Before “Transformers 4” pounds into cinemas next week (sorry, “Transformers: Age of Extinction”), let us take a moment to step back and consider a much smaller, 25-minute film from Chicago-based critic Kevin B. Lee called “Transformers: The Premake,” which went live on YouTube earlier this week and will screen at the Nightingale Friday.
It is a collage of pre-production footage captured by hundreds of bystanders who used their phones to film the crew when it was shooting in Chicago, Detroit, Texas, China and several other locations.
But Lee’s video — which he has worked on over the past year during his graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — is so much more than a best-of clip show.
It is a kinetic, slyly elegant critical essay that he calls a “desktop documentary.” The movie itself is literally an image of Lee’s computer screen as his cursor navigates from web page to web page. There is no voice-over, there are no talking heads, just the frictionless movement from one video player to the next as Lee adroitly reveals deeper themes about the way Hollywood films tend to bigfoot their way around and the increasing prominence of China as an audience movie executives want to exploit.
Q: How did the idea for the “Premake” originate?
A: I just wanted to get out in the sun more. And I heard that they were shooting some of the new “Transformers” movie in Chicago so I thought, “OK, this is a great opportunity for me to actually go outside and have a movie experience.” So I spent six weekends from late August through early October, and I would go to where they were filming in Millennium Park or on Randolph Street right outside the Blue Cross Blue Shield building or South Wacker near the opera house.
And they had teams of production assistants anticipating the crowds and telling them where they could stand. And then handing out all these stickers promoting the movie. So it was like they had intentionally set it up so that the production would also be part of the movie promotion. It was as if Chicago had been transformed into this real-life version of the Universal Studios tour, where you could stand there and see them at work. It was fascinating.
Q: The crowd became a promotional hydra, everyone with their phone.
A: And I considered myself part of that.
I found out about this through this web site called On Location Vacations (onlocationvacations.com), which is a web site where people send in their tips on where films and TV shows might be filming. There’s this whole subculture of people who go out just to see the productions or get an autograph or take a photo of somebody.
And I think so much of it is about seeing yourself connected to this whole apparatus: “This is my little piece of Hollywood that I get to be a part of.” I think there’s something really pure and charming about that, the desire to be part of it. It’s fascinating when it becomes a creative act in itself. The reason I think people shoot all these videos is that it’s their way of participating in the act of filmmaking, which I find wonderful.
Q: Talk to me about some of these fan-made videos, which are so meta: Filming the filmmaking process.
A: In some ways they’re better because they have this real quality. By the time Paramount is done with it, it’s been computer-generated and processed and everything looks so artificial that I actually enjoy watching the YouTube version more. It actually feels like, “Oh my God, Mark Wahlberg is in actual danger! Those are actual pyrotechnics going off just a few feet away from him.” So there’s an immediacy and rawness that I really love about the YouTube footage.
In some ways this is a fan video too, because a fan video is taking something and making it your own version of what you want it be. And this is my version of “Transformers,” one that reveals all these issues regarding Hollywood big-budget productions and tax breaks (that states offer filmmakers) and this growing relationship with China. That’s what I care about as a film critic, so this is my version of “Transformers,” and I’m pretty sure I’d find it much more entertaining than whatever they want me to pay 15 bucks to see on opening night.
Q: Let’s talk about the China angle.
A: All of South Wacker was redesigned as Hong Kong. They had replaced all the street signs with Chinese street signs. And even the Lyric Opera was changed to the Hong Kong Opera House.
So it got me curious, and I started going on fan sites and reading about how they were engineering the film to appeal to a huge Chinese audience. The Chinese box office is No. 2 in the world right now and they’re predicting that in five years it will be No. 1 — that Hollywood will be able to make more money in China than in the U.S. That used to be inconceivable, but it’s a reality that’s coming and you’re seeing it play out in the movies themselves and how they’re being re-engineered.
So that’s another take on the word “premake” — they’ve premade this movie to be a hit in China. It’s going to have the first Chinese-speaking Transformer, and it’s going to have a Chinese actress who’s on screen for half an hour, which is longer than any previous Chinese actor in a blockbuster. So this is all stuff that’s evolving and it may become more visible each year.
Q: There are clips of Michael Bay in your film that are really interesting. He’s insufferable during an interview for Chinese TV and gets petulant when they ask him about box office — this from the guy who has one of the top-grossing franchises in history. And then there’s his meltdown at a keynote speech for Samsung.
A: I wanted it to go beyond the hero worship because that’s the story Hollywood is delivering to us. So I feel like that clip of Michael Bay is so key because it’s him having this little breakdown, despite the fact that he has a Teleprompter telling him what to say. It really pulls the rug out from under this powerful Hollywood director figure who needs to have the lines fed to him and he can’t even do that properly. And everyone in that crowd has a phone or a camera pointed at him, so again it gets at this idea that everybody is a filmmaker.
I’m still trying to figure out the relationship between the guy that gets to make the movie (Bay) and everybody else who’s making a movie without even realizing it.
