Haven't watched Transformers 2 yet, but I will some of these days.

The production of a blockbuster movie like this is usually:

1 - Very hard to do;

2 - VERY expensive;

3 - Demands some time to achieve.

I've read an article at Gizmodo which tells how "only" 40 frames (little less than two seconds) took three months to be created by five skilled artists at Digital Domain. The Computer Graphics Supervisor, Paul George Palop, said this process was "very, very painful".

By this facts I wonder if the holy Triangle of Production rule was broken with this particular shot.

Director Michael Bay is known for demanding everything to be "awesome". So, putting movie making and script aside (we're talking only about technical achievements here), the final result is awesome.

Considering that and the Triangle rule, now we have only one option left to pick: that shot have to be cheap or quick to make.

Let's see... the production budget was - at least - 200 million dollars. That is so much money that the producers hired a top notch studio like Digital Domain to make the "secondary" effects and animation, since the main ones were made by ILM. Thinking of that we can assume it wasn't cheap (even more if we consider the current financial world crisis).

So... all it's left is to be quick and the rule works like a charm, right?

In my humble opinion: wrong.

After all, five artists working full time for three months to complete 40 frames does seem to be a fairly long time to me.

I have no doubts that these are among the best professionals working on animation and effects, and they've done a huge amount of top notch work as quick as they could. They have obviously reached the "awesome" vertex of the triangle.

Since they've got "awesome" and it was apparently not quick, the only variable that can "fix" the rule is Digital Domain not earning a good amount of money to make that shot. Probably not...

Rule broken?

[UPDATE] You can read more on the production details of this scene at CGTalk [/UPDATE]

Talking about Michael Bay: