I don’t have much experience with Western films so I wasn’t sure what to expect this week, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for Sukiyaki Western Django. Olivia Khoo (2013) lists the prefix Western films have when they are made in different countries, ‘Spaghetti Westerns from Italy, Curry Westerns from India’, but ‘American Westerns [do] not require any such prefix’ (2013). This made me think about what I know about Westerns and the only picture I get in my head is of two cowboys facing off in the middle of the street, with South American accents. I never thought about them being made in different cultures and it would be interesting to see the differences between them. Sukiyaki Western Django, although it had the same tropes as a Hollywood Western film, was very different from what I’m used to.

Because I missed the workshop this week, Dan showed a couple of us our way around the EX3 cameras. I have had very little experience with pro cameras in the past and I honestly did not realise how much more there is than just hitting record. Trying to find the power button alone was a struggle.

I remember Dan telling us in Making Media last year that you should get to a shoot at least an hour early to get organised and I understand why you would need to do that now because of how much you need to set up.

It makes me intrigued about the cameramen on set for blockbuster movies like the Avengers. It would be so interesting to see how they set up on one of these sets, how much preparation the they would do, how they adjusts the white balance, etc.

References:

Khoo, Olivia (2013). Bad jokes, bad English, good copy: Sukiyaki Western Django, or how the West was won. Asian Studies Review, 37(1), pp. 80-95.