Hey, what's up?
My name is Elliot Rosen
with StudioBinder.
And today we're going to be
talking about Michael Bay.
Explosions like everywhere.
Like him,
hatey him or just snore him,
chances are good, you've had a
taste of the Michael Bay style,
sometimes called Bayhem.
But there's a lot more to Michael
Bay's films than just explosions.
"Oh my God!"
Okay, not really.
But he does do this
really epic shot
that we've dubbed "The
Michael Bay Hero Shot."
So today, we're going to show
you how to do it on a low budget.
But before we jump into what
you need to pull off the shot,
make sure to subscribe below
and click the bell icon
to stay in the loop.
So what is a hero shot?
Basically, it's like a dramatic
shot of a main character
a director will use it to
introduce a new character,
like they're telling you:
"Go roof for this dude."
If you're looking to pull off the
Michael Bay hero shot for your next film,
you're going to
need three things.
Number one - a telephoto lens.
Two - a dolly or a gimbal.
And three - some helping hands.
Can't do this alone, guys.
I'll be using the
shot listing feature
in StudioBinder`s
production software
to break down the
specifics of this shot.
Our shot will be
a tight close-up
that dolly's around the actors
and reveals our second
actor in the back.
Our settings will be 4K at
23.376 frames per second.
Will be using a
DJI Ronin-S gimbal.
Panasonic GH5.
And I'm going to take advantage of
the Ronin stabilization features
combined with the GH5,
5-axis internal stabilization
to create a shot that is almost
too easy to make butterly smooth.
We imported this screenshot
from the actual "Bad Boys"
movie into our small HD.
And now what I'm
simply going to do
with the image overlay
function on the small HD.
I'm going to reduce the
opacity, just by doing that
and now you can see if,
Riley, you could just hand
the camera a little bit.
Just wiggle it around.
Yeah, now we're what we're
seeing is our actual live footage
and we can adjust how much
of the shot we are matching.
Sean is a little bit
shorter than Albert
and in the original
"Bad Boy" shot,
Will Smith is
taller than Marvin.
So we used a little case to get Sean's
height a little higher than Albert.
This entire gear set I'm
using, guys,
can be rented from someplace like share
grid for less than a hundred bucks.
So number one - Telephoto Lens.
It can sometimes be
called a long lens
usually 70 millimeters or longer
and visually it makes
far away objects
appear like they're
a lot closer.
It gives you this amazing
shallow depth of field
that's creates this really
cinematic blurry background.
And you can find this in
normal everyday lenses
like the Canon 70
to 200 zoom lens.
Two - a Dolly or a Gimbal.
The shots fast motion is created by
physically moving the camera rapidly
while keeping the shot squarely
focused on the actor the entire time.
To get really
technical for a minute.
This creates what we
call parallaxing effect,
which is when you
get the background
and the foreground moving
separately from each other
to create this
illusion of depth.
So lot of ways to achieve
this Michael Bay style
fast camera motion.
The most expensive ways to
put the camera on a dolly
and rapidly push down the track.
However, this requires a large
crew, time and set up.
And let's be honest,
we're not working with
the Michael Bay budget.
Number three - Helping Hands.
I'm gonna have a friend
assist me with the camera
and push me around
in a desk chair
to mimic the effect
you get with a dolly
while I operate the gimbal.
"- You want to limber up.
And this goes for
all parts of life,
but specifically with dolly
gripping on office furniture.
It's squirrely and you want
to have good core strength.
- So we're just taking
a look at the shot.
And actually,
just me and my own two feet
looks even better
than Riley pushing me.
So you're fired.
If you were really
good at rollerblading
or skateboarding,
back to work too, you could put roller
skates on and just do it yourself actually."
Don't forget you'll
need an actor too.
This might sound
like a no-brainer
but take a second look
at the shot example.
No one in their right mind
would just stand up that slowly
look off into the
middle of nowhere
and just say a sentence
to no one in particular.
It just wouldn't happen.
"- Hi. My name is Albert
Abraham, and I'm a bad boy.
We are two of three people
from Via Novo Studios,
YouTube channel.
You can check this out.
We do a lot of cool fight stuff.
- And now here is
the final shot."
"The shit just got real."
And now here it is compared
to the original shot.
"The shit just got real."
"Look pretty good."
Okay, honestly,
I wasn't totally sure this would work.
But I'm super glad it did.
Let's recap.
The main elements the
Michael Bay hero shot are.
A telephoto lens.
Dolly or a gimbal.
And of course,
some helping hands.
Are you a fan of the
Michael Bay style?
What are some of your favorite
hero shots for movies?
Tell us in the comments!
Do you have an epic shot
you like to pull off?
Or maybe just some
epic explosions.
Either way, you're just going
to want to plan it, right?
So check out the
description below.
We got a link to StudioBinder.
Guys, it's free to get started.
You can follow us on Instagram
and don't forget to hit that
icon below for notifications.
Hope you enjoyed this
little slice of Michael Bay.
And we'll see you,
on the next one.
[Music]
And up and down.
