Humans can fly in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (The Birdmen)

[BlackTree TV - Chicago] In what may have been one of the illest stunts ever known to a film set, Michael Bay employed some sky divers who had been a part of a team trying out new experimental suits that would allow them to fly. The crazy thing is, when you see it on screen you think it's a special effect, but now you can see that this was the "real deal Holyfield"!

"It doesn't feel like you're falling so much as it feels like the buildings are growing." That's J.T. Holmes, describing what it was like jumping off the 110-story Willis Tower for a stunt sequence in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," shot in Chicago last summer.

The jump was actually a flight, made possible through a special jumpsuit made of nylon — called a wingsuit — sewn in such a way that it has fabric wings under the arms and between the legs, enabling those with nerves of steel to carve through the air at 100 mph like a human jetfighter.

Or a birdman, soaring through the canyons of downtown Chicago.

One year ago, over the course of two weekends and one weekday, Holmes and four other expert wingsuit flyers were in town, hurling themselves off buildings and out of helicopters for Michael Bay, a filmmaker who might as well change his name to Mr. Go Big Or Go Home. "Somebody like me just went out there and did something rad for the camera, all because (Bay) wants it to be real," Holmes says in a behind-the-scenes video circulating on the Web.

The jumping sequences provide plenty of jaw-dropping visuals — guys zooming around the Willis Tower, or past the Aon and Aqua buildings, more than 1,000 feet in the air — but the stunts are integral to the plot.

The Decepticons (those would be the bad alien robots) have completely sealed off the city. The only way in for the troops fighting for the good guys (led by Josh Duhamel's character, Lennox) is by wingsuit. A scene featured prominently in the trailer shows Team Lennox diving from a military aircraft called an Osprey and maneuvering their way into the city, flying-squirrel style.

In the movie, the jump is shown as a continuous descent from the Osprey to the ground. But: "To achieve the sequence, we broke it up into several different pieces, and then Michael cut it together," said the film's unit production manager, Allegra Clegg. To get the camera angles right—specifically a shot of the straight-down dive — several jumps were performed from the top of the Willis Tower. "We couldn't do it in one long movement because of how many streets we would need to shut down for safety, and also how long they can fly at a certain height. You only have so much time before they have to pull their 'chutes." Clegg estimates that they were able to get about 15 seconds of usable footage from each jump.

Notices were posted at office buildings and on relevant streets, indicating that there would be closures during the jumps, said Clegg. The areas immediately within the vicinity of the jumps had to be locked down before Holmes and his fellow wingsuit companions could go. Each jump was no more than a minute long, so the closures were brief, but the streets had to be cleared of cars and the sidewalks cleared of pedestrians. Nor were people allowed in or out of nearby buildings during the jumps. "Because it was on the weekend, there weren't many people in the office buildings," Clegg said. All of that required about 350 crew members and additional personnel (such as police) to work each day of the jumps.

The stunts were unprecedented for a film shooting in Chicago. Skydivers are a regular feature of the annual Air & Water Show, but last summer marked the first time the city granted filmmakers permission for aerial stunts of this nature in the downtown area. It was also one of the rare occasions that the city agreed to temporarily close Michigan Avenue for a film.

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Howto & Style

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• Transformers
• Transformers 3
• Transformers Dark of the Moon
• Birdman
• Jump suits
• human flight
• man with wings
• Icarus
• Michael Bay
• Sears Towers
• BlackTree
• Media

[TheTNTKicker]

They are not flying... They are falling with style.

[werwr4]

nerdgasm

[davesvideos]

the shot 30 seconds in to this is the best damn action sequence ever filmed for me--INCREDIBLE--blew me AWAY--wish these guys were doing all the Marvel movies

[worldwidesearch69]

Wingsuiters are going too rule the world!!!!! hehehe

[HODGExPODGE]

1 dislike, fucking Decepticon!

[simonsays120]

@TheTNTKicker Toy story?



[KemicalSound]

you have got to have some fucking watermelons for balls to do that

[liliumroses96]

imagine the stories they say to their kids..

[jnimmy12]

I wander what those average people on the ground are thinking.... 

[Nahinfi09]

@TheTNTKicker nicked that form toy story did u??

[itzmebob]

soaring/falling