Movie Insider reader Cameron Busacca got a chance to catch up on the action and hang out with the girls this week, topping it with a nice set report for us.

Shia LaBeouf came on set around 8 a.m. to film what appeared to be a “move-in” day scene right next to the Princeton University Chapel. After several takes, the crew moved out onto the street to shoot a few stunt scenes on Washington Street. Most of the cars looked brand new (there was no futuristic Chevy Camaro in sight, which was a bummer) but after a few takes, one of the cars had bullet holes and a smashed windshield, which led me to believe they were filming a chase scene. Shia’s stunt double nearly got hit several times by another car, and the crew shot the scene from different angles up and down Washington as if all of the shots were going to be pieced together later. And even though the stunt drivers went really fast, you could tell that they speed it up even more in the editing process.

After the first stunt was over, we saw our first sighting of Megan Fox. They were getting a shot of her driving from inside the car but she lost control and slammed it into a curb. Don’t worry, she’s perfectly fine. She got out of the car smiling and laughing and walked it off. Shia, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped chain smoking since the end of the first scene and every time they broke from filming he seemed to have a really bad attitude.

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Shia had turned us down when we asked for a picture earlier, but after seeing Megan take a picture with another fortunate group of guys, we walked up to her. Her people immediately shot down the request, but she very graciously and kindly agreed to take one more. We took a picture with her and proceeded to ask her a few questions about the movie. Shia was also there but added nothing to the conversation.

This playlist of videos from Russell shows the Saturn Astra, that we have now seen a number of times, travelling very fast up and down the same road with a Go Kart closely following to film the action - nipping between cars to get some great shots. You can also clearly see the whole in the windshield which was seen in the Frenzy attack video.

These videos show some more of Shia stretching and what looks like a scene of Shia LaBoeuf walking across campus. It may coincide with a set report from Mark:

The TF2 crew was shooting at Holder Hall this morning until about 1:30. The scene they were shooting today ended with Shia, Megan, and Ramon running out of the building into the courtyard, which they shot several times. Once, they ran out into the courtyard, hooked each others’ arms at the elbow, and did a little dance (clearly trying to alleviate some of the boredom of doing the exact same thing over and over). Isabel Lucas was visible at one point, but I couldn’t tell if she was involved in the shot.

Once the principals were done, the crew shot a group of about 20-30 student extras running into and out of the dorm’s western entryway (the same one that Shia, Megan, and Ramon had run out of). It was pretty funny to watch the extras run, because they were being funneled in and out of the doorway in a big circle, so the kids that had just run out of the building would circle around and run back in until the shot was over. In both cases the crew used a smoke machine in the dorm’s southwest hallway, which was visible from one of the windows.

Videos thanks to the WPRB Blog!

Yesterday filming began at Princeton. Scott has provided this set report:

I work in Princeton and just watched the TF2 crew crash a silver Saturn Astra into the installed lamppost on the corner of Washington Road and William Street around 2 p.m. today. Before the crash itself they ran a few “test crashes,” where the stunt driver screeched to a halt a foot or two before hitting the post, with the camera (on a boom) following the action from above. The actual crash knocked the ground-level cover off the post and ripped off the car’s front bumper. After the crash the driver backed up slightly, then drove forward again for a few feet with the bumper under the front wheels, then stopped, opened the driver’s side door, and fell to the ground. After the shot was over, the driver put the bumper in the car’s backseat and drove the car down Washington Road (headed south), and as it passed me I could see that the front windshield had a hole the size of a baseball in it (with the appropriate spider webbing pattern in the surrounding glass). I’m not sure if that was there before the crash or not (I was about two blocks away from the crash itself). According to one of the PA’s the next shot won’t happen until tonight, though she didn’t say where.

Shia Filming at Princeton:

A barrage of images have also been unloaded onto the internet by BP, JD, JFuller, Cheeseburger and Mike:

Scott’s images:

Contributing source: TLAMB

These videos from EfraineQuinones firstly show the trio of autobots, Bumblebee, Beat and Trax briefly in action - proving they can corner at slow speeds in new synchronized formation. Ramon, Shia and Megan exit and head into the shop, before coming back out and gleefully skipping down the road.

Looks like Shia LaBoeuf, Megan Fox, Bumblebee, the Chevy Beat and the Chevy Trax turned up for filming at the Eastern State Penitentiary.

VDG was on hand to get images of the crew and automobiles turning up, even getting close enough to capture a shot of the rims on the Chevy Trax - showing a very nice Autobot logo in the center of the hub cap!

Faded Silver Screen were also on location to capture the vehicles coming and going on Fairmount Avenue:

I couldn’t get inside the prison, or get any decent pictures but I watched them unload trucks for a while. They were taking in lexan blast shields they put cameras behind when there is an explosion or sparks nearby. It seemed like an awful lot of support trucks. Tons of lighting and rigging. I would bet there will be some effect/pyrotechnics taking place, considering they’ve been prepping this for three days and the scope of the stuff they are taking in.

Lorenztom has also got a couple more shots of the Paris set at City Hall:

City Hall in Philadelphia is mocked up to look like Ecole Militaire in Paris for filming which took place yesterday. The setting for the scene is a holiday for Sam Witwicky’s parents - Kevin Dunn and Julie White.

