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UPDATE: Michael Bay’s personal blog is filled with photos of himself from the worldwide premieres like the one above… Egads. He writes this to fans today:
Thank You Note From Michael Bay
06/26/2011I just want to take the opportunity to thank all the fans around the world for letting me have fun with the Transformers franchise. It has been a wonderful opportunity to have worked with about 4000 crew members around the world. These artists are some of the very best in the entire film business. I’m honored to have had you work along side me. We had an amazing time.
‘Dark of the Moon’ has some of the most technically challenging sequences ever shot. And shot in 3D. I must urge you to find the very best theatre and see this movie in that format. 3D was a forethought, not an afterthought in this movie. I’m glad Jim Cameron and Steven Spielberg really convinced me to shoot in this new technology. We used and invented many new techniques to make the 3D sharper, brighter and more color contrast. I think theatre owners heard their audience that they need to respect the specs of the projectors and not dim the bulbs to save money.
Many theaters are presenting it in the brand new 7.1 sound, which is awesome. This is the most complex, intricate sound track that me and my Academy Awarding winning sound team have done. They really out did themselves to make this a big picture experience. Hopefully you will have as much fun watching this movie as we all had making it.
Thanks,
Michael Bay
—
Michael Bay now writes to projectionists after he’d already called the chief executives of major theater chains to implore them to show Transformers: Dark Of The Moon in a way that burns out projector bulbs more quickly but makes 3D look brighter and sharper. Talk about being pushy: you’d think there was a lot riding on Transformers 3. Paramount Making Too Many 3D Demands?
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Screw the environment, this is a Michael Bay film! Respect must be shown!
This isn’t about the environment. Theaters constantly run their projector lights at lower brightness to save a buck at the expense of viewing experience. It rips off the consumer and messes with the vision of the filmmaker. Good for Bay! He is only fighting for the best viewing experience possible.
s
Dear Mr. Bay,
Thank you for years of noisey dreck and hollow vapid stereotypes that masquerade as “characters”. I promise to go buy the most expensive ticket possible once I find a job to replace the old one that was “downsized” so the owners of the company could buy new cars and bigger yachts.
It’s my greatest pleasure to spend my hard-earned dollars making you richer in exchange for a 13 year-old’s coked-up wet dream. I only ask you provide theatres with a CHUCK-BAG as I’m certain the $5 M&M’s and $7 Pepsi combined with your epileptic camera movements and crummy 3D will leave me and others retching our innards halfway through the “film”.
As always, keep up the melodrama and don’t let the H8RS! get you down. It’s not easy doing something good, so why even try?
Fondly,
Joseph Kurtz
You get best comment of the day. He has to beg his audience to go see his movie after the nonsense that was Transformers 2.
LOL – Bay is high on his own ass fumes. Love it.
It’s the excessive upcharge that is the problem not the dim screen. I would watch more 3D movies but I have to pick and choose now, if they are gonna charge 50 percent more. I just visited arizona and their theater chain here offers no upcharge before 6 — other theater chains should follow suit. You all should voice your opinion to your movie theaters website.
Nothing wrong with that letter… play it brighter.
I second that… I am so sick of the “save the environment” bullshit that pervades the culture. I love clean air and water but much of the information being foisted on the public is pseudo-science laced heavily with a political agenda. PLAY IT BRIGHTER!
Right on! Bright out the bulbs and BURN EM. If I’m paying for a 3D ticket, it better be dialed.
I blame Davis G, Al Gore, and their as$wipe scientists cronies bought out for their half baked global warming theories. Now all you people driving PRIUS’ have batteries that kill the environment and douse you with electromagnetic radiation. Congratulations. Long live the incandescent.
Good letter. But the way theatres are today, he should have begun “Dear Usher” or “Dear Manager/Operator.”
BTW, whatever happened to Lucasfilm’s Theatre Alignment Program (TAP)?
MICHAEL BAY TOTALLY GETS IT! MOVIES DON’T NEED GOOD STORIES OR ACTING, JUST LOTS OF BOOM BOOM AND GOOD 3D POST-PRODUCTION!
