The Magnificent Seven

This western is really interesting, because it's actually a Hollywood remake of a samurai film by Akira Kurosawa called Seven Samurai, which is actually one of my favourite films. Although I don't know now because I also really like Hari Kuri by him. The cinematography by him is just impeccable and the characters are just so loveable, kind of like the Japanese Grandad you'd always want, because really who wouldn't want a Japanese Grandad to drink Sake with?

So I love the concept of this being a cowboy film and I do think it works, they adapted really well, however I think at times it is a little bit too Hollywood-ised. A little over done. But at the same time I think this is why it did so well at box office, it was always supposed to be a commercial film, and you have to remember that in context to the time period indie films weren't really popular because all the art house films where about swirly patterns by fine artists, so it's completely understandable, but I think they could have made it a bit quirkier.

I'm going to take some of the shot composition from this film, because what I do really like is how none of the shots are flat straight on, they are all slightly below. I think this particularly works well with the horse, and I don't know if you notice with my storyboard I actually used this film as reference. I don't know whether this infringes copy write if it's too heavily inspired, but I've also used a lot of John Wayne shots. I think to make it a bit more modern I'm also going to do shots from slightly above but I'm going to try and avoid any flat shots.

I don't think western's can get much classic than this, it's a perfect example of your traditional western even if the story is one based off Samurai's!