YO. Michael Bay here. Now, I know what you’re thinking: what is Michael Bay doing here guest blogging? Shouldn’t he be off doing something super awesome, like filming Victoria’s Secret models polishing his weekend jet? Frankly, I wondered the same thing. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be hunting lepers on my yacht, or maybe it was leopards. Or now that I think about it, maybe it was hunting lepers with my leopards. To be honest, I can’t understand a damn word my assistant says since she got her latest round of collagen injections. Schedule’s a mess. Point is, I’m here, and we’re just hours away from the release of Transformers: Age Of Extinction, so I might as well talk about the subject on everyone’s minds: Me.

I’ve been in this business a long time and it’s given me a lot – an Olympic sized jacuzzi, a dozen skysurfing boards, Satriana or whatever her name is over there – and now I think it’s time I give back. Share some of what I’ve learned since cutting my teeth on milk commercials and Meatloaf videos. Figured this was easier than building dogloos for third world losers or whatever, and I can do it without getting dirt on my Jordans. Huge. Anyway, following these tips might not make you the filmmaker I am, but it may give you the sensation of having huge balls, if only for a few minutes.

1. Style. Style. Style.

If you take one thing from this piece, let it be what I told that pipsqueak reporter for GQ: I don’t change my style for anyone. Pussies do that. When people leave a Michael Bay film, they may not understand the story, or know what it was about, or remember anything about it, but they sure as shit know that Michael Bay made it. That’s how you get your name above the marquee, or spelled out in cocaine on the hood of a Lamborghini.

2. Be The Decider

I have a thing I like to call the two-second rule: If it can’t be communicated in two seconds, it’s not worth saying. I got my start making commercials, where if people aren’t hooked immediately, they’re flipping channels. That’s why you have to know what kind of thing you’re making in every second of every shot. You think an audience is going to think for themselves? WRONG. You’re the one with the camera, you do the thinking for them. That goes true whether the message is BUY THIS SOAP or THIS ROBOT’S AWESOME. Everything’s gotta have a message. More meaningful that way.

3. Sluts Or Clowns? The Eternal Question.



Once you’re the decider, one of the main things you have to decide is whether a character is a slut or a clown. One of the things they don’t teach you in film school is that everyone in the world is either a slut or a clown. The big buff guy doing curls, his daughter played by a South American pop star, the Victoria’s Secret models doing crotch lifts in the background while the robots are punching – those are the sluts. Thing about sluts is, you can never have too many of them. If there aren’t enough sluts in the movie, guess what, write them in. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Script calls for a gun fight at a pizza place? Guess what, maybe it takes place at a high school girls’ pool party instead. Does the script have a super serious scientist guy in it? Put some glasses on a European porn star and BOOM, now it’s a super serious slutty scientist with huge cans. In fact, that makes it even better, it’s important to have a variety of sluts in your movie. Shows versatility.