Rise Of The Beasts In Peru Was A Real In The Butt

In the extra feature, one of the filmmakers claims that no major American film had been shot before in Peru, which isn’t entirely accurate, given that a Charlton Heston movie was filmed there in the 1950s. Also, Eli Roth’s cannibal film “The Green Inferno” was filmed there, as was Dennis Hopper’s 1971 indie “The Last Movie” and Herzog’s other jungle epic, 1982’s “Fitzcarraldo.” 

“Fitzcarraldo” may be worth noting, as that film is about a mad Irishman named Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) who dreams of building an opera house in the middle of the jungle. In order to do so, he needed to transport a supply ship from one Amazonian tributary to another, dragging it over a steep strip of land. It was a daunting and difficult task, and one made all the more exhilarating to watch when one realizes that Herzog actually had to drag a real ship over a real strip of land to film it. 

That struggle was mirrored gently by the “Transformers” filmmakers who describe, in brief, the experience of dragging tons of equipment into the jungle. One of the crew members said that making Peruvian locations accessible was their biggest problem. Director Steven Caple Jr. noted, “It’s really technically hard to do and pull off. We have so much equipment. We found a way to bring a technodolly out here, bring the crane out here.” 

A technodolly, easily rented online, is a massive camera rig and accompanying track that can steadily swing a camera in most directions and create smooth tracking shots.