“Transformers One,” the animated reboot from Paramount/Hasbro and director Josh Cooley (“Toy Story 4”), leverages the format as never before with a brand new handmade look and an emphasis on emotional performance that helps us better connect with the robots. Also, transformations are key as homages to the original toys and the ’80s G1 cartoon series, with every piece of the robot having a corresponding place on the vehicle.
This plays into the origin story of Cybertron and the roots of its destruction by focusing on the friendship between lowly miners Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry). They eventually transform into the legendary Autobots Optimus Prime and Megatron, only to become bitter enemies divided by optimism and anger.
ILM was tasked with the animation (only its third feature following “Ultraman: Rising” and the Oscar-winning “Rango”), overseen by VFX supervisor Frazer Churchill and animation supervisor Stephen King. ILM had a distinct advantage from handling the photorealistic VFX for most of the Michael Bay live-action films, but this was a major pivot that split the difference between CG photorealism and 2D animation.
“Most of the time we’re doing live-action visual effects, and so we came at it with that sort of mindset,” Churchill told IndieWire. “The lighting, the cinematic style, is influenced and borrowed from our experience in live-action. But we thought: How’s the film gonna look? Obviously, we want the Transformers to feel like they’re made of metal. We want them to feel real. And, because of technology these days, it’s not that difficult a task to make things sort of metal photorealistic. But this was different as an homage to the G1 cartoons and we wanted to transform these characters more like the toys.”
For King (who worked on “Transformers: The Last Knight”), delving back into the cartoon series for the silhouettes and iconic action poses was like playing with toys in some respects, especially for the transformations. In fact, during look development, the characters were built with LEGOs. This led to a simplicity in overall character design.
“The live-action characters had a lot of cheating [for the transformations],” King told IndieWire. “We’d move the panel and the whole hood would disappear and five different pieces would separate. But on this one, you get to see them transform properly, with no cheating, which is really exciting for the fans.
“The first transformations, when they first get their cogs, is a special moment in the film,” King continued. “So we really wanted to hero it out. And we had some great layout and really great cameras that helped capture that. It’s a shock and awe moment.”
But it was almost like relearning what they had previously done in creating a brand new look for the robots they called “stylized realism,” which was emphasized by supersaturated colors. “Part of the character design is to make them feel more humanoid, to have their faces more emotive,” added Churchill. “So they’re not sliding panels that we know from the Bayverse. It’s kind of a malleable human face. And I think Steve’s animation team was able to get a lot of emotional performance out of the characters in that sense.
“The humanistic quality to the faces of Orion Pax and D-16 was definitely intentional,” King added. “But in order to still give them that robotic feel, we gave their eyes a lot of like controls, and they had very unique shapes and a lot panels that allowed us to move them not so much like human eyes, but more like hammers and camera apertures. D-16, for example, has taggable eye shapes, and you can use those to display emotion. If he’s angry, they’d be tilting down, almost like an extension of his brow.”
They additionally focused on detailed surfacing for the wear and tear of the two hero robots, along with traditionally animated flourishes. They borrowed a technique of famed illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, known for his sleek, idealized style from the early to mid-20th century. “He used to illustrate his characters with these kind of raking ink patterns randomly placed around them,” King said.
“So we made a shader, which only appears in the highlight areas of the characters,” King continued, “where you’ll suddenly see a little bit of breaking ink work, as well as a slight hand-painted feel early on in the movie. This is something we did on character close-ups and mid-shots. So where there’s a brightly lit scene, where they’re talking in the repair bay after the [Autobot] race, you’ll notice that Leyendecker technique in their highlights.”
Much attention was also paid to Orion Pax and D-16 becoming Optimus Prime and Megatron. For example, Optimus Prime needed the proper shade of red, which took several iterations because this was not 2D. “We were sitting in dailies and looking at him thinking he’s not red enough,” Churchill said. “He’s now Optimus, and he needs to be more red. We had to go away and develop a way of just popping his red out.
“And so we introduced this kind of car paint feel,” continued Churchill. “Once both Optimus and Megatron transform, you’ll see sparkly speckles in the subsurface of the paint, which made them feel like showroom fresh cars. And then when they’re Optimus and Megatron at the end, they’re completely pristine and very shiny.”