Q: What about issues of copyright? Can you just crowdsource from anyone on YouTube?
A: To be honest, it seems very gray right now. So instead of shying away from that grayness I’m going to just dive right in. I’m going to do this in a way that I think is very human and responsible. I’ll make available a Google spreadsheet that lists every single video that was part of my research, so I fully acknowledge all my sources. And I made it a point to screen-record the YouTube window because I wanted it to be obvious that this is coming from somewhere else, this is someone’s user page and you can see what their name is.
This is not to say that Jerry48192 won’t come after me for whatever reason and say that I’ve exploited his footage. He can make that claim if he wants. I actually sent him a message telling him: This is what I’m planning to do, I want to use your footage because it’s amazing. And the same Digital Millennium Copyright Act guidelines that he (Jerry) uses to take down other people’s videos, I’m actually using that as a protection because this is a work of critical commentary.
So if someone contacts me, that’s all part of the process. It’s all part of trying to get at a more clear understanding of what governs copyright ownership.
Q: I wonder if Paramount will push back.
A: Again, we’ll just sort of see what happens. I’ve done as much (audible sigh) thinking about it as I can. It could go either way. They could totally come after me. Maybe they’ll have it taken down from YouTube, in which case I’ll either upload it somewhere else or maybe other people will upload it. I don’t mind if other people take the video and upload it on their site because if people see it and like it, that’s all that matters.
Q: You want it to go viral.
A: I’ve had very intense conversations with the new media people and the film people at the SAIC about how to make something viral. Like, on an aesthetic basis. What will keep people watching this, not even from minute to minute but second to second? But at the same time being smart about it. There are enough cat and baby videos out in the world, but how do you do something that has that kind of appeal but can actually stimulate ideas and critical thinking? It’s really difficult.
Q: You made this with the idea that people will watch it online, but you’re also screening it at the Nightingale.
A: This will be a chance to see it on the big screen and talk about it afterward. I’m also going to show some of the best YouTube videos that weren’t incorporated into my video but that I think are just amazing.
Q: You’re not monetizing the video so I don’t think Paramount could prove you’re depriving them of the ability to make money off their product.
A: You know what the worst-case scenario would be for me? Is that they actually use it to promote the film. And I can totally see them spinning it like, “Oh, look what this guy did with all this YouTube footage of Paramount’s ‘Tranformers 4’ — go see the movie!”
I’ve had people tell me that I may have just ended up making a commercial. Like, a really sophisticated commercial for the film. A film magazine editor who hates “Transformers” said, “Oh my God, you may have done the impossible and actually made me interested in seeing this movie.”
And I’m like, oh no, what have I done?
“Transformers: The Premake” is available on YouTube. Filmmaker-critic Kevin B. Lee will also be at the 8 p.m. Friday screening at the Nightingale. Go to nightingalecinema.org.
New experiments
Last year the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund (overseen by Chicago Filmmakers) gave out a total of $100,000 to filmmakers in Chicago to create “socially progressive media arts projects intended for online distribution.” The finished projects screen Saturday and Wednesday. The lineup includes the charmingly hand-made “live-action cartoon” TV pilot from Lily Emerson called “Adventure Sandwich” (the look is something along the lines of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” but with a muted color palette) and “Citizen Primer” by Eric Patrick, an associate professor at Northwestern University and former “Blue’s Clues” animator who has created six animated videos that entertainingly explain mind-numbing topics such as securities regulation and the progressive tax code. Go to chicagofilmmakers.org.
Imminent breakdown
James McAvoy (“X-Men”) stars as an adrenaline/cocaine/hubris-fueled police sergeant in “Filth,” the Scottish-set story of vice and ambition based on the darkly comic 1998 novel of the same name from part-time Chicago resident Irvine Welsh (“Trainspotting”). Welsh will be at the 6:30 p.m. Friday screening for a discussion afterwards. Go to musicboxtheatre.com.
Reunion
More than 30 years ago, filmmaker Malachi Leopold’s now 68-year-old Uncle Alex, a former Peace Corps volunteer, fell in love with another man, named Ali, while he was stationed in Iran. Last year the estranged couple attempted a two-week reunion in Istanbul in the hopes of restarting their relationship. All did not go according to plan, and Leopold was there with his camera. The documentary “Alex & Ali” screens Tuesday at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema. Go to bit.ly/alexalijune24.
Fund a film
Chicago filmmaker Keith Dukavicius is raising money for his next project, a feature-length film called “Breakfast At Marley’s” that is set in Chicago and parts of Michigan. It is, in Dukavicius words, the “story of an usual girl. Who’s not always a girl. And isn’t always a lady. She’s a chanteuse. An artiste. She was the first half of a local indie rock duo in town that was going to break big, until the loss of the other half.” Dukavicius is looking to raise $50,000 over the next 60 days. The campaign begins Saturday. Go to indiegogo.com and search for the film’s title.
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