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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Michael Bay - What is Bayhem?

Lampposts. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who always notices the lampposts.
 
You know a lot of people bash the guy, but he found his niche and he's great at what he does. And just like the video shows, it's easier to see how good of a job he does when you watch the 'copy cats'.

If only he made more films like The Rock and Pain and Gain.
 
Savva Svet said:
You know a lot of people bash the guy, but he found his niche and he's great at what he does. And just like the video shows, it's easier to see how good of a job he does when you watch the 'copy cats'.

If only he made more films like The Rock and Pain and Gain.
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If only the studios would let him. He was pretty much forced to make Transformers 4, so he could shoot Pain and Gain.
 
great analysis...Bay gets so much heat because he has the job most filmmakers want. Amazing budgets, insane resources and all the fun you could possibly want while at work.

When I watched Transformers 4 last week I thought this movie would make for a wicked drinking game....you have a shot of something every time there is an american flag in the picture.....but then I realised that around the 5-8 minute mark....you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning.
 
The argument that I've often had with friends is that Bay is 'Action over Character'.. but I don't actually see this is a problem, Bay tells a lot of his story in the visual form and it (for the most part) works incredibly well - it's the comic book vs. novel approach.

But, I agree with others here - give the man the money to make a film like Pain and Gain and you're not going to be disappointed!
 
Bay is a genius. What most critics fail to comprehend, say Transformers 4, has more metaphorical moral depth and teachings to it than (just plucking) Fincher's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Compare the scripts and both adults and children could learn more from Optimus' Prime's dialogue alone (Metaphorical Father figure and preacher of good) than most movies that come out of Hollywood. Too bad that most critics are incapable of dissecting T4 and remembering the script and its many quotes that I'd gladly pass on to my Children (laugh all you want, DL the screenplay), instead all they do is complain about bombs, large robots and larger than life sweeping shots...it's almost un cool for a critic to admit they like a Bay film, too scared.


My friends, think I'm crazy, you may too, so do alot of my indie film maker peers who claim to be better than Bay ...sesshh.
 
Kacey Baker said:
Bay is a genius. What most critics fail to comprehend, say Transformers 4, has more metaphorical moral depth and teachings to it than (just plucking) Fincher's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Compare the scripts and both adults and children could learn more from Optimus' Prime's dialogue alone (Metaphorical Father figure and preacher of good) than most movies that come out of Hollywood. Too bad that most critics are incapable of dissecting T4 and remembering the script and its many quotes that I'd gladly pass on to my Children (laugh all you want, DL the screenplay), instead all they do is complain about bombs, large robots and larger than life sweeping shots...it's almost un cool for a critic to admit they like a Bay film, too scared.


My friends, think I'm crazy, you may too, so do alot of my indie film maker peers who claim to be better than Bay ...sesshh.
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You don't have to claim to be better than Bay in order to criticize his work. He may be a genius, but he is only a technical genius, nothing else.
Any time I hear someone use terms like metaphorical moral depth I tend to feel like they don't really know what they mean, what do you mean by that? What metaphorical moral depth does it have in your opinion? As I see it, the "message" of films like transformers are so simplistic that it becomes ridiculous. Films like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo DOES have more depth by far. And in your terms "metaphorical moral depth and teachings"; GWTDT dives deep into subjects like the human nature of trust, the impossibility of running from your past, the result of a society that is built on flawed foundations etc.
If you couldn't analyze GWTDT and find such meanings and subjects and suggest that Transformers 4 has more depth about human morality then I don't think you like to go deeper than the flat surface that Transformers 4 is.

Critics aren't scared of speaking their minds, most of them aren't idiots. They have far more analytical eyes than most regular people and they absolutely look into the deeper meanings of films... that is the whole reason many flat and shallow movies get their low ratings, because they lack the depth that make them important works of art.

Michael bay doesn't do art, he does two and a half hour long trailers which are meant to catch attention, to bring forth emotions like those in a roller coaster.
He is great at this, but to say that GWTDT has less moral depth or teachings than Transformers 4 is rather out there.
 
The effect of pivoting around the actor and use a long lens was describe in 2005 for action movies by Rob Cohen -- Stealth. (DVD, BTS). ... and certainly earlier by others I assume. So, no news on that camera-move. As Vincent Laforet mentioned in his course no one owns camera moves.
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I found the collection of clips and examples very nice. But to watch it the second time -- with the sound off -- was a relief.
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As with others who do such "web-critiques", to separate a single camera-move out of a sequence and criticize it, shows that there is little understanding of the craft of cinematography. We do not produce single takes, good Cinematographers think in sequences at least. I saw the same problem with the homage to Roger Deakins. (Wonderful set ups, BTW) It works only if you have seen the movies, otherwise it truncates the work of Deakins. Same problem, totally different intention. So I do not target a negative or positive critique, I target the shortage of getting the profession in the first place.
 
