Meeting Michael at Bayfilms

I had the opportunity to meet Michael Bay on Tuesday, August 31 for about one hour. Thanks to the efforts of a very special person named Carolyn, all this was made possible.

When I arrived at BayFilms, I was greeted by the receptionist and a huge Mastiff named Mason. After a while, I got the chance to meet Carolyn. Then Michael came out and greeted me. For a while I was speechless. He then gave me a quick tour of his offices. I was given a chance to see the storyboards for Michael's next movie: Tennessee. I also met the storyboard artists and computer animators who were very cool. I was then shown computer animations of the Pearl Harbor bombing. I was impressed! This movie will rock, I though to myself.

Michael then showed me his office, and we talked a while outside it. For those technically inclined, he uses Mac G3s. Later I was led to the conference room were we sat down and talked for about an hour or so. We talked about michaelbay.com, Tennessee, movie critics, and tons of other stuff. Near the end, I took out all my DVDs and LaserDisc so that he could sign them. He was kind of surprised of all the stuff I had, but he was nice and patient to sign it all.

When I asked him about who he had in mind to cast for his next movie, I remember him saying that he wanted Gene Hackman playing the part of President Roosevelt . Other than that, they still have tons of casting to do. Principal photography should begin on January 14, and Pearl Harbor will be out on Christmas 2000. He asked me if I was psyched about the movie and I was too amazed to say a strong yes. Afterwards I thought he might of thought that I wasn't too excited, but I am. Hell yeah!

Michael then told me plans he has for the Bayfilms site. He has some very interesting plans and cool ones I might add. I told him that movie studios have yet to figure out how to make a web site work with the release of a movie, and to that: he agreed. I won't tell you much about it at this time, becasue everything he said is pending and in the works. But he sure wants to do some cool stuff with the site.

You know, there are tons of thing we talked about which I don't remember at the time, partially due to the excitement of meeting him. He is a very down-to-earth person. Very cool, and has a wonderful sense of humor. I just hope to meet him sometime again. Towards the end, I took a picture with him.