Transformers Lives On With Explosive Action and Sound

• By concentrating on individual elements – effects, music, dialogue – Technicolor creates cohesive, immersive sound.
• Team lead Greg P. Russell has worked with Michael Bay on all five of his Transformers movies.

With nearly $4 billion at the box office already, Michael Bay’s global film franchise heads back to theaters with Transformers: The Last Knight. Humans and Transformers are at war, and the world’s fate rests on an unusual alliance joining forces, including Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager, Anthony Hopkins’ English Lord, and Laura Haddock’s Oxford Professor.

Bay favors this specialized team approach not only on screen, but behind the scenes as well. For the Technicolor Sound team working closely with Bay on the film, that meant Sound Re-recording Mixer Greg P. Russell would handle the sound effects – while leading fellow Transformer veterans Jeffrey Haboush and Gary Summers as they focused on the music and the dialogue, respectively.  

Explained Haboush, “What’s great about it is everybody concentrates on their own element. [But] even though I am mixing music I am still listening to sound effects and dialogue. The key is in making trade-offs, where the sequence can cut to the music and the action will play musically, and then [where] I will back off a bit and the sound effects will take over.”

Working out of the Technicolor Sound facility on the Paramount lot, the team effort also included Mix Technician Drew Webster. Speaking on the action sequences and their overall approach, Russell said: “Clarity is key and story is everything! We thoroughly enjoyed creating an immersive cinematic experience with all of these films. A well-balanced, dynamic soundtrack with the attention to detail – in my opinion – is what it’s all about.”

In addition to sound, MPC, a Technicolor company, provided visual effects for the new Transformers movie, led by VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack.

Watch the international trailer from Paramount Pictures for more explosive action!