who kept you going?

I think it was my parents, really. They kind of encouraged me to do art. I bought a camera when I was 13. I just loved taking pictures. So, it was really my parents.  I mean my dad was an accountant and I remember, this is funny, when I was young I was a big baseball player, but I had this model train set and I would go into my world and make it very detailed Ho Gage train set. And I remember one summer I spent 8 months building the thing.  Fully detailed and I’d go into my imaginary world. And my dad and mom came into the bedroom one day and they go, ‘Son, we think you need to get out more.’ (Laughs.)  So, that’s where I started imagining. I think the train sets are were I made my own little movies in my head.

So you took it down the street for a walk and it worked.

We’ll see.

If this film is a monster hit, are you willing to jump back into a sequel and what characters you’d like to bring to the franchise?

I mean I have some really cool things that I came up with for the first one that was just too expensive. Stuff that was really cool, but Steven was right, ‘No, we should pull back and not have as many robots so you can really focus more.’ I mean I wish I really got to into some of the faces more of some of the robots. But I really think it was Steven who said, ‘I think we should make it like 5 against 5 or 5 against 6.’ Or something like that. So, it was good we scaled back a bit.

But would you be willing to jump right back in to a sequel?

Maybe a little break.  But, we have to come up with a good story first.

You were talking about Tyrese earlier.  You kept asking him to keep his clothes on…

He kept taking his underwear off in front of me. I don’t know what that was about. (Laughs.) No, I’m kidding.

Can you talk about how he came to the film?

Tyrese – I think he came on my set of ‘Bad Boys’ when we were in Florida.  And he just said to me, ‘I want to be in one of your movies one day.’  And Martin Lawrence was like, ‘Yeah, you wait till you get in one of his movies you’ll fuckin’ hate him.’ No, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.  And so, I dunno, I just thought about him when we were casting this and I thought it was a good idea to couple Josh with somebody. So, it kind of worked out.  I guess I really didn’t answer that question.

What was it about him that made you choose him?

Y’know, he’s got this great smile. He’s this sweet guy. There is something studly about him. I just thought he was accessible, y’know?

The special effects guy said this was the first giant robot movie.  Were you conscious about creating a new movie subgenre?

Well, let me tell you, these robots didn’t come out good at first. It was hard. It was not all peaches and cream at ILM. There were a lot of angry phone calls like, ‘We have to do better. We have to do better.’ They thought they were settling on something and I was like, ‘Nope. This is unacceptable.’ I just kept pushing them and pushing them and pushing them, but we came up with a really a good visual thing. I wanted them not to be clunky, lumbering robots. I looked at a lot of kung fu movies. I wanted them to have a different type of movement so I would just clip different things from different movies and I’d reference those to the animators on how they would move.  What was your question again?

Were you conscious of creating a new subgenre?

Yeah, because if they sucked, if they were horrible than the movie was doomed or is doomed. So, you’ve got a lot of pressure they’re trying to make it work. And you’ve got pressure from the fans saying ‘You wrecked our childhood’ and all this about, complaining ‘We don’t like the look of them.’ You just had to hold to your guns. You just had to I just, y’know, the fans just wanted me to literally take these cartoons and blow them up. And it’s like literally the equivalent of ‘Ghostbusters’ with the Marshmallow man.  It just wouldn’t work.  They needed to be much more complex the way they are. Y’know?

You made a reference about being afraid big movies were going away?

I dunno. You know what it is? You do a movie and then you are unemployed, you know what I’m saying?  So, it’s just like – I dunno.  It’s just. I think Hollywood’s got some stumbling blocks here and there.  You hear where the business is going and there are not a lot of big movies that are made.

It’s a big summer for the movie industry.

I know. That’s good. A lot of people are going to the movies.

But you don’t think that’s going to continue?

Yes, it will.  (Laughs.) It’s just good to think it will never…