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’Copter jumps planned for Michigan Avenue ‘Transformers’ filming Updated 13-Jul-10 with new information from Chicago Office of Emergency Management. 12-Jul-10 – Filming on Michigan Avenue this weekend for the next Transformers movie will include stunt performers skydiving from a helicopter, according to an aerial map distributed by the film’s production company. Crews started filming on July 9 on LaSalle Street in the financial district. They will be in Milwaukee this week but will return to Chicago by the weekend. On Thursday at 8 p.m., Michigan Avenue closes from Wacker Drive north to Ontario Street and filming will take place Saturday and Sunday, mostly during daytime hours. The street will re-open next Monday at 5 a.m.
(Click on image to view larger version.) The map (above) shows the flight path of a helicopter going southeast over 330 North Wabash toward the Chicago River, turning left at Trump International Hotel & Tower, and flying east to a landing zone just south of 401 North Michigan. The Trump and 330 North Wabash buildings are highlighted on the map, along with Hotel 71, where filming is scheduled for next week. Weather permitting, the stunt should take place on Saturday and Sunday between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management & Communications. Traffic will be stopped periodically on Hubbard Street, Kinzie Street, Dearborn Street, State Street, and Wabash Avenue. Expect special effects, including pyrotechnics, under the supervision of the Chicago Fire Department and Chicago Police Department. On Sunday at 9 p.m., Upper Wacker Drive closes between Michigan Avenue and Wabash Avenue for filming on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. July 24 to July 27, a stretch of Wabash Avenue will close for filming at 35 East Wacker Drive – and filming at Trump International Hotel & Tower on July 27. There will be more filming on Wacker Drive the following weekend. The movie is about an ancient struggle between two extraterrestrial clans of robots, the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons. The robots are computer-generated and will be added to the film later. The release date is July 1, 2011. According to Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office, properties near the flight were notified recently of the planned flights. He says the film’s producer, Michael Bay, “likes to put [his characters] in very real situations and real locations. And the destruction that they create digitally is in part created out on real locations.”
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