Transformers 3 wingsuit featurette released

Paramount Pictures today released a behind-the-scenes featurette which details the use of the wingsuits in the film.

We’ve all seen the wingsuits being used in the trailer, but these are not only real suits that people really use to soar around canyons and stuff, the film actually shot footage of wing suits in use for that scene, rather than inserting them digitally.

They even shut down parts of Chicago downtown for a day to get the shots they needed in an actual city environment.

It’s this kind-of attention to detail that makes for good filmmaking, although it’s also this kind of gratuitous ‘here’s a cool thing, let’s put it in the movie’ attitude which can turn a film into a mere collection of neat sequences, rather than an actual story.

Here’s the official synopsis, in case you’ve forgotten:

“The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, are back in action, taking on the evil Decepticons, who are determined to avenge their defeat in 2009’s Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. In this new movie, the Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the U.S. and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky has to come to the aid of his robot friends. There’s new characters too, including a new villain in the form of Shockwave, a longtime ‘Transformers’ character who rules Cybertron while the Autobots and Decepticons battle it out on Earth.”

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – which is directed by Michael Bay – hits theaters June 29th, 2011.

The movie stars Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Julie White, Kevin Dunn, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Alan Tudyk and John Malkovich.