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Hi. My name is Tony[br]and this is Every Frame a Painting.

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And I know exactly what you're thinking:[br]Why am I talking about this guy?

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<i>— Oh my god, you're Michael Bay!</i>

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<i>— Oh my god, I am Michael Bay.</i>[br]Because I don't like his films

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and yet I think it's crucial[br]to study them.

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Why?

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<i>— ...and Paul, I think you have started[br]to watch WrestleMania on television...</i>

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<i>— Well, I...</i>

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<i>— Because you must not avert your eyes:[br]this is what is coming at us.</i>

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<i>this is what what television,[br]what a collective</i>

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<i>anonymous body of majority wants[br]to see on television.</i>

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Like WrestleMania, like Anna Nicole Smith,

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like Jackass, Michael Bay has created[br]<i>something.</i>

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<i>— Spectacle!</i>

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<i>It's what people want. The Romans new it,[br]Louis Quatorze knew it, Wolfowitz knows it.</i>

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<i>— One, two, three...</i>

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<i>Boom! Bayhem!!</i>

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We may find it crass and vulgar,[br]but if we're going to make better movies,

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we have to understand[br]the images that are coming at us.

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<i>— Hey, hey!!</i>

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So let's talk about <i>Bayhem.</i>[br]Is it a unique use of film form?

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If you want to understand Michael Bay, one of[br]the best ways is to watch his copycats.

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Consider this shot from[br]'Battleship', which tries

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to do that circular camera[br]move he's famous for.

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Doesn't work here.[br]Why?

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It's actually really simple. First,[br]there's no background, except for blue sky.

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Without a background, we don't get parallax,[br]so the shot doesn't feel like it's moving.

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See the difference?

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On top of that, the lens is wrong. Bay frequently[br]shoots these shots with a telephoto lens,

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which compresses the space.[br]This makes the background whizz by.

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Third, the actor's just staring[br]and turning his head,

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but the key to the Bay version[br]is that the actors move vertically.

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Like here.

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And here.

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And last, the low angle is there to give us the[br]scale and slow motion is there to sell it.

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So what we have here in the Bay's shot[br]is multiple types of movement, integrated:

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movement of the camera,[br]movement of the background,

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movement of the actors,[br]expansion of time.

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Then they stand still and look[br]off-screen, creating stillness.

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Even though you're looking at a stationary[br]point in the frame, this shot feels huge.

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<i>— Shit just got real.</i>

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Breakdown any Michael Bay's shot[br]and that is basically what you will see:

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layers of depth, parallax, movement,[br]character and environment

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to give this sense of epicness.

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None of these techniques[br]is particularly unique.

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In fact, most cinematographers[br]will naturally create depth in their images

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and parallax, whenever the camera moves.

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And the Hero Shot is everywhere.

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What makes Bay unique is how many layers[br]and how complex the movement is.

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That doesn't make his shots[br]better, it just makes

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them more complicated[br]than the competition.

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That's why his frames seem to have[br]a lot of stuff going on.

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Lots of dust, dirt, smoke[br]or explosions between the layers.

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Also, lamp-posts.

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Lots of lamp-posts.

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If you go back to the first Bad Boys, you[br]can watch this from the opening credits.

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Here, the car moves one way,[br]the plane another,

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the lamp-posts are in frame for scale[br]and the camera is on a telephoto lens.

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Later in the film, you can see[br]the same compositional techinique.

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And when the explosions happen...

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Once you see this, it's much easier[br]to deconstruct his imagery

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and to see its limits.

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For instance, Bay doesn't distinguish[br]between when to do a shot

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and when <i>not</i> to do it. He'll[br]use the same camera movement,

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whether the charachter's[br]saying something important...

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<i>— You have any money here in the States?</i>

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... or total gibberish...

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<i>— What did I say?![br]Did you hear what I said?</i>

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<i>I heard what I said[br]'cause I was standing there when I said it.</i>

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Every shot is designed for maximum visual[br]impact, regardless of whether it fits.

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But the Bay style also leads[br]to some fascinating visual ideas.

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How can you make something feel big?

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Well, you put lots of things[br]of varying size in the same shot

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and then you move the camera to emphasize.

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This is something "Jurassic Park" also[br]did very well.

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<i>— Ah![br]— It's... It's a dinosaur.</i>

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Just as important is off-screen space.

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Notice here, this actor isn't looking[br]at the planes we see in the background.