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Christoffer Glans said:
You don't have to claim to be better than Bay in order to criticize his work. He may be a genius, but he is only a technical genius, nothing else.
Any time I hear someone use terms like metaphorical moral depth I tend to feel like they don't really know what they mean, what do you mean by that? What metaphorical moral depth does it have in your opinion? As I see it, the "message" of films like transformers are so simplistic that it becomes ridiculous. Films like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo DOES have more depth by far. And in your terms "metaphorical moral depth and teachings"; GWTDT dives deep into subjects like the human nature of trust, the impossibility of running from your past, the result of a society that is built on flawed foundations etc.
If you couldn't analyze GWTDT and find such meanings and subjects and suggest that Transformers 4 has more depth about human morality then I don't think you like to go deeper than the flat surface that Transformers 4 is.

Critics aren't scared of speaking their minds, most of them aren't idiots. They have far more analytical eyes than most regular people and they absolutely look into the deeper meanings of films... that is the whole reason many flat and shallow movies get their low ratings, because they lack the depth that make them important works of art.

Michael bay doesn't do art, he does two and a half hour long trailers which are meant to catch attention, to bring forth emotions like those in a roller coaster.
He is great at this, but to say that GWTDT has less moral depth or teachings than Transformers 4 is rather out there.
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This is a great summary IMO.

I often poke fun at Michael Bay's work with Adult Swim 'Baysplosions' references... but part of it is because I sometimes like to watch a movie that's focused primarily on the visuals and doesn't strain your brain very hard (even better when the dailog borders on a giggle inducing b-movie script) - and I feel a bit guilty about it (guilty pleasure I guess). Sure The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a much better film than T4, but while it was for completely different reasons and at a completely different intellectual level... I enjoyed both.
 
Nice find.
Yes Michael Bay is possibly not the best director that walked on this planet but he for sure knows more than most how to make camera moves and build up action shots etc. The commercial directors that I work with mostly usaually laughs when I give a reference to a michael bay directed film for a camera move or such. But to me he for sure is the master of moving cameras. The others may laugh but what he does do not come together easy. Try to do that "spin around the main caracter while they are being elevated with a ominimax stereo camera etc. etc. it's not easy things to get right for sure. And all the VFX /CG sequenses are also quite rough to get together you need to shoot almost nothing than debrie and a few people running around and still frame and make sure you have focus span etc, ect for that hugh/ non existant while shooting CG creature thats chasing them and so on... Most, even good DP's fail over and over when they get into "Michael Bay kind of situations" while he makes it just right and improve in every film... Then yes, he should possibly focus a little bit more on dialoge and story to make things perfect but in my book he is pretty high up for what he does, exept for when he is selling samsun curve screens :)
 
Thanks for posting the clip, Mark. Interesting observations in the video - cleverly delivered and well spoken. I'm with Christopher though. Michael Bay can stage big action in a dynamic way that apparently meets the adrenaline needs of large audiences. Does that make him a genius? Of a certain kind, I suppose. But I find his characters one dimensional at best, boring across the board. Entire movies comprised of machines as placeholders for humans, and humans as props for blowing things up - bigger and bigger and bigger explosions - it's an adolescent boy's universe. Women in his movies are like sexbots, real people reduced to adolescent caricatures.

The comparison to Ridley Scott's films in the video is meaningful only in the most brittle visual sense. Ridley's palette is so much richer, and his characters most often live in a real moral universe with complex choices, doubts, flaws and traits with which we can identify. There's plenty of action in Man on Fire, brilliantly staged and delivered, but it's not paint by numbers. The action serves and is built around human characters in crisis, not the other way round. That makes all the difference.

It's great to be able to choose the movies you like. For those who like Michael Bay's work, go for it. For me, the human themes of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Man On Fire are far more interesting, and far more rewarding.

Tim Eaton
 
Björn Benckert: "... The commercial directors that I work with mostly usaually laughs when I give a reference to a michael bay directed film for a camera move or such. ..."

I think everyone has the right to laugh about someone else if his or her Oeuvre and Quality succeeds the one made less of (Even then it sounds wrong!). Funnily enough, those with a large work-history have better to do than to laugh at others.
What Bay has created is certainly worth to respect it, even if one has a different idea of what film should or could be. He "paints with action" and this is certainly addressed to the main quadrant of moviegoers, which is not a simple tasks to do anyway.


 
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