Bay Talks Sounds, Hints at Transformers 3

While at the Cary Grant Theatre to discuss Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's sound art, Michael Bay dropped a few a small hint to Hero Complex about Transformers 3 that is currently scheduled to come out on July 1st, 2011.

On TF3:

So can we expect more thunderous sound in the third installment? Although the number of robots increased significantly from the first film for the second, the third film ...won’t be as robot-heavy and there will be fewer explosions, a tight-lipped Bay said after the Q+A.

“There will be a nice crescendo ending,” Bay said. “It gets much more into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the robots; this time you’re gonna get a much cooler landscape.”

On TF2's sound art:

“I have like 2,000 people — through their artistry — making my dreams a film,” Bay said. “The artistry of this sound group is just amazing. I love, love sound. It’s 45-50% of the movies.”

“All of our sounds are performing almost like actors,” said [supervising sound editor Erik] Aadahl, whom Bay described as the “secret weapon” of the films. “They’re just performing the scene through sound. It just takes a lot of playing around with different elements. With sound, we are completely unfettered by the laws of physics.”

[The Reedman] scene meant to “cleanse the palate” from the booming sound featured throughout most of the film. The volume was turned down to enhance the sound created by the energy sparks. So where did the inspiration for the muted, vibrating zing of the microcons come from? A couple of magnets. Spread an inch apart and tossed in the air, they meet to create a quivering sound that -- when amplified by a microphone -- resembles the chattering of insects.

Aadahl said the vibrating hum from his electrical shaver resembled an bug buzz — perfect for a tiny Decepticon scout. The creak from opening the stove door? That served as the central sound for an older (more rusty) Decepticon. And a slamming dryer door was used as the thud for Devastator’s footsteps -- proving that that it doesn’t always take a large element to produce a big sound. “Those huge things seem small in comparison to the small things,” Aadahl said. “We find the macro in the micro.”