Well, you put lots of things of varying size in the same shot and then you move the camera to emphasize. This is something "Jurassic Park" also did very well. — Ah! — It's... It's a dinosaur. Just as important is off-screen space.
Notice here, this actor isn't looking at the planes we see in the background. That means there's even more planes we can't see. So while the shot feels huge, it implies even more scale. How does a filmmaker come up with images like this? In the case of Michael Bay, let's look at one of his favorite films. "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way From your first cigarette to your last dying day" There's a great New York Times interview where he watches "West Side Story" and talks about how this is a great shot and this is a great cut. He can't articulate why they're great, other than "they're dynamic". But I think that's it: when you put shots from West Side Story back to back with his work, you can feel the similarities. I think Bay's goal is to create what he thinks are good shots and connect them with what he thinks are good cuts. If Howard Hawks defined a good movie as three good scenes and no bad ones, Michael Bay seems to think a good film is three thousand dynamic shots and no static ones. Apart from West Side Story, Bay's biggest influence is actually other blockbusters. He frequently borrows the same basic vocabularies and other sequence. So something like this... ... becomes this. You'll notice the tight shots of the character become tighter. And the wide shots become wider. Everything gets more layers of motion, but the basic vocabulary's the same. - I got him! - Great, kid! Don't get cocky. And it's not just other people he borrows from. Bay cannibalizes himself just as much. So this... ... becomes this. You'll notice every motion in the original shot. For instance, the camera turning counter-clockwise, while the bomb turns clockwise — it's just cranked up in this version. — Autobots, I'm in pursuit. So what is Bayhem? It's the use of movement, composition and fast editing to create a sense of epic scale. Each individual shot feels huge, but also implies bigger things outside the frame. It stacks multiple layers of movement shot either on a very long lens or a very wide one. It shows you a lot for just a moment and then takes it away. You feel the overall motion, but no grasp of anything concrete. And yet, it requires a lot of people and integration to do this. But it's basically a variation on the existing vocabulary of the action scene. Individual shots are a little dirtier, a little shakier, more complex, few more layers. Then you cut it together faster than the brain can register, but not faster than the eye can move. It's not revolutionary, just the past with a bit of stank on it. If you want to see a more etxreme version of similiar ideas, you can look at late-era Tony Scott. And if you wanna see a less cluttered version, you can look at animation. Someone like Glen Keane. This is way more legible than what Bay does, but the basic idea is the same: character, environment, many layers, one epic sweep. The world feels huge. One of my favorite adaptations of the Michael Bay style is actually shrinking it down. Ironically, Bayhem - which seems to have developed from a kid blowing up his train set - is actually kind of charming when it's tiny. Instead of blowing up the world, how about a small English town? — Swan! But in the end, I think the popularity of this style is hugely important. Whether we like it or not, the interesting thing here is that we are really visually sophisticated and totally visually illiterate. We can process visual information at a speed that wasn't common before, but thinking through what an image means... — This is not necessary! ... not so much. And as Wernor Herzog put it: — You do not avert your eyes. That's what's coming at us. This might sound a little weird, but the person who loses the most here is actually Michael Bay. He is a slave to his own eye. He has a need to make every image dynamic, even when it runs contrary to the theme of his movie. — Some people just don't know a good thing when it's staring them in the face. — It really is the simple things in life... Yeah, the little things, like a big house, a dock, a view of the water and a speed boat. What happens when two great storytellers tackle this exact same theme? — Heck, Norm, you know, we're doing pretty good. — I love you, Margie. — I love you, Norm. — Two more months. — Two more months... Subtitles by the Amara.org community
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AuthorI love travel and healthy living. Also, I write for dobremylo.com.ua Archives
December 2018
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