Transformers
Transformers with Michael Bay
"My secret is I shoot very, very fast," said Bay. "An average director will shoot 20 set ups a day. I do about 75, and they're real set ups. We work 12 hour days, I don't go overtime, but we work very hard. I work with my same crew, I gave 30% of my fee because they were going to ship me to Canada or Australia, and I said, 'No, I want to shoot with my guys.' We just saved so much money, because I have really good people. I don't know, we just make an efficient day."
It's not quite that simple though. Bay had to get reflexive to really analyze his craft. "I think music videos give me a sense of [preparation]. I'm able to shoot fast and when the sh** hits the fan, which it always does on a movie, you've got to figure out your plan A and B, and I do this system called leapfrog."
In the leapfrog system, Bay serves as his own assistant director. Usually someone else relays the messages. "The whole A.D. thing that gets out there, Michael Bay yells, Michael Bay's being the assistant director, okay, three shots, we're doing this, I want you to prep that, so we're leapfrogging, we're almost ready for the next shot. It's almost hard, actors don't even go back to their trailers, if you've probably already heard."
Surely Michael Bay can hire some assistants, but he doesn't want to. "I just love it. I don’t know, it's just my thing. It keeps me interested. My thing is I will get to set usually 45 minutes after everyone is there, because I don't like watching them eat burritos and their eggs. I want to go to work. So they always go on the radio, 'Bay's coming in hot. He's coming in hot.' It just keeps me really involved. That's my thing, I don’t know. That's the creative things for me."
Aside from blowing stuff up, Bay found a human interest story in Transformers too. "When Steven called me a year and a half ago, he said, 'I want you do direct Transformers, it's a story about a boy who buys his first car.' To me that was a great hook. I hung up and said, 'Thank you, I'm not doing that stupid, silly toy movie,' but I thought about it. The hook was great because that's such a launching ground from a young adult into manhood or womanhood. I liked the simplicity of it. It just made it somewhat more accessible. I kept having this image of this kid trying to hide robots from his parents by his house, and that just stuck in my head as we were writing the script, so to me that was the whole charm of it."
Transformers opens to theatres
on July 2nd.
For the trailers, clips, posters, more pics and movie info, go to the Transformers
Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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