MICHAEL BAY

'Michael Benjamin Bay' (born February 17, 1965) is an American film director and producer. Bay has achieved financial success with such movies as ''Transformers'', ''Armageddon'', ''The Rock'', ''Pearl Harbor'', ''Bad Boys'', and ''Bad Boys II''. Bay is also one of the members of the LA music video production company Propaganda Films.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Director

Awards

Inspirations

Filmography

Director

Feature films

Music videos

Producer

Signature techniques

Criticism

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Bay was born in Los Angeles and raised there by his adoptive parents. After being rejected by USC and other notable film schools, he settled for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Director

After graduating from school, Bay broke in to the music video industry and worked on videos for artists such as Meat Loaf, Richard Marx, Donny Osmond, Lionel Richie, and Tina Turner, among many others. He also began directing television commercials for many large companies, including Nike, Reebok, Budweiser, and Coca-Cola. His most successful advertising campaign creation was the series of "Got Milk?" commercials, which won him the Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year and the Cannes Silver Lion.
The first movie to be directed by Bay was ''Bad Boys'' in 1995, which was a box office success. He has since followed this with several more large-budget, action-oriented films. All these movies combined grossed in more than $1.9 billion dollars worldwide.
His films are known for both their fast paced action sequences and ultra-kinetic cinematography reminiscent of director Tony Scott.
Bay and Wydncrest Holdings recently bought the special effects company Digital Domain from James Cameron and Stan Winston. He also runs his producing company, Platinum Dunes, that produces horror genre films (mostly commercially successful remakes of 1970s films).
Bay's ''Transformers'' has broken the world record for largest seven day box office debut of a non-sequel at $153 million, beating ''Spider-Man''.
In August 2007, Bay announced his withdrawal from the planned ''Transformers 2'', citing Paramount Pictures' decision to release future high definition versions of its product exclusively on the HD-DVD format. However, he later retracted this, stating, "I over-reacted."^[1]

Awards

In 1995, Bay was honored by the Directors Guild of America as Commercial Director of the Year.
Bay has won many MTV Video Music Awards.
Bay has also been nominated several times, but has never "won" a Razzie Award.

Inspirations

Bay had a variety of factors that sparked and fueled his interest in show business. He draws inspiration from the talents of different directors such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, and the Coen Brothers. In his youth, Bay worked for LucasFilm where his interest began after filing storyboards for Raiders of the Lost Ark. ^[2]

Filmography

As of 2007 Bay has directed seven feature films and is scheduled to direct five more.

Director

Feature films

★ ''Bad Boys'' (1995)

★ ''The Rock'' (1996)

★ ''Armageddon'' (1998)

★ ''Pearl Harbor'' (2001)

★ ''Bad Boys II'' (2003)

★ ''The Island'' (2005)

★ ''Transformers'' (2007)

Music videos

★ "There You'll Be", Faith Hill (2001)

★ "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)", Aerosmith (1997)

★ "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are", Meat Loaf (1994)

★ "Rock 'n' Roll Dreams Come True", Meat Loaf (1994)

★ "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)", Meat Loaf (1993)

★ "You Won't See Me Cry", Wilson Phillips (1992)

★ "Do It to Me", Lionel Richie (1992)

★ "Love Thing", Tina Turner (1992)

★ "I Touch Myself", Divinyls (1991)

Producer

★ ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' (2003)

★ ''The Amityville Horror'' (2005)

★ '' (2006)

★ ''The Hitcher'' (2007)

★ ''The Birds'' (2009)

Signature techniques

Bay's films contain several common directorial and cinematographic trademarks. For example, there is often a 360-degree pan at some point in the movie, often with the character alone in some setting. Cinematographically, his films have a strong industrial feel to them and Bay uses lots of greys and blues to emphasize this. There is also usually a high-octane car chase or some other vehicle chase in every movie as well as multiple explosions with high levels of destruction of cities, buildings and vehicles (especially cars). ''Transformers'' featured a scene depicting an x-ray of a building with Megatron dragging Optimus Prime through one side and out the other. This is very similar to the scene in ''Bad Boys II'' where a slow motion bullet breaks through glass bottles. His films also tend to feature very modern, high-end vehicles, such as the Solstice Prototype and the Hummer in ''The Rock'' and the Fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro in ''Transformers''. He typically makes cameo appearances in many of his movies. For example, in ''Bad Boys II'' he plays a guy driving a small beat-up old car which Martin Lawrence attempts to borrow, and in ''Armageddon'' he plays a small role as a NASA scientist.

Criticism

Critics have attacked Bay for a brash, shaky quick-cut editorial and directing style that many feel emphasizes superficial dramatization and pointless action. ^[3] Bay is often criticized for directing films that lack character development and progression, thus making his films more of an eye candy appeal.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of ''South Park'' spoofed the work of Bay. Bay is the focus of the song "The End of an Act" from the '' soundtrack, which criticizes the film ''Pearl Harbor'' as one of the worst films ever produced. The song opens with "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made ''Pearl Harbor''" and contains the line "Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?". In the fifth season ''South Park'' episode "Cartmanland", Kyle says, "Job has all his children killed, and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. There isn't a God."
In ''Ultimate Spider-Man'' Number 15, "Confrontations", the character J. Jonah Jameson refers to an unbelievable news story as having "more holes in it than a Michael Bay movie." In the third season of ''Entourage'', Vincent Chase gets upset when he hears that Michael Bay instead of James Cameron is directing ''Aquaman 2''.

References

1. BBC News: Director Bay joins DVD format war
2. Michael Bay is a huge Transformer fan
3. Vern vs. Transformers

External links

★ Official website, with FAQ and [1]

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★ Michael Bay Videography, Michael Bay's music video filmography at The Music Video Database.

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★ Transformers Movie - Interview With Michael Bay

★ Michael Bay is a huge Transformer fan

★ Fast Cars, Hot Blondes, Big Budgets, Bigger Explosions, a June 2001 ''Rolling Stone'' article

★ Appreciation of Bay's over-the-top "The Island"

★ Article confirming relationship between Michael Bay and Jaime Bergman

★ Wydncrest Holdings