ShootForTheEdit.com admin Nelson has posted some information and images from his trip to the Chicago set for Transformers: Age of Extinction. Below you will find a quote of what "Nelson" had to say

As some of you know, I visited the TF4 set in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. I won't bore you with the details, but here are some things I noticed and discovered.

Michael has a totally new crew for this movie (aside from the DP & the AD). Stunt people & drivers, SFX crew, camera crew, and grips. I guess it goes with the whole "fresh" feel and look of TF4.

...

The truck company for Optimus Prime in TF 1-2-3 never wanted anything to do with the movie franchise. Before filming the first TF movie, the production crew approach the truck company to see if they could lend them 2 trucks. They said no. The producers then found 2 old rusty 1995 models that barely worked and gave them a paint job that got the job done with a very tight budget for chrome and stuff. This time around, Western Star (a subsidiary of Daimler Trucks North America) gave them 2 new trucks. No questions asked.

Optimus Prime was painted by West Coast Customs.

...

There are 2 of every car, truck, and vehicle in this production (one for back up).

• 1 Bugatti is owned by a private owner. The other is a loaner from Bugatti.
• 1 Lamborghini Aventador was purchased by the studio. The other was purchased by Bay (the one with the interior shots in the movie).
• 1 vintage 1967 Camaro SS (BumbleBee) is owned by the studio, the other by Bay.
• Optimus and BumbleBee GGI renders are still being tweaked. Optimus looks grand and BB looks sleek, refined and badass.

...

Bay showed me a 5 min sizzle reel. It was f-ing amazing. After I saw it, he asked me "Kinda boring eh?" I think with all the pressure he's got, deprecating himself is his idea of humor. It also probably makes him strive more towards creating a kick-ass movie.

...

In the picture above you can see BumbleBee's head (paper weight) made of car parts (gears and stuff).

All the catering trucks have California license plates, I wonder why? I wonder if the local catering companies got tossed because of the leaked call sheet? Some how the food is better this time around (IMO).

All images are copyright of Michael Bay by Michael Bay Dot Com, on Flickr

You can view the original post along with the images over on ShootForTheEdit.com as well as after the jump along with all of the other official images.

Nelson, the Site Admin of Michael Bay's Shoot For The Edit website, has posted some new info on the Transformers: Age Of Extinction including confirmation that the "bearded robot" who's face was seen on a pole, will be Hound.

"I like how Bumblebee looks like in robot form this time around. He looks badass and sleek.

The Stingray is one of my favorite looking robots.

So is the Bugatti. Wait til you see this guy in action. He will blow your mind!!

And Hound reminds me of the bearded chubby fellow in Braveheart. He might take the cake when it comes to personality."

In a strange turn of events, which will no doubt turn out not to be true, Michael Bay's message board administrator Nelson posted the following comment on on ShootForTheEdit.com when asked about who the red robot in Transformers: Dark of the Moon was following on from a post by him that it was not Mirage. I have embolden Nelson's posts below to help distinguish them from the questions that prompted the answers.

"All I will say is that he speaks with an Italian accent and is named after a famous Italian."

This was followed by the posts

"That doesn't mean s**t. In the comic and novels the twins are still in it." in response to a post by Jason Gould where Jason posted "Come on guys it's Mirage, his name is already in the toys, books, and Novelization.".  Nelson then went on to quote Plague1980 wh posted "Are we talking about two different red robots here? In the children's books besides Sentinel, the only other red Autobot is the Ferrari which we all know is Mirage. Now if you are talking about another bot that we dont know about and trying to hint at it, the first famous Italian name that comes to mind is "COSIMO" as in Cosmos lol" following up with the response "Don't act dumb. You know I'm talking about the red Ferrari."

This mean that Paramount must have had to hired a new voice actor to record all of Mirage's lines and also have re-recorded any dialogue that names the character, though going by the first two movies this is also feasible.  It must have happened fairly recently as not only does the novelisation of the film refers to the character as Mirage but so does the toys and the prequel video game by Activision in which he speaks with an Arabian-based accent.  All of the other characters within the video game are voiced by the same voice actors as the Dark of the Moon movie.

