Michael Bay: Filming in 3D is 'tough as hell'

Michael Bay has spoken out about the trials and tribulations of filming in 3D.

You'd think that Bay, with his propensity for ridiculous and seemingly never-ending explosions, would have been first in line to board the 3D express, but his first three dimensional movie is yet to hit cinemas.

Speaking at an event in LA, Bay described how he was loathe to invest in 3D even at the behest of the equally OTT Avatar director James Cameron.

He explained, "Years ago, Jim Cameron called me and told me I needed to do 3D. I told him no!"

But then, eventually, yes

"Then, I was starting work on the first Transformers, and he was making Avatar. He was shooting in this tiny set and asked me to come see it. It looked like mission control, full of hard drives and computers… I'm old school! I like 35mm Panavision cameras and I try to do as much as possible in camera.

"He told me they had great algorithms and things like that. I was, like, 'What the f**k?'"

But Bay did manage to get over this technophobia for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third in the autobot saga in which a lot of things get blown up and some other stuff probably happens too.

Unfortunately, as is wont to happen in Bay's own films, it wasn't plain sailing for the 3D shoot.

"The first day was wonderful. I always have a lot of depth in my shots – foreground, middle ground, and background. I woke up the next day in love with 3D," said Bay.

"Then my producer, Ian Bryce called to say we lost the first day. THE FIRST WHOLE DAY thanks to hard drives failing or something."

No doubt the colour drained out of his face at this point, with the camera zooming in for a tight shot as the off-key strings crescendo-ed in the background.

"We made up the time and I ended up loving the 3D, but it was tough as hell. The 3D rigs had a problem with dust and they needed to be more robust."

From Empire