TF6 Bumblebee stand-alone film (2018) production news

[GoktimusPrime]

Originally Posted by philby

ok but what if you like the director but he still gets given a crap script?

Firstly, let me just say that my opinions on Michael Bay's work as a film director are not the same as my opinions on him as a person. Having briefly met Bay IRL I found him to be a reasonably friendly and approachable person. So when you say, "like the director," yeah, I like Michael Bay enough as a person. This has no bearing on my feelings about his work though.

When a director is given a script it is up to him/her to decide how closely they want to stick to the script or whether they should deviate from it. A movie is essentially a film adaptation of the script. One example of just how different a movie can be under two directors is Superman II, when you compare Richard Lester's vs Richard Donner's cut.

Originally Posted by philby

or instructions from higher up?

The director is the lead authority in the making of the film. If the producer doesn't like it, then s/he can replace the director (as happened with Richard Donner on Superman II), but ultimately the director is still in charge.

Originally Posted by philby

does michael bay choose how much product placement goes into each movie and how intrusive it is? or how many scenes/shots that linger onto an attractive young female? etc?

Pretty much as directed by the director. Sponsors may stipulate conditions as to how their product may be portrayed on screen.
e.g. In Slumdog Millionaire Mercedes Benz refused to allow their brand to be seen in a slum. As a result, the Mercedes that were shot in the slum sets had their logos digitally removed in post production. I'm assuming that this was likely because they only found out about this after the principal photography had been done, because doing it digitally is much, much more expensive than simply removing or covering up logos (known as "greeking"). And Michael Bay has admitted that he shoots the gratuitous shots of girls to appeal to chest-thumping teenage jocks.

I personally don't mind the product placement TBH. It helps to ground the films in reality when you see recognisable brands and products. Cos in the TV series where brands and products are fictitious, it just doesn't feel as 'real.' e.g. G1 felt more real because they had vehicles like VW Beetle, F15 Eagles, Datsun Fairladies etc. When I see these things IRL it makes me think of Transformers. When I watch shows like TF Prime and the current RiD series with their made-up vehicle models and other products, it just doesn't make the same real-world connection. And we know that G1 started losing steam when alt modes shifted more heavily towards made-up fantasy modes instead of real world ones. The golden "Gee Wun" period is the one that has more real-world based alt modes. Heck, just look at Masterpiece. With the sole exceptions of Grimlock and Star Sabre, every MP figure is based on a real world thing. Same with Binaltech/Alternators/Alternity. These lines just wouldn't be the same if they just used generic or approximated vehicle makes.

[philby]

Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Firstly, let me just say that my opinions on Michael Bay's work as a film director are not the same as my opinions on him as a person. Having briefly met Bay IRL I found him to be a reasonably friendly and approachable person. So when you say, "like the director," yeah, I like Michael Bay enough as a person. This has no bearing on my feelings about his work though.

When a director is given a script it is up to him/her to decide how closely they want to stick to the script or whether they should deviate from it. A movie is essentially a film adaptation of the script. One example of just how different a movie can be under two directors is Superman II, when you compare Richard Lester's vs Richard Donner's cut.


The director is the lead authority in the making of the film. If the producer doesn't like it, then s/he can replace the director (as happened with Richard Donner on Superman II), but ultimately the director is still in charge.


Pretty much as directed by the director. Sponsors may stipulate conditions as to how their product may be portrayed on screen.
e.g. In Slumdog Millionaire Mercedes Benz refused to allow their brand to be seen in a slum. As a result, the Mercedes that were shot in the slum sets had their logos digitally removed in post production. I'm assuming that this was likely because they only found out about this after the principal photography had been done, because doing it digitally is much, much more expensive than simply removing or covering up logos (known as "greeking"). And Michael Bay has admitted that he shoots the gratuitous shots of girls to appeal to chest-thumping teenage jocks.

I personally don't mind the product placement TBH. It helps to ground the films in reality when you see recognisable brands and products. Cos in the TV series where brands and products are fictitious, it just doesn't feel as 'real.' e.g. G1 felt more real because they had vehicles like VW Beetle, F15 Eagles, Datsun Fairladies etc. When I see these things IRL it makes me think of Transformers. When I watch shows like TF Prime and the current RiD series with their made-up vehicle models and other products, it just doesn't make the same real-world connection. And we know that G1 started losing steam when alt modes shifted more heavily towards made-up fantasy modes instead of real world ones. The golden "Gee Wun" period is the one that has more real-world based alt modes. Heck, just look at Masterpiece. With the sole exceptions of Grimlock and Star Sabre, every MP figure is based on a real world thing. Same with Binaltech/Alternators/Alternity. These lines just wouldn't be the same if they just used generic or approximated vehicle makes.

