The weeks film genre was war/western, where we viewed the 2007 Takashi Miike directed film Sukiyaki Western Django. The film blended Japanese film tropes and western film tropes to create a very interesting mashup of the two. The film was definitely bloody, violent and action-packed but also has a subtly of humour, particularly in the character of the sherriff towards the ending of the film. The film featured typical western genre conventions such as the isolated area, saloon locations, cowboys, horses, standoffs, the good vs bad notation. It was nice to see that the mother figure in the film was able to become a femme fatale in the end, however I didn’t enjoy the men’s lust and raping of the prostate character, uncomfortable to watch, but I suppose was essential to the storyline of the film. It was also kinda cool that Quentin Tarantino has a small feature in the beginning of the film. It was interesting to see a clash of the cultures as characters used both guns and samurai swords in a strange hybrid world. Did I like the film? It wouldn’t be a film I would gravitate towards, nor I would watch again, but I can appreciate its creativity in blending two contrasting genres within the film.

Second half of the week brought an editing exercise and experimentation with Premiere Pro. I would say I am pretty familiar with using the editing program but of course, there is always more to learn. We were given a simple concept to film, somebody is hanging out, they heard a noise, they then go to investigate, whilst utilising different camera shots and angles.  Simple, but also can be shot and edited in many different ways to portray certain mood and tension. My group chose to film in a classroom purely for convenience and tried to use a variety of different shots. It was quite fun to edit and I always love experimenting with different techniques while editing, the transitioning of clips and order of clips is always good to play around with. I didn’t bother putting music as I just wanted to focus on the visuals.