On the front page of The Post on Thursday, an intense photograph greeted readers: The Capitol appeared to be under attack. Transformers had taken over D.C., Hollywood “big-budget kablooey” exploded in downtown Washington with a pyrotechnics display for the third installment of the Transformers movie, “Transformers: The Dark of the Moon.”
Reporter Aaron Leitko wrote from the scene: “A chain of blinding explosions — fireballs, flames, the works — lit up the intersection. ‘Soldiers’ charged into the street and sprayed ‘machine-gun fire’ into the air, blasting a robot monster that will later be CGI’ed into existence.”
Of course, there were no Transformers at the scene. Those will be inputted into the film later with the help of computer technology. However, we’re impatient at BlogPost. We decided we would help director Michael Bay and imagine the scene our own way.
Can you do better? Go ahead and download the original image, then gussy it up with the battle scene you’d like to play out. Load your image in this gallery and we’ll present some of the best! They are already looking amazing; go check out the gallery. Tracy Woodward got his assignment to shoot the “Tranformers 3” set in downtown Washington Tuesday morning — but had to wait for 12 hours along with thousands of other onlookers before he got his shot.
Woodward first set up near H and 11th streets NW, where Optimus Prime and other stars of the latest “Transformers” sequel were parked until needed on the set. He then moved closer to where day’s action was to take place on Pennsylvania Avenue NW — grabbing a spot near Third Street, just southeast of where the film crews were working.
Woodward decided after dark that he wanted the Capitol in his images, and had to pack up, circle the crowds and move to the northwest edge of the set. “Usually, you don’t want to leave a spot after you’ve invested time in it, but I took a chance,” he said. “There were thousands of people packed in like sardines.”
Finally, about 10:30, the fake ammunition started to go off, and Woodward began to shoot. He used a Nikon D-3 with an 80-200mm zoom lens, set at ISO 2000, F 4.5, and 1/100 of a second. “First, you heard the small-arms fire, then the pyrotechnics, then lots of smoke,” he said. “It was over in about 2.4 minutes.”
-Washington Post