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That means there's even[br]more planes we can't see.

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So while the shot feels huge,[br]it implies even more scale.

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How does a filmmaker come up[br]with images like this?

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In the case of Michael Bay, let's look[br]at one of his favorite films.

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<i>"When you're a Jet,[br]you're a Jet all the way</i>

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<i>From your first cigarette[br]to your last dying day"</i>

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There's a great New York Times interview[br]where he watches "West Side Story"

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and talks about how[br]<i>this</i> is a great shot

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and <i>this</i> is a great cut.

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He can't articulate why they're great,[br]other than "they're dynamic".

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But I think that's it:[br]when you put shots from West Side Story

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back to back with his work,[br]you can feel the similarities.

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I think Bay's goal is to create[br]what he thinks are good shots

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and connect them with[br]what he thinks are good cuts.

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If Howard Hawks defined a good movie[br]as three good scenes and no bad ones,

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Michael Bay seems to[br]think a good film

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is three thousand dynamic shots[br]and no static ones.

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Apart from West Side Story, Bay's biggest[br]influence is actually other blockbusters.

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He frequently borrows the same basic[br]vocabularies and other sequence.

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So something like this...

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... becomes this.

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You'll notice the tight shots[br]of the character become tighter.

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And the wide shots become wider.

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Everything gets more layers of motion,[br]but the basic vocabulary's the same.

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<i>- I got him![br]- Great, kid! Don't get cocky.</i>

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And it's not just other people[br]he borrows from.

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Bay cannibalizes himself just as much.

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So this...

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... becomes this.

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You'll notice every motion[br]in the original shot.

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For instance, the camera[br]turning counter-clockwise,

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while the bomb turns clockwise —

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it's just cranked up in this version.

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<i>— Autobots, I'm in pursuit.</i>

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So what is Bayhem?

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It's the use of movement, composition[br]and fast editing

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to create a sense of epic scale.

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Each individual shot feels huge, but also[br]implies bigger things outside the frame.

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It stacks multiple layers of movement shot[br]either on a very long lens or a very wide one.

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It shows you a lot for just a moment[br]and then takes it away.

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You feel the overall motion,[br]but no grasp of anything concrete.

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And yet, it requires a lot of people[br]and integration to do this.

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But it's basically a variation on the[br]existing vocabulary of the action scene.

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Individual shots are a little dirtier, a little[br]shakier, more complex, few more layers.

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Then you cut it together faster[br]than the brain can register,

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but not faster than the eye can move.

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It's not revolutionary,[br]just the past with a bit of stank on it.

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If you want to see a more[br]etxreme version of similiar ideas,

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you can look at late-era Tony Scott.

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And if you wanna see a less cluttered[br]version, you can look at animation.

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Someone like Glen Keane.

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This is way more legible than what Bay does,[br]but the basic idea is the same:

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character, environment,[br]many layers, one epic sweep.

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The world feels huge.

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One of my favorite adaptations of the[br]Michael Bay style is actually shrinking it down.

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Ironically, Bayhem - which seems to have[br]developed from a kid blowing up his train set -

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is actually kind of charming when it's tiny.

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Instead of blowing up the world,[br]how about a small English town?

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<i>— Swan!</i>

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But in the end, I think the popularity of[br]this style is hugely important.

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Whether we like it or not,[br]the interesting thing here

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is that we are really[br]visually sophisticated

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and totally visually illiterate.

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We can process visual information[br]at a speed that wasn't common before,

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but thinking through what an image means...

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<i>— This is not necessary!</i>

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... not so much.

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And as Wernor Herzog put it:

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<i>— You do not avert your eyes.[br]That's what's coming at us.</i>

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This might sound a little weird, but[br]the person who loses the most here

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is actually Michael Bay.[br]He is a slave to his own eye.

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He has a need to make[br]every image dynamic, even

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when it runs contrary to[br]the theme of his movie.

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<i>— Some people just don't know a good thing[br]when it's staring them in the face.</i>

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<i>— It really is the simple things in life...</i>

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Yeah, the little things,[br]like a big house,

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a dock, a view of the water[br]and a speed boat.

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What happens when two great storytellers[br]tackle this exact same theme?

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<i>— Heck, Norm, you know,[br]we're doing pretty good.</i>

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<i>— I love you, Margie.</i>

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<i>— I love you, Norm.</i>

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<i>— Two more months.</i>

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<i>— Two more months...</i>