The first time I saw Transformers, I saw it with my then roommate who was less,
shall we say, fascinated by the Michael Bay "ouvre" than I was, even then.
Two days later, out of the blue, she says to me:
"Did a robot pee on John Turturro in that movie?"
I was like "No, of course not, that's ridiculous. Why would a robot pee on John Turturro?"
And she was, like, "No, that did happen.
Bumblebee peed on John Turturro. In fact, I think it even had a ‘Boiiiinggg’ sound...
...as its hubcap popped off before it peed on...
beloved indie icon John Turturro"
I was like "No, that did not happen". So, of course, I then had to see Transformers again.
And I would say that, although on that second viewing, I fell into a rabbit hole on which I have yet to emerge,
I realized something that day.
Bumblebee peed on John Turturro.
That was a thing that happened in that movie, and somehow I did not remember it.
Years later, I have watched "Transformers 3" half a dozen times,
and unless I have the Wikipedia article right in front of me, I still have difficulty trying to explain the plot to you,
and this isn't really so much an issue in other visually busy action movie franchises.
Like, I remember what happens in "Guardians of the Galaxy", both 1 and 2 pretty well,
and I only saw either of those once. Which begs the question that I feel like a lot of people...
know is a thing, but maybe have not even really thought to ask...
Why is it so difficult to remember what happens in these f*cking Transformers movies?
This ties into Auteur theory because the answer to that question lies very much in the Bay aesthetic,
the way Bay technically puts his movies together. Some characteristics of the Michael Bay aesthetic include:
Helicopters at Sunset; wide Parallax;
standing into the frame;
helicopters at Sunset; robot helicopters;
streetlamps; high color contrast;
frequent Rapid cutting; and...
helicopters...
after sunset. So, if I were to point out that the frame in the Transformers movies tend to be a touch...
BUSY, I would be roughly the nine millionth person to point that out.
What I want to do is tie in that idea with the lack of impression these films make on the viewer,
Bays filmmaker ethos and the language of film in general.
"Beginning, middle, end. Facts. Details."
"Condensed. Plot. Tell it"
Let's say you have a person talking. Me, for instance, and besides some very mild visual elements,
the only information you are getting are: my body language and the words that I'm saying.
So, let's add to that a big block of text that has nothing to do with what I am saying right now.
You can either listen to me and what I'm saying, or you can read the block of text.
You can try to do both, but now you're working twice as hard to try to absorb whatever is coming at you.
And you can, maybe, listen to me and read the block text and actually absorb...
what is saying, but your ability for it to stick with you is diminished.
The same applies to film language. Your human brain has only so much processing power,
and has to be absorbing film language information and dialogue information,
and if the film makes you work too hard to absorb that, your brain is going to get tired and frustrated quickly.
If the info is too cluttered or too quick,
you just won't absorb it. But, too slow and it lacks excitement and you get bored.
This is why editing and framing are much more integral aspects of film than dialogue.
In terms of sheer information (where we are in time, what the tone is, what is even happening),
you get far more raw information than the words coming out of the actors mouth from film language.
Film language is all-encompassing.
Everything you see on screen uses film language even if it's just pure blackness.
"Much that once was, is lost"
Or whiteness.
All of this tells your brain something, even if the something is just... the concept of the color white.
Okay, I know white is not a color. Now, let's add something else.
Maybe some reverb on my voice and some angelic music.
Even combining the very simplest of elements can create a form of shorthand.
Maybe I'm dead and talking about film language from the Beyond. Maybe I am God. Maybe God is dead.
Transformers!
The nuances of film language would be impossible to list because new ones are being developed...
literally every day. Film language is extremely fluid. But simply put, all...
elements of the film (from the frame, to the dialogue, to the...
editing, to the acting), all of these things convey information...
to the audience, and some frames by necessity are more impactful than others.
To borrow from "Every Frame a Painting" 's episode on Bayhem,
Michael Bay tends not only to maximize visual impact in important shots
(shots that convey crucial plot info), but maximizes visual impact in every shot.
Bay's aesthetic is a series of dynamic shots and no non-dynamic ones.
So, rather than a visual intensity rising and falling as the story does,
the visuals in Michael Bay's movies hang around a 9 or a 10.
Every frame is telling you that this information is of max importance,
and therefore it is harder to retain it.
Let's talk about visual contrast and affinity and it's impact on what the audience absorbs,
be it with cinematography, editing,
sound,
lighting.
You have contrast and you have affinity. Affinity means similarity, contrast means...
contrast. A general rule-of-thumb,
Contrast is generally more striking and therefore, more impactful affinity...
is less striking and therefore less impactful.
That does not mean that one is better than the other. You need both to make a coherent film.
Let's look at a scene from "Psycho". In this scene, Norman is giving Marion a sandwich.
He's attracted to her, but has a lot of shame in the form of the mother personality.
It's an important scene because at the end of it, she decides that she needs to leave, return to her real...
life and own up to what she's done.
It's a very long dialogue scene with a lot of shot reverse shot. Maximum viewer impact happens...
upon the first time you see a shot. This is why shot-reverse-shot gets dull if the frame never changes,
this is why changing the shots needs to be motivated.
The frame on him changes when she challenges the idea of his mother.
"If anyone ever talked to me the way I heard, the way she spoke to you..."
