“Creating Transformers ride was fun challenge”
Hollywood film director Michael Bay is used to the luxury of screen time when working with Transformers so naturally it was a challenge when he started work on Transformers: The Ride.
Working on the newly-opened Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios Singapore (USS), the 42-year-old had to collapse almost seven-and-a-half hours of explosions, stunts and autobot-decepticon fight scenes into just four-and-a-half minutes.
[SLIDESHOW: Launch of Transformers: The Ride]
All three Transformers films exceed two hours and 20 minutes in length, with his most recent installment, Transformers: Dark of the Moon clocking in just six minutes shy of two and a half hours.
"Remember you're only doing something (that's) four minutes," said Bay, of the theme park ride.
"You want to give people some flying, you want to give people some peril, you want to see some heroics in it, so you try to get all that into four minutes… it's a fun challenge," he added, speaking to reporters at the launch of the ride in USS's Sci-Fi City on Friday evening.
Bay acted as creative consultant for the ride, working with screenwriters and his special effects team at Lucasfilm company Industrial Light and Magic, the same one that worked with him on the three Transformers films.
The ride took four years to complete, with Bay joining the team about two-and-a-half years ago.
[Read more about the ride here.]
"It's kind of a mix of working with 'ride people' and 'movie people'," he said, rocking in his chair at the launch press conference earlier on Friday.
"We were directing it the same way we direct shots in the movies; it's the same players doing it, but at the same time we were also dealing with constraints of the ride and how to make it more interactive.
"It was a great melding of what they know in their expertise in how these rides and simulators work, mixed with the photography and the shots that we need," he said.
In working on the ride, Bay said that the Universal Studios ride experts added a new dimension to working on Transformers, creating the unique and immersive experience that ride participants now enjoy.
"The Universal people really know what they're doing. They're very scientific in how they do it, and what you're going to see from your riding vehicle. It's a very complex track system they're doing, it's genius how they figured it out. You're going up elevators, you're going down, you're falling… it's pretty interesting," he said, careful not to add spoilers.
So, is he happy with the ride now?
Bay responded, "This is good right now. It's really good. It's just I'm sure one day it'll (be even better) if they make little refinements, improvements, as technology gets more advanced."
