Monday, 18 October 2010

Who would distribute our film and its promotional material?

We looked at Western films past and present to choose a distributor for our film. We came up, eventually, with a list of six, which we researched further.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a Canadian-American entertainment company. They are the distributor for one of the main films we looked at: 310 to Yuma. Founded in 1996, in Vancouver, as of 2010, it is the 8th most successful production company in North America. Its highest grossing films are 2004's Fahrenheit 9/11 and 2010's The Expendables. Besides 310 to Yuma, it has no more Westerns to its credit.



Warner Bros. Pictures is a subsidiary company of the hugely successful media conglomerate TimeWarner. They have been the distributor and producer for numerous Westerns, such as Unforgiven, The Assasination Of Jesse James, Wyatt Earp and the Western-style comic book adaptation Jonah Hex. Founded in 1918, it is number 1 in the list of the top six major film distributors in the world. Its top-grossing films include The Dark Knight and The Harry Potter series.


New Line Cinema distributed Apaloosa, one of the few Westerns of recent. Founded in 1967, it was an independent studio until 1996, when it became a subsidiary of TimeWarner. It was merged with its sister Warner Bros. in 2008. Now less than ten films are released per year using the name.



Paramount Pictures is America's oldest film studio, founded in 1912. A subsidiary of media congolmerate Viacom, it has distributed many prominent Westerns such as Once Upon A Time In The West, Brokeback Mountain, Seraphim Falls and the upcoming remake of True Grit. It has also distributed the film No Country For Old Men, a film that, while not being set during the typical "Western" period, arguably includes many commonly seen Western elements. It is number 2 in the top 6 film studios of today.


After looking at all these studios, we have decided our film could be distributed by Warner Bros. Warner Bros. has a number of successful Westerns to its credit already, and given its power as the most successful film distributor in the world, would ensure the film has a large distributional area.




Monday, 4 October 2010

Setting research

Before scouting for locations for our trailer, we needed to research typical Western locations and landscapes. We managed to gain some feedback from the forum featured in genre research, as one person decided to discuss some locations:
"As far as locations go, when I think westerns, Monument Valley often comes to mind and after that, probably the Badlands. I also think of wagon trains and cattle crossing rivers, towns either full of stages, horses and people, or just before a shootout, I think of completely empty, dustblown streets."

Looking up Monument Valley on Google, we discovered the place is on the border between Arizona and Utah, USA.

It looks like this, with strange rock formations and striking orange and red sand. The Badlands national park, also in Arizona, is similar.
Unfortunately this sort of landscape does not exist in Britain, so we decided to carry out some more research.








3:10 to Yuma and Unforgiven use open ranch land and heathland for their settings.  This is a lot closer to the sort of landscape we have available here in Dorset.




Although we don't have the mountains, we definitely have the open, desolate heathland, in areas such as Canford Heath. This is an establishing shot from 3:10 to Yuma's trailer.





Here is some heath land in Unforgiven. Landscapes such as this are definitely something we can find, minus the wooden shacks.






We also researched Sergio Leone's The Man With No Name trilogy, including that legendary Western, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

 
This landscape shot shows the series' setting of open desert, appearing to be the sands of Nevada or Arizona, although actually shot in Spain.

Again, this type of landscape simply can't be found in the local area, and unlike Unforgiven and 3:10 to Yuma, ranch land isn't shown in any of the series of films; the setting is much more desolate and isolated.

Props and Costume Research

  In order to create a realistic looking trailer, poster and website for a Western, costumes and props must appear to be like those of which people of the era would have worn/used.

    Costumes

  Throughout our research we noted conventional clothing of the time and together found enough for four of the five characters appearing in the trailer. For the fifth character we felt a rough jacket would work well. In order to make the jacket look like it was made by someone of the time one of us purchased material that imitated buffalo hide and created the jacket (evidence shown below) whilst the other purchased a duster coat to improve further the appearance of another character.


  We discovered that traditionally Outlaws would have worn darker clothing to Lawmen or Bounty Hunters.
They were likely to have worn black, either leather or otherwise, with a black hat. They may have worn duster coats or jackets but would usually always wear a bandanna around their neck. or on their face. These were often to signify that the person wearing them belonged to a certain gang. Their shoes would have most likely been either brown or black leather. One of the reasons for this, was to protect their feet from the harsh wilderness and the creatures within it.
 On the left is a shot from 3:10 to Yuma, showing the clothing of the outlaw and the "hero". On the right is simply a diagram of typical Western wear.

We can see that the jacket of the "good guy" is of a light colour, whereas the jacket of a "bad guy" is a darker colour. This black-and-white depiction of good and evil is often found in Westerns. 


Props

The main props in Westerns are the firearms which the characters most certainly use. We know that, in this time setting, guns as we know them today had only recently been developed; the revolver was patented by John Colt in 1836, and the Winchester rifle, a firearm symbolic of Westerns, was invented in 1873.

No matter how historically accurate a Western is, revolvers are always used by characters, as modern pistols were simply not invented; at least not until 1911, generally regarded as "the end" of the "Wild West" period.




In this clear example from Unforgiven, the character on the right holds a revolver which at least appears to be very similar to a typical weapon of that period: a Colt Single Action Army, also known as "Peacemaker".


This was the US Army's official service revolver from 1873 until 1892, placing it firmly in "Western" times.