Video and pictures from Mia show Bumblebee, the green Chevy Beat and red Chevy Trax in the area as well as a small explosion and panic in the square. If you scroll down you can see what seems to be an extension of this, although taking place at night, of continued mayhem and running - this time by Sam’s parents, who may or may not have been in the square at the time of the explosion:

PhillyFilmGirl also managed to get some candid footage of Sam’s parents in an alleyway running away from an explosion, surely with a robot CG’d in later amidst the flashing blue lights. The other video shows them running down the alley with a teeny “Smart Car” hastily flying past them - most likely fleeing from the same thing, rather than being a robot.

Contributing Source: TLAMB

Prior to the Isabel Lucas shoot we saw yesterday and the Bumblebee skid, shooting was taking place at the Castle fraternity - on campus, “where the party’s at”, or some such.
TFW2005 have provided pictures leading up to this, showing Michael Bay, Isabel Lucas and Shia LaBoeuf preparing for the scenes and taking time out with some fans. I especially like the shot of Shia taking some time out to sign a toy Bumblebee. Bumblebee, the real thing, can also be seen under his cover - rather indiscreetly:

Reporting to Powet.tv, Josh Landow was there later that day to capture video of Bumblebee screeching away and provide a report of the events that unfolded:

The frat house is known as The Castle because it looks like a castle. Bumblebee was parked out front and they made it look like he was parked in the bushes. There was a huge lighting screen over the car, and 2 giant light balloons (not sure how else to describe them) floating above the set.

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The first shot was a bunch of well dressed good looking college coeds walking around to and fro with some of them seemingly converging on the BB Camaro, saying things like “Wow! Cool car.”

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Next shot was the most involved and took about 3 hours to shoot from every which way, with different lighting, and with slightly different lines even. Shia and a few of the bit players were definitely ad-libbing or at least taking some liberties with the script. This shot consisted of Shia running out of the party because BB’s alarm was going off. Like I said BB was parked in the bushes which gets Sam into some trouble with the frat boys who came running after him asking “Hey Freshman, is that your car parked in our bushes?” Sam replies “uh uh no, it’s a friend’s car - he went to get a new shirt” (or something dumb like that - they kept changing that line). Fratboy responds “How about I park my foot up your ass?” Sam says “I’ll move the car now.” He gets in and has (fake) trouble closing the door because of all the shrubbery. It was hard to hear, but when he got inside the car, I think he said something about Decepticons. And yes it took 3 hours to shoot this.

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Then they moved the crowd back a good ways to shoot some more extras walking about before finally getting to the scene that I knew had to be coming. Bumblebee backs up and drives away (as seen in my video). This was shot using Bay’s camera rigged Porsche Cayenne. I think they shot this like 4 or 5 times with the cars backing up to reset after each take

Braden has returned to get more shots of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in action, this time with a short video. The images clearly show that Bumblebee has undergone some modifications, with a wider front grill, new lights and rims - reported to be a 2010 Chevy Camaro SS. There is also speculation that cemetery filming means somebody important that we know dies in the course of the film.

Via TLAMB

Power.tv were on location to catch Michael Bay, Shia and Megan Fox strutting their stuff in a couple of scenes, although there’s nothing too spectacular here.

Finally I got to where the action was, and of all places it was Cappucelli’s Meats (a butcher shop). As you can see the crew was taking up a whole block on Kimball St. between 8th & 9th. I saw a few extras walking the same path over and over and over and the same 4 or 5 cars kept driving by. Took me a few minutes to realize though that the scene they were shooting was inside the shop, and the extras and cars were just background to be seen through the windows.

Via /Film

Thanks to Roboquaker, we have a second set of images from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum near Washington DC.

These pictures show a small radio controlled car, rumored to be “Wheels” given the call sheet descriptions which suggest Wheels is fairly small. (Can you imagine it as a toy!?)

UPDATE: High Resolution images added. Reproduced under a creative commons license.

SHH have posted up a second set report to go with this:

I’m back one last time with a report about what I saw filmed at the museum on Saturday. Some potentially spoilerish stuff will follow, so be aware.

I arrived around 10 and stayed until they broke for lunch (around 2, 2:30). Got to see a lot of stuff filmed, it was really quite interesting stuff. Shia, Megan Fox, and John Turturro were all on set.

All filming pretty much took place around the SR-71 Blackbird today. When I first got there, Michael Bay was being pushed on a cart with a camera filming an RC car, an RC monster truck to be exact. It would roll past the side of the Blackbird and stop at the front. After several times doing this, Shia and Megan would then run and follow the RC truck along the plan to the front (Shia was holding what I can only describe as a plastic spoon probably standing in for something digital later). When he got to the front he would hold it up to the nose of the plane.

Potentially big SPOILERS may be here in this next part, but the next bit filmed was John Turturro and that unknown actor in the green hoodie from yesterday filming a scene facing the front of the plane. After some flashes of light, Turturro freaks out and yells “Decepticon! Get behind the MIG!”. So it’s official, the Blackbird is a Decepticon, or at least that’s what the characters think.

After that they took a long time setting up and filming the RC car rolling straight towards the nose of the plane and stopping. They then placed a two foot tall cutout of a robot (what the RC car will transform into) in its place and took some shots to get references for the FX team. And finally, they had the car roll towards the plane and stop, then Shia crawled into view and held up his “spoon” to the nose of the plane.

The last couple of scenes I saw before the broke for lunch was a scene with Megan Fox. It was far away from where we were allowed to stand and I couldn’t hear any dialogue but the tiny robot cut out was standing off camera and she was looking down at it while talking. And lastly, Shia stepped in the scene next to her and was yelling at someone off camera (though again I couldn’t hear any dialogue).