John V. Karavitis I think you’re being sarcastic, but, as it turns out, Michael Bay continues to do what he’s been doing for the last quarter century because the viewing public has reqrded him for doing it. 3-D is the next fad, I expect Michael Bay and everyone else to take a stab at it. And I’m sure Michael Bay ignores his critics, he doesn’t ingore what makes him his profit. John V. Karavitis
If you want us to believe, actually make a picture we care about, Michael.
And he couldn’t sign the letter?!?
3D is dead. It used to be an event. Now its just a way to make extra profits regardless of story.
When something is killed, that usually means it’s dead.
What format is best if I’m not going to see it at all?
Brilliant – you made me laugh out loud – and in this desensitised world (desensitised by the films of directors like Michael Bay), that’s a wonderful achievement. Thank you.
Any one or more of Betamax, Laserdisc, Video 2000, VHS and HD-DVD should do nicely.
I don’t think it’s pushy at all. Say what you want about his films (they’re mostly trash), but he put a lot of time and effort into making this film. All he wants is for it to be displayed in the best manner possible. Until there is a universal standard to how 3-D films are shown, this is a logical step. Otherwise, movie will be shown as cheaply as possible and theatergoers will stop going to see these things, as they usually look like garbage.
No, it doesn’t “burn bulbs out faster,” Nikke. It makes them last as long as they’re supposed to. Fucking theaters have been stingy with bulbs for years, even before the current digital/3D wave.
It’s time they get it- either you start doing EVERYTHING possible to make the theater experience enjoyable (bright picture, enforce no talking/texting, etc), or you lose the crowd.
Wish this site understood that, but this is the second or third time that Nikke starts off the article with a “glass half empty” slant.
AMEN BROTHA!! TESTIFY!
Couldn’t agree more mate. I don’t see Bay’s request as a bad thing at all. If anything, it is beneficial to us, the movie-going public. Love the irrational, almost internet-exclusive hatred towards the previous two films. Do you people realise how much money both of them made? Those numbers would most certainly suggest that you are in the minority. I love my blockbuster action movies on the scale of The Dark Knight just as much as the next guy, but what’s wrong with a bit of fun escapism every now and then?
Some of you need to lighten up just as much as these projector bulbs…
Yes, I can see this is really going to work. Especially overseas. And is there any chance of also countering the recent trend of audiences being underwhelmed by poor films with badly done post-produced 3D?
The half of me that respects artists loves his drive to get the best from his creation. The half of me that’s a businessman would toss it in the trash.
If he really wants them to play it brighter and thus incur more expense, this letter would be very short and sweet and effecive: “play it brighter and we will give you a bigger percentage than normal.” Theater owners respond to profit, just like you do, Mr. Bay.
This is the daftest comment so far.
Yes, theater owners should respond to profit – from customers willing to see the next film in 3D after a good viewing experience on the film they are currently watching.
The should not need to be bribed before they create an appropriate movie-going experience. That is their business and is the bare minimum of what we, their customers, expect from them.
3D is fine just the way it is. People are going based on the movie playing. The age group going to this wont NOT go if they don’t upgrade the lighting.
Movies are too damn expensive. The least they should do is project them to the way they are meant to be seen.
This seems more corporate than a Bay letter. There’s far less cursing than one would expect from Bay. So, Paramount wants the film to look good.
I would rather read the accompanying letter from Technicolor Digital Cinema. I’m straining my eyes trying to see through the Bay letter.
In 2D, the lighting, fx, design, and animation (to say nothing of the story…) were so bad on the first 2 films–I hardly see how brightening the projector bulb could help with the new one. Maybe to better see how AWFUL it is?
Now, THERE was a relevant comment! Truth spoken. There is no way that any thinking human would go see any Bay film and expect it to even have a comprehensible story anymore, much less LOOK comprehensible. The first two of these films were headache inducing in their visual design and those responsible, especially Bay, really should never work again. Which begs the question, how did they make so much F*ing money and make Bay so F*ing rich? Must have been his soft-core mentality and a bunch of little boys whose brains are not functioning properly yet.
