“Satire is a powerful art form which has the ability to point out the deficiencies in certain human behaviours and the social issues which result from them in such a way that they become absurd, even hilarious, which is therefore entertaining and reaches a wide audience. Satire also has the ability to protect its creator from culpability for criticism, because it is implied rather than overtly stated; in this way, it becomes a powerful tool for dissenters in difficult or oppressive political and social periods”
In this experiment, I initially watched iconic scenes from country and western movies, focussing particularly on Mexican stand off scenes and gunfights. It was in this that I gathered the idea to mimic the popularised camera tropes used in these films, but place the narrative within a farcical situation. For this reason, I copied a list of camera angles implemented and sought to recreate these. I had planned to shoot this scene on a park bench, with the character in the middle (played by Tanja, in this) to be seated in the middle of the bench, meaning there was only room for one other person - this would ultimately cultivate a satirical and generally ridiculous tone necessary to then position both characters (played by Mari and Eoghan) within a satirical framework.
All in all, this proved difficult in terms of lighting - as due to weather conditions we couldn’t film outdoors, using a park bench (hence why the setting appears to make less sense here), and due to the lighting balance consisting of the fairy lights under the cloisters, coupled with the stark grey light of the outside, the camera focus has unfortunately proven to be fairly disappointing. However, this has been an excellent learning curve, and is something I very much aim to improve in future experiments.
For this reason, and due to my own disappointment with some of the shots, I decided to include the soundtrack from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to further the illusion, however I am not sure this is a creative choice I would stick to as I want to experiment with more subtle means of satire, also there are issues with the licensing of this piece, so if I wanted to include music in my final piece in this way, I would need to find a royalty free version with a similar effect.
Furthering this, the implementation of the black and white was a choice made in post production, as in this piece, I admittedly feel I somewhat failed to capture the comedy I had intended to, but this post-editing technique highlighted exactly the type of mood I wanted to achieve.. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the exact framing so that the shots of Mari and Eoghan directly mimic each other - something I will seek to do in future experiments of this nature.
In addition to this, I’ve included direct glances into the camera, which are evidently not traditional in a feature film country and western - however, I actually enjoyed these shots as I felt they gave a further illusion and level of comedic value to the piece. All in all, this experiment conceptualised my idealised projection of the modes of satire I would like to use, but have thoroughly reinforced my need to practice with my techniques in order to achieve this successfully in the future. Clip is linked at the top - let me know what you think!
Link to Western Parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWxa7ZdpSxU&feature=youtu.be