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.