We will keep you up-to-date on this story as it develops

Update:

When we posed the following over on ShootForTheEdit "This is very interesting . I know you won't want to give out the new name for the character but I was wondering when this change took place.", Nelson simply replied with "In the movie script, he was never called Mirage to begin with.".

I have since replied to clarify my question and I will let you all know if Nelson replies to that.

Update 2:

Nevermore complied a great lists of quotes that Nelson posted on TFW2005.com over on the ShootForTheEdit thread linked to that the start of this article that go some way to explain what went down with the character.

"Think about it.Mattel owns the toy merchandising rights to Ferrari. Why would Ferrari allow one of their flagship car to be named after a Hasbro property name (Mirage) in one of the biggest movies this year––thus undermining Mattel and possibly creating a huge clusterhug? And before you say "Well the toy is not named Mirage," look again, that's no Ferrari.

"In all the treatments and scripts all the way up to the post production of the DOTM movie, the Ferrari was never referred to as Mirage. He was referred to by other names such as Rush & Enzo, but never as Mirage.Capisce?"

So, as Nevermore himself put it over on ShootForTheEdit, Dark of the Moon is "a movie based on Hasbro's Transformers property includes a character as a Transformer who must not be named after one of Hasbro's Transformers characters. I guess that shows how little say Hasbro has in these movies."

Sources of the quotes:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers...tml#post6103423

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers...tml#post6103518

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers...tml#post6103534

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers...tml#post6103650

In a response to a comment regarding Michael Bay not being involved with the teaser trailer for Transformers Dark of the Moon over on ShootForTheEdit.com, forum administrator Nelson posted the following reply:

"Wrong. He said initially he didn't have anything to do with it and then later became totally involved. Who do you think shot those NASA, astronauts walking on the moon, and Ark scenes?".­

Now is Nelson simply teasing fans or is this the reveal that the spaceship seen in the trailer is actually The Ark?­

Nelson has posted on Shoot for the Edit once again with another update on Transformers 3

Nelson here...

I arrived at the Chicago Michigan Ave. set on Friday, July 16th. I was greeted by Mike Case (Bay's assistant) and was taken to Bay's monitor tent which was in the middle of a war zone. Michael greeted and proceeded to ask some things about the site. He then took out his iPad and showed me animatics of some sequences. Holy moly. This movie is going to be huge!!! In my opinion, more epic than TF2 with the first time amazement of TF1. I wish I could tell you what I saw on the animatics, but I can't.

Bay was filming a scene with Shia (Sam) & Rosie (Carly) in which they were hiding within a wrecked and flipped car. At around that time the temperature hit 102 degrees (including humidity index). It was so hot that Shia was sweating through his leather jacket and as was Rosie. Back to the scene... apparently the scene is one in which a Decepticon is hunting for them. As Bay filmed this, a cue from the score was played to add to the suspense.

As the crew broke for lunch, I met Lester Speight (Coltrane on Gears of War) and went on to lunch with him. He was very nice and delightful.

Later, I got to meet the rest of the cast: Shia, Rosie, Tyrese, and Josh.

I had the pleasure of talking to Shia for for about 30 minutes and with Tyrese and Josh for another 30 minutes. All these guys have an impressionable work ethic, are fun to talk to and down-to-earth people. And that goes for the rest of the crew. I many many nice and professional people that are working their hardest to make this movie successful and entertaining.

As the day came about, Bay, Shia, Tyrese & Josh all came to meet than fans that had been waiting since 7am to catch a glimpse down the street. They also were interviewed by CBS 2 TV in which Bay praised the city of Chicago.

As always, Bay left the best for last. Explosions and gunfire!!

That's it for now. I will post a video of some of the activities later.

Enjoy."

Previously it was believed the name Rush was that of the Ferrari, but in fact it was the name of the street in which it was parked

Nelson, the admin of Michael Bay's website and message board, has posted the following update regarding the DVD and Blu-Ray released of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that will contain the extra footage shown at the Imax.

"I spoke to Paramount today and here's the lowdown on the Imax TF2 release:

Walmart will have exclusive rights on selling the ROFT (w/ Imax) on DVD and Blu-ray."

There is no word on how this will affect non-US releases of the film