Well, it’s certainly more than meets the eye, and tonight I saw something I wager I will never see again: the Los Angeles River, from within the channel.
Why was I there? Well, I was visiting the location shoot for Transformers, the new Michael Bay film that will be out next summer. I won’t get into too many details (after all, I was a guest to the set, and don’t wanna spoil anything), but will say that it was pretty cool to see a big-budget location shoot.
Two sequences were filmed in the concrete riverbed when I was there. The first was a sequence with Shia LaBeouf getting captured by a bunch of secret military black-ops folks, and the other one involved Bumblebee (in car form) racing down the angled side of the river, apparently being chased. They had a cool camera car with a mini crane on it, and Michael Bay was in the passenger seat watching the action. As they did a few runs zooming down the channel, they got progressively faster – and a few times, the stunt driver skidded (what appeared to be) very close to the wall – certainly got my heart pumping! But everyone on set was a pro, and it was clear that Bay has a very well oiled filmmaking team.
I only got to stay about an hour there, but it was pretty interesting to see how Bay shoots his action sequences, and I got to see a part of Los Angeles I doubt I’ll ever see again – until Transformers hits theaters next year.