Michael Bay

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Michael Bay

Bay filming Armageddon, 1998
Born Michael Benjamin Bay
February 17, 1965 (1965-02-17) (age 43)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation Film director and producer
Years active 1984-present

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

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Bay was born in Los Angeles and raised there by his adoptive parents, a bookstore owner/child psychiatrist mother and a district attorney father.[1] After being rejected by USC and other notable film schools, he opted for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.

[edit] 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.

Michael Bay made his first feature film Bad Boys in 1995, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The movie became a success with a total of almost $141 million in ticket sales worldwide and generated a huge profit for producers Jerry Bruckheimer, Don Simpson and Columbia Pictures.

His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), is an action movie that primarily takes place on Alcatraz Island, and the San Francisco Bay area. It stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris. Again it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who died five months before the release. The movie won a number of minor awards, including 'Best On-Screen Duo' for Connery and Cage at the MTV Movie Awards as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound.

In 1998, he collaborated again with Jerry Bruckheimer to direct Armageddon. The film, released at a time when disaster films were seeing a comeback, was about a group of tough oil diggers who are sent by NASA to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. It starred Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck. Despite the poor reviews and criticism, Armageddon was nominated for four Academy Awards in the technical categories of Best Sound, Best Special Effects, Best Effects Editing, and Best Original Song, and went on to gross over US$550 million worldwide.

In 2001, Michael Bay decided to make a more dramatic picture, re-imagining the attack of Pearl Harbor. It starred Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Cuba Gooding Jr. Pearl Harbor was released on Memorial Day weekend in 2001. Bay also produced the film along with Jerry Bruckheimer. Critical response was largely negative and many critics dismissed the film as visually polished but historically insensitive, also citing such literary flaws such as the banal dialogue, underdeveloped love triangle plot, & the shallow nature of the lead characters. At the 2002 Academy Awards, Pearl Harbor was nominated for four awards, winning one for Sound Effects Editing. Its other nominations were for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Song.

Bay reteamed with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for Bad Boys 2, and this also marked Bay's fifth collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer. The film, though the subject of some vicious criticism for its length, brutality, bloated plot, misogynistic depiction of women and violent sense of humor—some have said it is the ultimate example of Bay's aesthetic—was a success at the US box office. It made $138 million gross, enough to cover the production budget, and $273 million worldwide, which was more than the original movie.

In 2005, Bay directed The Island, a science-fiction film described as a pastiche of "escape-from-dystopia", starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. This is the first film of Michael Bay without Jerry Bruckheimer featuring as the producer and also his first to be a disappointment in the US domestic box office earning only $36 million; it was more successful overseas, where it netted a respectable $163 million worldwide. Bay himself stated that he was not comfortable with the marketing of the movie in the US.[2] Although not particularly well-received, some critics did note a gentler, more humanistic side to the film, and praised the special effects, stunts, Mauro Fiore's cinematography, and Bay's handling of the movie's intense, multiple chase scenes.

In 2007, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg, as the executive producer, to direct Transformers, a live action film based on the Transformers franchise. The film was released in the U.S. and Canada on July 3, 2007, with 8 p.m. preview screenings on July 2. The previews earned $8.8 million, and in its first day of general release it grossed $27.8 million, a record for Tuesday box office attendance. It broke Spider-Man 2's record for the biggest July 4th gross, making $29 million. On its opening weekend, Transformers grossed $70.5 million, amounting to a $155.4 million opening week, giving it the record for the biggest opening week for a non-sequel. As of November 2007, the film has made over $319 million domestically and over $708 million worldwide, and has been considered to be his best film to date, with average to positive reviews by critics. Bay and Steven Spielberg will return as director and executive producer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, while Paramount has announced a June 26, 2009 release date.

All these movies combined grossed in more than $1.9 billion dollars worldwide.

Bay and Wydncrest Holdings recently bought the special effects company Digital Domain from James Cameron and Stan Winston.[3] He also runs his producing company, Platinum Dunes, that produces horror genre films (mostly commercially successful remakes of 1970s films).

[edit] Awards

In 1995, Bay was honored by the Directors Guild of America as Commercial Director of the Year.[citation needed]

Bay has won many MTV Video Music Awards.[citation needed]

Bay has also been nominated several times, but has never "won" a Razzie Award.

[edit] 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.[4]

[edit] Filmography

As of 2007 Bay has directed seven feature films and has one in production.

[edit] Director

[edit] Feature films

[edit] TV commercials

Bay directed a TV commercial in the prominent Chevrolet An American Revolution campaign created by the firm of Campbell-Ewald that debuted on New Year's eve 2003 and featured the song Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf. The advertisement, featuring many of Bay's cinemagraphic trademarks and titled "An American Revolution, Car Carrier," features six not yet introduced new cars and trucks boarding a car carrier traversing the United States. Ironically, a 103hp Chevrolet Aveo descends the Twin Peaks of San Francisco and makes an airborne leap highly reminiscent of Steve McQueen's Ford Mustang in the movie Bullitt -- before boarding the car carrier. The ad features non-stop motion, and resolves its ending with a Chevelle SS from the 1960's passing the now full car carrier -- with passengers sporting sixties hair styles and fashions -- which are both then passed by a red biplane. Link to the ad

Most recently Bay spoofed himself in an advertisement for the Commonwealth Bank in Australia, as well as a Verizon Fios commercial, where he detonates various items within his home that he deemed "awesome" with special effects explosives.

[edit] Music videos

[edit] Producer

[edit] Criticism

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

While for the most part he has enjoyed impressive financial dividends for his motion pictures, Michael Bay has not fared well with film critics. Critics have attacked Bay for a brash, shaky quick-cut editorial and directing style that simultaneously emphasize chaos. 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, have spoofed the work of Bay on many occasions. Bay is the focus of the song "The End of an Act" from the Team America: World Police 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 Season 11, Episode 10 "Imaginationland", Michael Bay is brought in by a group of G-Men to come up with an idea to stop terrorists, however he fails to comprehend the difference between original ideas and special effects.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Michael Bay Biography (1965-)
  2. ^ You Call This Paradise?
  3. ^ Bay confirmed this in the directors commentary to his movie Transformers
  4. ^ Michael Bay is a huge Transformer fan.

[edit] External links

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Films directed by Michael Bay