Bayhem is the use of movement, composition and fast editing to create a sense of epic scale. Each individual shot feels huge but also implies bigger things outside the frame. Stacks of multiple layers of movement shot on a very long lens or a wide one. It shows a lot in just a moment then takes it away.
The mention of compressed space reminded me why I abandoned my desire for a long telephoto lens after seeing what it is they actually do.
I thought it would be so cool to photograph, say, a distant mountain goat as if it were close up that appears as a dot from a distance. What power! But not anymore. I realized the serious telephotos flatten the subject unacceptably. Telephotos compress the distance between objects so you cannot tell if the goat is standing directly behind a bush or fifty yards beyond it, while compressing the depth of the subjects themselves so that rocks and bush and goat all look as if they are printed on cards for an artificial diorama.
8 comments:
Long lenses are good for portraits, in that they make noses smaller.
Also converting stuff to shapes, as in yesterday dog.
I'd like to learn more about the subject, being interested in cinema, but I found that video too intimidating.
Reminded me of all those college drop slips.
I could have papered a wall.
College drop slips. I never did that. Not once. I didn't even know what you meant by that at first. I was thinking 'drop cloth' for painting a room, then, oh!.
Intimidating? How so?
Apparently the guy has a whole bunch of videos. I noticed they're lauded in comments at Vimeo.
I found this one on Bay quite interesting. Enough to explore the others later.
I'm especially interested in technique. The best part of this one for me is explaining where technique is copied and where it fails. His description of parallax not working when there is no detail in the back was the best. The director is trying to do what Bay does all the time but with a sky blue background it fails. Answer for the director: put things in the background and you have your dramatic sweep. The problem with Bay is he does that same thing 50 times in one film.
I'll be looking for one that explains what I find so annoying; poorly lit sets that are overly complex with only flashes of light to reveal them. An obvious attempt to increase tension and suspense by withholding detail on a giant screen. I feel cheated. Just show me the g.d. monster already! I want to see how well you've done with it, study the details, but I cannot. Bummer. Like Aliens. I nearly walked out from annoyance, with a big fat, piss on you then if you're not going to show in full the monster you conceived. Knock it off with this bits and pieces b.s.
Classic Bay, the rotating slowmo and explosions where none should exist.
The latest Godzilla I liked, even though it wasn't Bay. Why? Well, we got to see the monster, yeah, it was teased, but you clearly knew immediately in the beginning that it was going to be something huge and it was.
He left out one thing, I think. Loading scenes with more imagery than the viewer can assimilate leaves that viewer feeling that he has missed a lot. So Bay sells him another ticket for a repeat viewing.
(1) No, seriously. I'd never heard of the guy. I just checked wikipedia and I've seen none of his movies and none of his TV shows. That said, I have seen the Divinyls video, but I don't recognize any of the others.
(2) Watching that video made me feel like Jerry Seinfeld when he wanted to make the switch. When he wanted to switch from his current girlfriend to start dating her roommate.
George Costanza's master plan to propose a three-way backfired when it turned out that both women were into it and Seinfeld had to back out because he's not an orgy kind of guy:
GEORGE: You're not going to do it? What do you mean, You're not going to do it?!
JERRY: I can't. I'm not an orgy guy.
GEORGE: Are you crazy? This is like discovering Plutonium by accident!
JERRY: Don't you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything. I'd have to dress different. I'd have to act different. I'd have to grow a mustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions and I'd need a new bedspread and new curtains. I'd have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting. I'd have to get new friends. I'd have to get orgy friends. Nah, I'm not ready for it.
(3) See what I mean?
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