In 3:10 to Yuma, the character of Ben Wade uses a .45 Peacemaker, with special gold crucifixes. Pictures of the weapon can be found on this website, which is website of the prop maker who created the holster he used for the weapon in the film.



 The character on the left holds a double-barelled shotgun, also common during these times.

The character standing next to the revolver wielder appears to be using a Winchester-type rifle, like these.














Also on the prop-maker's website can be found details of the Bowie knife which one of Ben Wade's gang used in 3:10 to Yuma. It was common for cowboys to carry around a knife for hunting, combat, survival etc.


This shot from Unforgiven also shows a character carrying a a type of knife, confirming it as a convention.

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Audience & Genre Research

To gain an understanding of an audience's expectations of the Western genre, we asked on a popular movie forum about what conventions people expect from the typical Western. (The forum topic is here)







We received a wide range of responses; some useful, some not so useful. A large amount of people mentioned the typical time period they would expect a Western would be set in: "usually in the mid to late eighteen hundreds, but extending as far as the early 1900s", was a typical response.
We were also told that "the Western is too big to put into some simple cubbyhole", and then given examples of modern-day or even Sci-Fi films which the person felt had Western elements; they even argued that "Avatar is basically Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name riding into town in a space version of A Fistful of Dollars, pretending to be on one side while helping another."
They went on : "Star Wars is a kissing cousin to every Gene Autry or Roy Rogers Saturday matinee Western where the good guys convinced the local townspeople to stand up to the bad outlaw gang." Certainly interesting points, although we don't agree; the good vs. bad element, although a vital part of the most famous Westerns, is in virtually every other genre.
 have decided to stick to the "traditional" Western format; we feel Sci-Fi could be too ambitious.

The themes of Westerns were also discussed, with "modern technology's impact on the vanishing West" mentioned as a feature of Westerns set in "the early 1900s", such as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Wild Bunch".
Another responder raised the issue that "Westerns often involve a man (or sometimes, a woman) and how he/she relates to the land." They also said "Westerns often cause some people to make a tough decision," before giving examples of typical themes and questions: "Do they have to stand up to the "bad guys" or is it better for them, their family and their town to get away before the violent confrontation explodes?"
Even more interestingly, "Westerns can be action films, comedies, character studies, epics, historical dramas, satires and just about any other genre."

The same person also discussed typical locations::
"As far as locations go, when I think westerns, Monument Valley often comes to mind and after that, probably the Badlands. I also think of wagon trains and cattle crossing rivers, towns either full of stages, horses and people, or just before a shootout, I think of completely empty, dustblown streets."
Someone else had a less traditional view of locations:
"Westerns don't have to be set in the old West--any frontier will do, especially space," meaning this person feels that Westerns are about discovering places; exploring the unexplored, they used the movie Space Cowboys as an argument:
 "If space and sci-fi are not a natural extension of the Western, would there have ever been a movie called Space Cowboys?"
Other people agreed, thinking deeper: "Is the western more than just a period of time in American history? Could it be possible that this concept of the frontier is representative of some universal human experience? "

Clearly our question provoked much lively discussion. Although many people suggested we ask something more specific, their responses, being  general, covered many areas; locations, themes, typical storylines and time settings.

Another way in which we are able to understand how the audience react to these films is through user reviews, where the viewers of the films may comment on, and review it. This allows us to understand how certain movies are recieved by the audience.

This extract of a review of "Unforgiven", one of the highest rated modern Westerns in IMDB's top 10, gives us an idea of what some people like about Westerns.
"One of the greatest Westerns ever made? Certainly. Although the fact it's a western is really secondary. In truth it's a tale of the nature of evil and the nature of man."

This links into the ideas raised in posts in the forums, about Westerns including many genres and ideas, such as ""Westerns can be action films, comedies, character studies, epics, historical dramas, satires and just about any other genre.""

We also looked a review of a much older Western, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". In this user review, camera shots and angles were discussed as things being signature to the director, Sergio Leone:

"For one thing, I took more notice of the technical side of the film. I paid attention to Leone's famous use of close-ups, his selection of memorable character actors, and his wonderful scene-setting. I admired the detailed sets and the sweeping landscapes, the props and the costumes and all those weird, wonderful faces that Leone clearly loved to photograph."

Taking elements from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly would be advisable, considering it is so well received and popular among Western audiences. In our film, we will try and include these "sweeping landscapes" and facial close-ups.

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Research into Most Popular Westerns

Having chosen to create a trailer, poster and website for a Western, we started by using the website IMDb to search for the most popular and highest rated Westerns. We would use these to choose which trailers and films to analyse, as well as gain a idea of what audiences appreciate in their Westerns.

From these lists, we could see that the most popular Westerns were mostly modern, such as "Jonah Hex", which is understandable, as there is a higher chance of forthcoming films to be searched for. On the other hand, the highest rated list clearly shows an audience preference for older, "classic" Westerns over more modern ones. The most striking thing though is that Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is number one on both lists.
"The Good The Bad and The Ugly" is part of the so-called "Man With No Name Trilogy"; all of the films from this trilogy appear in the top 6 of the highest user-rated films, clearly showing great appreciation for Leone's work.

We decided that these films and their trailers would definitely be on our "to watch" list, alongside with the consistently highly-rated modern Western, "Unforgiven". It is interesting to note that the director Clint Eastwood dedicated the film to Leone, clearly showing great appreciation for the man's work, and cementing the film-maker's legendary status amongst the Western genre.