Michael Bay and crew are blowing things up nicely in Chicago for what seems to be the climax for Transformers 3 and  Joe was on hand to watch the spectacle.  Which actors did he see and which autobots showed up?  Below is his detailed report from the shoot (click on the images for high res pics):

Hey guys, here’s my lil’ report from spending the day downtown.

First off, if you plan on going, do a little more research than I did. I live about 30 mins from Chicago, and barely go, so I don’t know the parking or anything that well.. but try to find a cheap parking garage. We found one, but then of course as we were walking to the set, we saw a couple that were 1/2 the price, lol.. so look around. One thing we were smart about, was bringing our own food… I’ll take bottled water and sammaches any day over some of the overpriced stuff there…

Anyway, when we first walked up to some of the closed off streets, we saw a cool “holding area” where they had rubble and a flipped over bus, sadly, it was on the other side of a street, behind 3 barricades, and a mod of about 500 people… we were going to try to hit it on the way back, but took a different route back to the garage, so this was the best shot I got:

After that, we made our way to the southern part of Michigan Ave that was blocked off. The bad part was it was a bridge, that was partly opened, and you couldn’t walk under it like you could the night before, so I snapped this pic, and then we went on our way to find our way around:

The whole time we were walking around, there was a helicopter flying around. At one point it was real loud, and we looked up and it was right above us, just hovering:

As we walked around a corner, we saw a huge crowd, we walked over and it was the actors/wardrobe trailers and catering area… it was pretty cool cause we were on a bridge and it was below us, so you could see some military(NEST?) guys walking around here and there:

Then, we were all shooed away, and told to move to the end behind a building.. everyone was yelling and complaining, so we just moved across the street, the reason was they were about to set off some huge explosions. I wasn’t able to get a pic of this as it kinda surprised us all. But it was still fun to see and hear.

After standing around a bit, we decided to continue on our way. We made it to Michigan Ave again (the northern tip of the blocked off area), and again, there was a crowd of about 300-500 people, just mashes together. You could only go one way, the other way led to Walgreens, and there were about 5 cops there making sure you only went there to go to Walgreens, lol.. though half the people saying that’s what they needed to do had camera lenses the size of my 6 year old, or were sporting TF shirts, lol..

Anyway, We could see Ratchet in front of us (behind the 300-500 people) but it was real hard to see… I noticed everyone standing on these plant pot things, so I thought, why not? So I stood up there and you could see all the other cars, all covered up. I only took a couple pics as it was real hard to keep balance with everyone and their uncle with their iPhones/cameras trying to also get up there.

There was some yelling and screaming and I thought one of the actors was coming out, but it was only some guy with a camera:

Another guy came out with a big massive camera and a guy next to him with a boom mike, and I’m guessing they were filming extra crap for the DVD or something, cause one guy was waving everyone on, getting them all hyped up… after that, it looked like a family or some VIP guest showed up and they were showing the kids the cards, they took Bumblebees cover off, but I only caught the end of it as they quickly put it back on:

After a while, it died down a bit.. just people, all 300-500 of them standing around, and then some guy with a headset came out and explained that the path to Walgreens was closed for a bit… the helicopter came back and someone asked if they were going to blow anything up, and he said, “Yeah, wait till you hear ‘Fire in the hole’ and then cover your ears”. Sure enough, after about 10 mins of some smoke here and there, There was a huge explosion, followed by a handful of smaller ones. I actually caught part of it on video, but it’s not really worth uploading. all the trees and people, it’s hard to see.

I did take a pic of where the explosion was, afterwards, you can still see the bridge that was raised all the way up, it was kinda cool, but one of those you had to be there kinda things:

After sitting there awhile, it seemed to die down some more, we saw about 20-30 actors/extras in their gear walking away and figured we’d go back to the trailers area to see if we could see anything else:

There was this huge chunk of.. something on a trailer by the cars. Part of a building, wall… I dunno, I like to think it’s some massive cybetronian foot, lol… but I thought it was cool so I took a pic:

Anyway, so we made our way back, and heard all this screaming. As we walked up these stairs, these girls were going on about “I can’t believe he was right in front of us”… “OOOOH MY GOSH, HE WAS SO CUTE”… “I got a good picture of him”, etc.. I was looking around, but I guess we missed Shia… 

So we went back up to the bridge and stood around for awhile.. then all of a sudden, people start pointing and taking pics, I showed my son and below us Shia was walking out of the trailer area back to the set… by the time I got the camera on him, he was walking away, but it was still cool to see him:

About 100 screaming girls went chasing after him, some lucky kid actually got to get a picture with him at the exit of the trailer area.. and then he ran off to the set.

A couple mins after that, someone yelled out “there she is” and people whipped out their 6 year old sized lenses, I honestly couldn’t see anything where I was at, but moved over a little and I saw who I think was, as everyone was calling.. “The new chick”, lol..

Right after I snapped my pic, she moved up behind the truck blocking everyone’s view, and then bolted into a van and was taken over to the set… I still don’t know if it was her, what do you guys think?

So the day was winding down, another helicopter explosion that we really couldn’t see, and then a mass of military guys again across the way were getting ready for something:

After that, it was quiet and boring for awhile. We decided that we pretty much saw all we were going to see, so we headed back to our car. We headed back down to the entrance of the actor’s trailer, but after about 20 mins of nothing and nowhere to really sit or anything, we just went back to our garage to get our car.

Overall, I had fun. My feet feel like they’re going to fall off, it was a little over 8 hours down there. My son had more fun when we took a break and went into the Lego store, lol(that reminds me, while we were in the mall taking a break, I guess Shia and Tyrese came by the area we were, and this little girl showed me this cool up close pic she got.. DOH! Oh well, I’m sure my son would have gotten trampled or something, so I guess it was better we missed it).. but hey.. there really wasn’t a lot going on for a 6 year old to understand really. I want to go down again, maybe if they film again on a friday, I’ll go to my brother-in-laws, take my bike and then we can ride down there… I think it being Sat, and all the hype, there was just waaaay too many people out there… maybe it’ll be better if they’re gonna film at night, we’ll see.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed…

End Of Report

It looks like it was a busy shoot last Saturday in Chicago for Transformers 3.  I want to thank Joe for the report along with the awesome pics!  Maybe we’ll see more behind the scenes action from Joe on Friday!

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