Michael Bay melts down on stage at CES

ItDonnedOnMe

ItDonnedOnMe

This is pretty crazy, he was supposed to talk about filmmaking for Samsung but when the teleprompter screwed up he just shut down:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5281542/watch-michael-bay-melt-down-onstage-at-ces

Now I'm no Michael Bay, but if you walked up to me at just about any point in time and said 'hey, can you run up on stage and talk about filmmaking and this cool new television for a few minutes" I'm pretty sure I could wing it pretty well. It just seems strange to me that he would even take a gig like this if he's that nervous about public speaking.

I wonder who'll get the blame? I do a lot of event work, and teleprompter failures/errors aren't that uncommon, but I've never seen one lead to something like this.
 
I didn't think it was that bad. he probably has some anxiety problems and got overwhelmed, it's not like he was a dickhead about it. he apologized that he couldn't do it and then walked away.
 
I felt bad for him, I bet he was being paid to say specific words, probably some forced contract thing that he didn't want to do anyway, and since the words were not there, .. meh..

The interlocutor was lame, I blame him.
 
Poor guy...


And most professionals would tell you that the fear of public speaking never goes away, they just get more used to it.
 
He (and everyone else) should take some improv classes. I used to be deathly afraid of public speaking but after studying improv at UCB I became more confident. Now I would so much rather "wing it" than have to read from a teleprompter, no matter how big the audience.
 
I bet they're wishing they hadn't paid him in advance ;)

It's a bit strange, surely he could wing a quick talk about his 'job' as it were - and even if he didn't have the specific marketing lines from the prompter, surely he's been over what those lines are with Samsung execs in the past?

It reminds me more of a heartwarming family movie where the Dad goes up to rally for something against the wholesome daughters views, and whilst he's up there he realises the error of his ways and excuses himself from the stage :P
 
Yeah, I don't think it's that bad at all. Like Jax said, it is slightly strange that he couldn't wing a little more description on what he does. But like others have said, he probably just wasn't expecting to have to ad lib, and it flustered him. It could happen to a lot of us.

Heheh, it's more proof that what I was taught in speech class about simply reading from a script or memorizing your speech is a recipe for trouble. Maybe you guys remember that from your speech classes too? It's much better, I was taught, to have an outline, know your points, but do not memorize exactly what you're going to say.

In this case, he was relying on Samsung to walk him through his obligatory appearance. Like others have pointed out, it seems like it was Samsung and the rep who dropped the ball. Hopefully, they apologized to him later.
 
Haha! Sucker.

Call me crazy, but I think a director should be able to communicate ideas on the fly. I just lost a heck of a lot of respect for Michael Bay.
 
Cracker Funk said:
Haha! Sucker.

Call me crazy, but I think a director should be able to communicate ideas on the fly. I just lost a heck of a lot of respect for Michael Bay.
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Actually - it may be just the opposite.

True geniuses of filmmaking often get into film because they desperately need to communicate using a medium that is time delayed. They are horrible 'in the moment' and cannot take part in the social joys, so film is their way to connect. Thats not to say Bay's work is genius, but you often make it in this film world because you have an unusual driving need to connect w/ others this way to live happily.
 
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Michael Bay was probably getting paid a ton of money to promote the product, so I have zero sympathy for him. If you're working in a creative industry and choose to whore yourself out for another sackful of cash (given that he's already one of the wealthiest directors in the world) then you should be able to do your job. Talking about why you make films should never require a teleprompter anyway. The fact that he demanded a teleprompter and then refused to speak when it failed shows how little grip on reality he has.

Michael Bay is famed for being quite a shouty and rude director. I heard an interview with Jason Isaacs talking about working with Bay on Armageddon and how Bay would scream at the actors all through the action scenes.

He's clearly an idiot and I can scarcely think of anyone less deserving of our sympathy.
 
All he had to do though was say something like "it's a beautiful tv, just look at it" when prompted and let the exec take the rest.

It occurred to me that this may have been a contractually-obligated appearance as part of Samsung providing sponsorship/funding for one of his projects - which might explain why he'd do it even if he wasn't comfortable with public speaking. Maybe I'm a little bit jaded about this because I've been behind the scenes and at rehearsals for a lot of events like this. I've noticed that in general the bigger the 'star' they've got making the appearance the less time & attention they spend during rehearsal. Can you imagine being the producer on this show and trying to direct Michael Bay during the rehearsals?

You know who the best 'star' I've seen do one of these was? Vanilla Ice. He showed up at 7am for the rehearsal, took the whole thing very seriously, and was generally very professional and personable. He then put on a full-energy performance at 8:30am and blew the crowd away. The only downside being that he had to do three songs but had only two hits, so his closer was the theme song from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2", which isn't necessarily a strong way to end your set. Still, he hung around until the keynotes were all finished and signed autographs & took photos until everyone was gone. He didn't treat the whole thing like it was below him, but rather approached it as a part of his job.

Although, now that I think about it, this is probably the best bang-for-their-buck that Samsung could have hoped for. How much press would they get if the presentation had gone well? I'd bet a lot more people know they have a new curved television thanks to this video.
 
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RED ROBOT said:
Some of you are so disrespectful to Michael Bay that it makes me sick .
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I actually like a lot of his movies, and I happen to know that at least a couple people in this thread do as well. But yeah, he totally dropped the ball here. He showed zero effort.

Apparently, he was there to sell an UHD TV, one which has a 21:9 curved screen. That makes about as much sense as a poopy-flavored popsicle.

IDOM, that's a great story about Vanilla Ice. It's rather endearing, actually.
 
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