Hi. My name is Tony and this is Every Frame a Painting. And I know exactly what you're thinking: Why am I talking about this guy? — Oh my god, you're Michael Bay! — Oh my god, I am Michael Bay. Because I don't like his films and yet I think it's crucial to study them.
Why? — ...and Paul, I think you have started to watch WrestleMania on television... — Well, I... — Because you must not avert your eyes: this is what is coming at us. this is what what television, what a collective anonymous body of majority wants to see on television. Like WrestleMania, like Anna Nicole Smith, like Jackass, Michael Bay has created something. — Spectacle this website! It's what people want. The Romans new it, Louis Quatorze knew it, Wolfowitz knows it. — One, two, three... Boom! Bayhem!! We may find it crass and vulgar, but if we're going to make better movies, we have to understand the images that are coming at us. — Hey, hey!! So let's talk about Bayhem. Is it a unique use of film form? If you want to understand Michael Bay, one of the best ways is to watch his copycats. Consider this shot from 'Battleship', which tries to do that circular camera move he's famous for. Doesn't work here. Why? It's actually really simple. First, there's no background, except for blue sky. Without a background, we don't get parallax, so the shot doesn't feel like it's moving. See the difference? On top of that, the lens is wrong. Bay frequently shoots these shots with a telephoto lens, which compresses the space. This makes the background whizz by. Third, the actor's just staring and turning his head, but the key to the Bay version is that the actors move vertically. Like here. And here. And last, the low angle is there to give us the scale and slow motion is there to sell it. So what we have here in the Bay's shot is multiple types of movement, integrated: movement of the camera, movement of the background, movement of the actors, expansion of time. Then they stand still and look off-screen, creating stillness. Even though you're looking at a stationary point in the frame, this shot feels huge. — Shit just got real. Breakdown any Michael Bay's shot and that is basically what you will see: layers of depth, parallax, movement, character and environment to give this sense of epicness. None of these techniques is particularly unique. In fact, most cinematographers will naturally create depth in their images and parallax, whenever the camera moves. And the Hero Shot is everywhere. What makes Bay unique is how many layers and how complex the movement is. That doesn't make his shots better, it just makes them more complicated than the competition. That's why his frames seem to have a lot of stuff going on. Lots of dust, dirt, smoke or explosions between the layers. Also, lamp-posts. Lots of lamp-posts. If you go back to the first Bad Boys, you can watch this from the opening credits. Here, the car moves one way, the plane another, the lamp-posts are in frame for scale and the camera is on a telephoto lens. Later in the film, you can see the same compositional techinique. And when the explosions happen... Once you see this, it's much easier to deconstruct his imagery and to see its limits. For instance, Bay doesn't distinguish between when to do a shot and when not to do it. He'll use the same camera movement, whether the charachter's saying something important... — You have any money here in the States? .. or total gibberish... — What did I say?! Did you hear what I said? I heard what I said 'cause I was standing there when I said it. Every shot is designed for maximum visual impact, regardless of whether it fits. But the Bay style also leads to some fascinating visual ideas. How can you make something feel big?
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