i'm not talking about product placement as in cars, i'm talking about a robot being thrown into a gigantic in your face ad for victorias secret

[GoktimusPrime]

Eh, again, still helps ground the story into reality for me. Buses do carry adverts on them. e.g. the fight between Superman and the Kryptonian criminals in Metropolis. We see things like a Marlboro truck being slammed into a bus (Superman even has to climb out of said truck), one of the Kryptonians being smashed through a Coca-Cola neon sign etc. Or heck, when I see movies that were filmed in Sydney and you can see certain store signs, that really makes it feel more real for me. e.g. the Grace Bros (now Myer) sign falling in Superman Returns, or the Gowings sign in that 1995 Power Rangers movie (although the inexcusably bad CG Megazord totally ruined it ) etc. These things just help ground these films into reality for me.

And importantly, I find that the movies don't stall for these product placed adverts. e.g. all the references to eBay in the first movie - and remember, I hate eBay. But the product placement didn't feel jarring to me because, well... that's how some people talk. Telling people that you're selling something on eBay, asking about an eBay item, saying that you found something on eBay etc. Although I must confess that I do roll my eyes when characters both show and state the names of products in an unnatural fashion. e.g. Jerry Wang asking his colleague, "May I finish my Shihua(TM) Milk." or Joshua Joyce manipulating Transformium to change into a portable speaker as he says, "You like music? The Pill(TM)." -- who talks like that (outside of a commercial)? But most other product placements in the films are usually so brief that you'd miss them if you blinked. And of course, sponsors help pay for the film whereas there's nothing to be gained by writing weak stories.

[Seraphim Prime]

The lingering female shots is more just Bay doing what he thinks is funny, and what he thinks appeals to a certain aspect of the market that this film is aimed for - teenage/early 20's men.

Whether it's specific Victoria's Secret or just generic T&A, I think the connection more comes from Bay's other association with VS (doing a bunch of their commercials), similar to how he uses his military contacts to have actual military officers act out military operations.

[GoktimusPrime]

Boys. Not men. His target audience is boys. Possibly manchildren, but not men.

[philby]

'keeps the movies grounded'??? i'm gonna have to disagree with you, on that one

LOL

"Transformers: Age of Extinction - Worst Product Placement Movie Ever"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5bbWSrzBQ

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah, after watching AoE the other night on Channel 99 I felt like disagreeing with myself. The grounding effect only works to a certain point but AoE really took it waaay over the top. Like the way that every single freakin' logo has to be centre screen and directly facing the audience... it really looked like a series of TV commercials. Sheesh. I'd forgotten just how blatantly bad it was. It reminded me of this scene from Wayne's World.

[philby]

Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Like the way that every single freakin' logo has to be centre screen and directly facing the audience... it really looked like a series of TV commercials. Sheesh. I'd forgotten just how blatantly bad it was.

yeah thats what i was meaning. i tried to watch some clips of supeman fighting zod and one of them is around a 7-eleven store which you see the logo a few times, but its always off to the side or in the background. AoE makes them the actual focus of the shot. you don't see robots fighting and crash into a bus, you see a bus with victoria's secret advertising front and centre and it happens to get hit by a robot.

Anyways...so I guess my original comment in this thread about this kinda stuff was that how much of those kind of shots come from the director and how much will be from hasbro or the studio financing it? that's why I was asking does the choice of director really matter if we want to move on from those kind of shots?

[GoktimusPrime]

I'd say it's the director (although the producer may have influence too), particularly with Michael Bay who we know started his career directing commercials. In the DVD commentary of The Island, Bay said that he deliberately included product advertisements for "greater realism." Which I think works if it's incidental or to the side and not in the audience's face. It really feels more like Bay's thing rather than Spielberg's, don't you think?

[Magnus]

Product placement is a tricky one. The upsides are that the use of real products makes a movie more realistic/believable since real-world products are being used instead of genericised ones, and that money from the product placement deal is money that goes into the production and helps pay for things. Practical effects, location shooting, CGI - it isn't cheap, and it adds up.

The downside is that making the shot too blatant or in-your-face tends to be distracting or can take the viewer 'out of the movie', particularly if there are a lot of them. In this regard, I think I, Robot was at least as bad as anything we've seen in the Transformers series. That said, it's not hard to imagine that a company would want its product or brand to be featured prominently, since they're paying for 'advertising space'. In fact, Paramount got sued in 2014 by a Chinese travel company because a product placement shot featuring a logo didn't make it into AoE. (The outcome is reported here.)