Biography and path to success of the legendary director

Michael Bay is an American-born director, co-creator of the production organisation The Institute, and co-owner of Digital Domain, a digital technology company. Michael is also co-owner of Platinum Dunes, a company that has produced remakes of popular horror films "Friday the 13th.", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." и "A Nightmare on Elm Street.".

Bay is world famous for his work on high-budget blockbusters and his trademark style of visual special effects. If you add up all the payments received from Michael's films, the final sum would be more than three billion dollars.

Michael Bay was born in the early winter of 1965 in Los Angeles, where he spent his youth. The boy was raised and cared for by foster carers. Bay attended the best school in Santa Monica. His attraction to the director's craft from an early age led to unpleasant consequences. For example, the future director would attach firecrackers for a toy train and videotape the accident using my mum's eight-millimetre camera. It even happened that the fire brigade had to be called in to film the accident.

Michael Bay's creative journey

Michael took his first steps in learning the craft as an intern in the production of a painting George Lucas' "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.".

Bay thought the film was just awful. Later, he went to a theatre performance where the same story was played out. Then the future director realised that the same story can be presented and revealed in a completely different way. So Michael decided to become a film director.

He graduated from Wesley University in 1986 with qualifications in English and Film Studies. Michael was a top student of one of the teachers called Jeanine Besingerwho taught a film history class. Bay used the knowledge from his Art College of Design classes to prepare his honours thesis.

When Michael finished his postgraduate studies, he started shooting commercials and music videos under Propaganda Films. His 90-second World War II video impressed Coca-Cola marketers, and in 1992 his Red Cross-themed commercial won a Clio Award.

Where it all began

The first achievements of the young director did not go unnoticed and interested producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. They chose Michael as the head of full-metre shooting "The Bad Guys."which was a breakthrough in the career of Will Smith, an aspiring actor at the time. The film grossed $141 million at the box office.

The next film, titled The Rock, was an action film based on the famous Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film starred actors Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris. The Oscar jury considered the film for Best Achievement in Sound.

Michael Bay's next big film "Armageddon." The film was nominated for an Oscar four times and also featured popular actors of the time. The film starred Liv Taylor, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and other famous Hollywood actors.

Military action film "Pearl Harbor." secured four more Oscar nominations for the director in 2001. Shortly afterwards, Michael Bay made a sequel to Bad Boys, which received twice as much at the worldwide box office as the first part.

In 2005, Michael finished work on the science fiction film "The Island" starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi. It was Bay's first film produced by someone other than Jerry Bruckheimer. The film collected about 172 million dollars at the worldwide box office, but Michael was not satisfied with the fees and said that he did not like the advertising of the picture - it does not give an idea of the character and the message of the plot.

"'Transformers' - success or failure?

In 2007, Michael Bay teamed up with Steven Spielberg to produce the spectacular blockbuster Transformers, which surpassed the film's box office record "Spider-Man 2.". Bay subsequently worked on several sequels to the robot alien story, but now all the critics were against him. He was even awarded the Golden Raspberry Award in three categories: "Worst Film", "Worst Director" and "Worst Screenplay".

Against the resistance of the medium and negative reviews, Michael Bay completed the film in the summer of 2011 "Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon.". In the third film, one of the lead roles went to a non Megan Fox, а Rosie Huntington-Wyatley.. The unexpected replacement of the famous model with another actress occurred because of Megan's statement, which was rashly made in an interview: Fox compared Michael's behaviour during filming with Hitler. Steven Spielberg did not like the situation and made a replacement in the cast.

All of Michael's Transformers films have been criticised by both publicists and viewers. Both noted the director's fixation on explosions and special effects to the detriment of the quality of the story. Also, speaking about the very first film, they noted the fragments of the film where the actions of the combat robots become barely understandable for the viewer due to not the most successful filling of the frame. Thus, the criticism touched not only the quality of the narrative, but also the distinguishability of what is happening during the battles and fight scenes.

Despite the barrage of negative reviews, Michael did five films about representatives of a high-tech race and their adventures on planet Earth. All works were very successful at the box office. The storyline does not come to an end, but only develops thanks to the addition of new stories and characters.

Other projects

In addition, the director took on the film adaptation of the story of the mutant Ninja Turtles. Total came out two pictures - critics and part of the audience complained about the poor plot. In the case of "Transformers" reviews did not prevent the collection of a large box office at the world box office, but this time the pictures were not so commercially successful. The second film was received a little better than the first part.

The most unsuccessful, according to critics, are the author's work on remakes of cult horror films, in particular "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". However, it should be noted that Bay participated in the production only as a producer.