John V. Karavitis I don’t thiink that people see that a movie is made by Michael Bay, and then they make a decision to go see it. I think that most people, especially that demographic that goes to see movies at theaters (which I believe are people under the age of 25), go to see a movie in a theater for the entertainment aspect, and not to see a “quality” work of art. This isn’t Jimmy Stuart and Kim Novak in “Book, Bell and Candle” that we’re talking about, it’s BANG BOON and WOWWEE! that people want to see nowadays. And Michael Bay has continued to give the people what they want, and what they have consistently paid for. As for the request to increase the light of the projector, I thought that movies were nowadays all downloaded into the automated projector, and thus all the settings were already pre-selected by the stuidos. Where did all this “green” nonsense come from in re movie theaters? Besides, the business model couldn;t have changed all that much from the dcades ago when I worked as a movie usher one summer. I learned then that movie theaters made their profit off of the concession stand! Where’s the “green” in that (excet for the green of all the money they charge for the popcorn!)? John V. Karavitis
Its very interesting that Bay thinks the most critical element of audience enjoyment is brightness level— and avoids his other problems of stupid plot, bad acting, specials effects assault, and ear-bleeding sound.
Thank you Michael Bay. Saw a really dingy Green Lantern 3D.
So YOU were the one!
Um….yes.
Nikki, this isn’t about asking theater owners to “burn out projector bulbs more quickly” – it’s about not burning out audiences who are tired of being ripped off by theaters subjecting us to substandard, shoddy projection.
Kudos to Bay and Paramount for seeing the light, so the rest of us will be able to actually see the damn movie (which is dazzling, btw).
John V. Karavitis Movie owners do a lot more to turn away their customers than the level of “bulb intensity” in the projector. Filthy floors, filty bathrooms, torns fabric in the seats, lack of usher control over poeople who talk during the movie, people who check their cell phones during the movie (!!!), along with the ever-present sky-high cost of the concessions…. I truly wonder at times why the whole “go to a movie theater to see a movie” even exists anymore, outside of, perhaps, museums and acquariums and zoos. The problems that I saw when I worked as an usher decades ago haven’t been addressed, indeed, they have become worse. The only good difference is that now smoking is not allowed in theaters. I remember as a kid the haze of blue-white smoke that hung voer the audience. I can’t believe it took a law to get people to stop smoking in a closed environment like a movie theater!! John V. Karavitis
Or…we can just see it in 2D. No problem with brightness there.
Um, yes there is. If the projectionist forgets to take the 3d filter thingy off, the 2d showing is 85% darker. That happens much more than you think too.
Interesting. Any chance I can view this film at 100% darker.
3D is dead.
*Begins a slow clap* Nice addition to the thread there mate! (Sarcasm, in case you were too daft to realise).
Someone forgot to add “Dictated, not read” to the bottom of the page.
How would you react if the audio for the movies (any movie) were muffled and not loud enough to hear all the dialogue? Cinematographers and directors expend great effort to create visuals based on certain projection standards. Screen brightness has been an issue for decades and not just recent 3D films. The theaters should be a part of the process to maximize the entertain experience. Bay has the clout to deliver a letter that almost every cinematographer wishes he/she could deliver.
Absolutely right I have been in theaters where the films have been so dim its hard to make out what is going on. with the exception of Pitch Black where its supposed to be that way.
“Pitch Black” was cool.
“Hello I’m Michael Bay, director of some of the worst movies you’ve seen…”
Paraphrase: “Dear Moviegoers: Give me more money. My champagne glass isn’t gonna fill itself.”
Dear Theaters, if you’re going to charge extra for 3D, don’t short change us on the light bulbs. Thanks!
Ha! Exactly!!
s
A giant robot movie doesn’t need brighter bulbs. It needs a dimmer audience.
Michael Bay: A directorial mini-dictator churning out kitsch the way a cow gives milk.