Hey, what's up?
My name is Elliot Rosen with StudioBinder.
And today we're going to be talking about Michael Bay.
Explosions like everywhere.
Like him, hatey him or just snore him,
chances are good, you've had a taste of the Michael Bay style,
sometimes called Bayhem.
But there's a lot more to Michael Bay's films than just explosions.
"Oh my God!"
Okay, not really.
But he does do this really epic shot
that we've dubbed "The Michael Bay Hero Shot."
So today, we're going to show you how to do it on a low budget.
But before we jump into what you need to pull off the shot,
make sure to subscribe below
and click the bell icon to stay in the loop.
So what is a hero shot?
Basically, it's like a dramatic shot of a main character
a director will use it to introduce a new character,
like they're telling you: "Go roof for this dude."
If you're looking to pull off the Michael Bay hero shot for your next film,
you're going to need three things.
Number one - a telephoto lens.
Two - a dolly or a gimbal.
And three - some helping hands.
Can't do this alone, guys.
I'll be using the shot listing feature
in StudioBinder`s production software
to break down the specifics of this shot.
Our shot will be a tight close-up
that dolly's around the actors
and reveals our second actor in the back.
Our settings will be 4K at 23.376 frames per second.
Will be using a DJI Ronin-S gimbal.
Panasonic GH5.
And I'm going to take advantage of the Ronin stabilization features
combined with the GH5, 5-axis internal stabilization
to create a shot that is almost too easy to make butterly smooth.
We imported this screenshot
from the actual "Bad Boys" movie into our small HD.
And now what I'm simply going to do
with the image overlay function on the small HD.
I'm going to reduce the opacity, just by doing that
and now you can see if,
Riley, you could just hand the camera a little bit.
Just wiggle it around.
Yeah, now we're what we're seeing is our actual live footage
and we can adjust how much of the shot we are matching.
Sean is a little bit shorter than Albert
and in the original "Bad Boy" shot,
Will Smith is taller than Marvin.
So we used a little case to get Sean's height a little higher than Albert.
This entire gear set I'm using, guys,
can be rented from someplace like share grid for less than a hundred bucks.
So number one - Telephoto Lens.
It can sometimes be called a long lens
usually 70 millimeters or longer
and visually it makes far away objects
appear like they're a lot closer.
It gives you this amazing shallow depth of field
that's creates this really cinematic blurry background.
And you can find this in normal everyday lenses
like the Canon 70 to 200 zoom lens.
Two - a Dolly or a Gimbal.
The shots fast motion is created by physically moving the camera rapidly
while keeping the shot squarely focused on the actor the entire time.
To get really technical for a minute.
This creates what we call parallaxing effect,
which is when you get the background
and the foreground moving separately from each other
to create this illusion of depth.
So lot of ways to achieve
this Michael Bay style fast camera motion.
The most expensive ways to put the camera on a dolly
and rapidly push down the track.
However, this requires a large crew, time and set up.
And let's be honest,
we're not working with the Michael Bay budget.
Number three - Helping Hands.
I'm gonna have a friend assist me with the camera
and push me around in a desk chair
to mimic the effect you get with a dolly
while I operate the gimbal.
"- You want to limber up.
And this goes for all parts of life,
but specifically with dolly gripping on office furniture.
It's squirrely and you want to have good core strength.
- So we're just taking a look at the shot.
And actually, just me and my own two feet
looks even better than Riley pushing me.
So you're fired.
If you were really good at rollerblading
or skateboarding,
back to work too, you could put roller skates on and just do it yourself actually."
Don't forget you'll need an actor too.
This might sound like a no-brainer
but take a second look at the shot example.
No one in their right mind would just stand up that slowly
look off into the middle of nowhere
and just say a sentence to no one in particular.
It just wouldn't happen.
"- Hi. My name is Albert Abraham, and I'm a bad boy.
We are two of three people
from Via Novo Studios, YouTube channel.
You can check this out.
We do a lot of cool fight stuff.
- And now here is the final shot."
"The shit just got real."
And now here it is compared to the original shot.
"The shit just got real."
"Look pretty good."
Okay, honestly, I wasn't totally sure this would work.
But I'm super glad it did.
Let's recap.
The main elements the Michael Bay hero shot are.
A telephoto lens.
Dolly or a gimbal.
And of course, some helping hands.
Are you a fan of the Michael Bay style?
What are some of your favorite hero shots for movies?
Tell us in the comments!
Do you have an epic shot you like to pull off?
Or maybe just some epic explosions.
Either way, you're just going to want to plan it, right?
So check out the description below.
We got a link to StudioBinder.
Guys, it's free to get started.
You can follow us on Instagram
and don't forget to hit that icon below for notifications.
Hope you enjoyed this little slice of Michael Bay.
And we'll see you, on the next one.
[Music]
And up and down.