SUPERATOMOVISION

This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six.

How I Learned to Stop Critiquing and Start Defending Michael Bay

What I hoped to have done is identified tropes across these films which doesn’t dismiss these films as identical and worthless. I feel that there is enough evidence given in my analysis to say that each film has identifiable and discernible qualities. I have described where Michael Bay’s work has and hasn’t worked, whilst also given the example of Bumblebee as a film whose style differs as a comparison. What I hoped to have shown that there is an intention to the work of Michael Bay, especially within the Transformers series.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five.

Steven Shaviro argues in his book, ‘Post-Cinematic Affect’, that in the 21st century technological advances in media and technique – from the “analogue” of the “old Hollywood continuity editing system” to the “heavily digitised” media with which contemporary audiences are familiar – have led to the production and experience of different affect to that experienced by earlier spectators.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.

While watching the Transformers franchise, I noted that Michael Bay’s action filmmaking style, dubbed ‘Bayhem’, became more weightless and less tangible as the series progressed. In this section, I will look at the differences between, the action sequences in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of The Moon, and Transformers: The Last Knight, each of which displays a different trope of ‘Bayhem’.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

The action sequence needs to be an affective experience. If it to work for the audience, it needs to be as involving as possible. Lisa Purse, in her book ‘Contemporary Action Cinema’, focuses on the sense of motion, arguing that when viewing an action sequence, the spectator is “asked not to think of speed in an abstract way but to experience it with the protagonists and for ourselves” (60). This is what Michael Bay does when presenting his action sequences. Using the techniques highlighted previously by Bordwell and Stork, he wants to make the spectator a part of the action sequence, which is depending on the individual viewer.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One and Part Two.

Another way to unpack these sequences is to analyse their Average Shot Length (ASL) and types of shots used in each of them. By compiling the raw data in in Fig. 3 below, I was able to identify the differences between the sequences.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

Here is Part One.

In the 21st century, various critics have argued and discussed the development of film style within Hollywood. This development of film style has gone from the traditional continuity of the classical studio film to a form of ‘Intensified Continuity’ and then to post-continuity or Chaos Cinema.

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This is a multi-part series that is a slightly modified version of my BA Dissertation.

All five films in the Transformers series were directed by Michael Bay, released between 2007 and 2017, with the spin-off film Bumblebee directed by Travis Knight, being released in 2018. The films themselves are live-action adaptations of the Hasbro property Transformers, which came from the original toy line of the same name (itself an adaptation of a similar Japanese property), which was followed by a cartoon series; both the toys and cartoon debuted in 1984.

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