Name: 邁克爾-貝--什麼是貝恆？ (Michael Bay - What is Bayhem?)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T05:23:01.000Z
Duration: 8 min 42 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

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

情態副詞

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

— Oh my god, I am Michael Bay. Because I don't like his films

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

— ...and Paul, I think you have started to watch WrestleMania on television...

— 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.

It's what people want. The Romans new it, Louis Quatorze knew it, Wolfowitz knows it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

layers of depth, parallax, movement, character and environment

None of these techniques is particularly unique.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

— 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.

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.

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"

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,

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.

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