It is enjoyable to have a look at the mirror careers of Zack Snyder and Michael Bay. Each are recognized for making visually spectacular spectacles that persistently obtain poor evaluations for lack of character growth, storytelling and narrative depth. Zack has by no means directed a film that has scored over 59/100 on metacritic. Related case with Michael Bay with “Transformers” (61/100) being his most critically accepted movie.
And but, they’ve each efficiently made careers milking the in-built fanbases of current IP. DC Comics for Snyder. Transformers for Bay.
Bay’s movies have raked in 9.6 billion. Snyder’s have introduced in 6.5.
Notably, each truly discovered filmmaking as classmates on the similar college, Artwork Heart Faculty of Design in Pasedena. Snyder obtained a Bachelor of Fantastic Arts in Movie from the Faculty in 1989. Michael Bay graduated in 1988.
I seemed into that college years in the past. Whereas it is seen as a top quality artwork college, it wasn’t rating as one of many prime 100 movie colleges. The evaluations I learn on the time had been fascinating. They recommended that the college put an emphasis on visible artwork over storytelling. I noticed a remark about how the coed reels all seemed unbelievable, however utterly lacked in character/narrative. One individual recommended it was a fantastic college in case your aim was to make attractive automotive commercials with explosions.
Checking Reddit, I discovered a thread from simply earlier this 12 months that backed up the identical factor. An alumni with an BFA in filmmaking named /u/themanwithoutaplan11 commented:
“The movie division is truthfully not as prestigious as the opposite majors on the college like transportation design or different movie colleges. Some folks really feel that it has extra of a deal with business attraction and there are many lessons on making commercials, music movies, branding and an enormous deal with sensible profession pathing. Different colleges could have extra of a deal with narrative and there was an absence of actually inventive writing focus.”
Solely two weeks after graduating, Bay obtained his begin making music movies and commercials. A few of his early work had been Coca-Cola and “Received Milk?” adverts in addition to music movies like “I Contact Myself”.
In the meantime, Snyder was making music movies like “Love is a Crime”
Michael Bay appeared to have a extra various instructional background, attending a prestigious artwork preparatory college, interning for George Lucas on the age 15, and in addition gradulating from Wesleyan Unversity majoring in English and movie earlier than doing his graduate work at Artwork Heart Faculty of Design. That would partially clarify why he appears to have better character/writing instincts in his work like “Unhealthy Boys” and “The Rock”. Whereas, Snyder’s major focus had initially been portray, which may clarify why his most celebrated work is actually simply faithfully bringing standard comicbook panel artwork to life. There’s some humor and character in Bay’s movies that’s utterly missing in Snyder’s work that largely performs off as prolonged online game reduce scenes.
TL;DR: Zack Snyder and Michael Bay’s shared movie training may clarify why each have made careers with visible artwork over character/narrative-driven work
