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Transformers: the premake

25 minutes

The unsettling underbelly of Hollywood’s marketing looks a lot like YouTube

What goes into the making of a massive-budget Hollywood movie such as Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)? Modest amounts of acting and writing combined with heavy doses of post-production CGI, to be sure. But profits have always driven the behemoths of the movie business, and the real action is in the realm of marketing. Culled from 355 YouTube fan videos and played out entirely on a single computer monitor, Transformers: The Premake follows an increasingly strange journey through the making of a modern blockbuster.

Director: Kevin B Lee

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Support Aeon

Become a Friend for $5 a month or Make a one-off donation

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Aeon is a registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge. Our mission is to create a sanctuary online for serious thinking.
But we can’t do it without you.

Aeon is a registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview.
But we can’t do it without you.
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Essay/
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