“During Samsung’s CES press event today, the company brought out super-action director Michael Bay to discuss the company’s new curved HDTVs,” Joshua Topolsky reports for The Verge.
“Unfortunately for Bay, Samsung appeared to have issues with the teleprompters being used to cue onstage presenters,” Topolsky reports. “Then Michael Bay had a mini-meltdown.”
Read more in the full article here.
Stephanie Smith reports for The New York Post, “‘Transformers’ director Bay was to appear with Samsung America exec [Joe Stinziano] cato promote the company’s new 150 inch curved televisions during the expo.”
“But when Bay took the stage to speak, the teleprompter malfunctioned. ‘The type is all off, sorry, but I’ll just wing this,’ Bay said as he tried to recover. ‘ wing it right now,'” Smith reports. “After Stinziano tried to encourage some ad-lib conversation, Bay gave up in a huff and sprinted off stage. The Twitterverse quickly blew up with commentary on Bay’s epic walk off.”
Read more in the full article here.
Michael Bay has since posted the following via his website:
Wow! I just embarrassed myself at CES – I was about to speak for Samsung for this awesome Curved 105-inch UHD TV. I rarely lend my name to any products, but this one is just stellar. I got so excited to talk, that I skipped over the Exec VP’s intro line and then the teleprompter got lost. Then the prompter went up and down – then I walked off. I guess live shows aren’t my thing. – Michael Bay, January 6, 2014
MacDailyNews Take: Finally, Michael Bay does something entertaining!
Clearly nervous from the get go, when the prompter went, so did Bay’s train of thought. Stinziano certainly could’ve/should’ve helped him more, but he let Bay freeze up, hung him out to dry, and that’s that. Anyone who’s ever been onstage and been uncomfortable can understand what happened to Bay and commiserate. It’s not easy. It’s almost impossible if you’re not well prepared and the prompter gets lost – it can all go sideways in an instant.
The awkwardness captured in this video is the very definition of cringe-worthy.
These were real nerves. Bay is a guy who’s more used to being behind the camera than in front of it on a pretty big stage. Lots of iPhones were being held up (and even more as the meltdown proceeded). We do not believe that any of this was intended — Bay likely can’t act any better than he can direct and Samsung “marketing” is way too stupid to plan something smart like that — but the end result of Bay’s brain freeze is MUCH more attention to Samsung’s big curved TV (even if it is only as a background decoration) than a flawless presentation would’ve drawn, by a mile.
Another reason why we believe that this is not a contrived performance is because nothing about Samsung’s TV is mentioned. If this really were a viral marketing attempt, there would have been at least one spec or feature dropped into the “nervous meltdown” contrivance; the temptation would have been too great for marketing people to pass up.
(Plus, if Bay was acting, he’s a genius who puts Olivier and Streep combined to shame. He should quit directing immediately and hop out front of the camera pronto.)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