We go from a more conventional frame to one with more tonal contrast,
that is more pronounced blacks and whites, and with the bird of doom in the background.
And it changes again when Marion suggests that Norman institutionalizes Mother, and he turns on her.
"You mean an institution?"
The frame changes when the beat and tone of the scene change and the tension builds.
I chose Psycho because the changes in the frame are highly motivated. After a stretch of visual affinity,
the contrast of the new frame tells the viewer that this is an important shift and needs to be remembered.
Bay knows that the more times you cut back to the same frame, you lose tension.
That's why you so rarely see a cut back and forth to the same frame in his films. His camera is always moving.
He rarely uses traditional shot-reverse-shot, and he rarely cuts back to the same frame.
Visual contrast can be of tone, of Hue, of movement, but in editing,
when the focus falls in the same place from shot to shot, that is called "Affinity of Continuum of Movement".
"Have I seen you before? -Maybe."
When the focus falls in two different places from shot to shot, it's called "Contrast of Continuum of Movement".
You may have heard of the centering technique used in "Mad Max: Fury Road".
They kept the action in the center of the shot during the action scenes,
so editor Margaret Sixel would have maximum temporal freedom in the edit,
meaning she could make the shots go for as long or as short as she desired,
and she had that freedom because the focus is always in the same place: the center of the frame.
It's a good example of affinity of continuum of movement.
The continuum of Movement in Transformers action scenes...
kind of goes back and forth. Sometimes there is excellent affinity of continuum of Movement,
and sometimes there's a lot of contrast.
Not saying that Contrast of Continuum of Movement in action scenes is always a bad thing,
when it is used deliberately. There is a scene in Batman Begins where "The Batman"...
"The Batman"
uses Scarecrow's scare tactics against him and it's really hard to follow what's going on.
This is meant to be intentionally disorienting to give some menace to Batman,
as we see him from the POV of the criminal,
but it is important to know also that this is not consistent with the rest of the visual style of the film.
This style of editing is used very rarely, therefore it is memorable when it does happen.
Most of the film is shot very traditionally.
So when you have a scene that deliberately uses a lot of contrast of continuum of movement,
not only does the audience remember the scene,
the intended effect helps the audience remember the scene rather than diminishes its ability to do so.
It's an example of rapid fire cutting and contrast of continuum of Movement to create a desired effect.
In the transformers movies, especially the later ones, there's little focus of where the eye is supposed to be,
especially when the robots are in screen, so when you combine...
visually confusing character design; no clear focus in the frame; the rapid-fire nature of the cutting; and...
Contrast of continuum of movement, eventually your brain will tune out and sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
It's like a firework show you're only half paying attention to because you're looking at your phone.
And that's what some people are here for-- THAT'S WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE HERE FOR.
But the visual language makes no distinctions between what's important and what isn't,
and while loud and noisome, its homogeneity in the form of being loud and noisome...
makes it hard to absorb what is even going on. The way your eye moves takes brain processing power.
The more your eye has to move around, the more work your brain has to do,
the less information you can absorb. And again,
this is not inherently a bad technique when the intent is motivated.
And this is also not to say that Bay never slows down or focuses his frame.
Again, this is part of why the first half of the first movie,
I argue, is the strongest because it takes the time to set up important plot points visually,
and the plot point of Sam's glasses,
dumb as it is, at least you remember. That's what the autobots are interested in, and why Sam Matters.
Take note, audience, extreme close-ups staying on the glasses means you need to remember the glasses.
Therefor, you remember the glasses, and I cannot say the same for the... "Pillars" in...
Transformers 3 or the... whatever the problem was in Transformers 2 or 4...
"Transformium"?
How are you in every movie, Stanley Tucci?
So, as the films progress, when there's a relatively important piece of plot information being imparted,
the language of the film doesn't tell your brain: "this is important and you need to remember this",
or it doesn't sink in because every shot is given equal weight visually.
The focus on visual spectacle increases and the editing gets sloppier.
"Oh, my God!!"
I want to pay special attention to this sequence in "Dark of the Moon".
Here we have two conflicting elements of film language: Shia's acting is in direct contradiction with the editing.
"Oh, back to NES."
His screaming is supposed to be funny, but there is no time for the joke to land.
There is no moment where Bumblebee playfully rips him with a pop song or something,
no moment where the audience can take a breath and collect itself before the next action sequence starts,
no moment where Sam composes himself.
He screams, the emotion of it has no time to land, and then the film cuts to the next scene.
And the thing is, action scenes are uniquely hard to edit.
Rapid cutting means the cuts need to match where the eye was on a previous cut,
you having to work to figure out where the focus is in the new cut...
means your brain can't absorb information because it's too busy trying to figure out where to look.
I wanted to incorporate the episode on film language into the greater discussion of Auteur theory...
because this discussion is somewhat unique to Michael Bay,
and also rubs up against the greater thesis of this entire series, which is that the text of the film...
rubs up and often conflicts against the framing. And I hear you saying "text? What text?
And yes, these movies have plots and stories, and they are convoluted as hell,
and the director seems largely uninterested in the story
and therefore does not create frames that compliment the story,
but rather creates frames designed for maximum spectacle. And spectacle is great,
if it is used with purpose. And if your film is all spectacle with no focus,
the near audience is going to have a hard time remembering...
which information is important to the plot and which information isn't.