The gavel pits around Rome are a well known terrain for every spaghaniac.
In most of the cases the gravel pits are poorly filmed and are unboubtful evidence of a low budget SW.
BUT there are some cases where producers and director were able to make them gravel pits look pretty good, almost like a proper Spanish filmset.
One of these rare cases is for me The Grand Duel, which for me is the King of the gravel pit SWs. Grand Duel is filmed in two locations, a standard western town and a gravel pit, so the gravel pit proportion os pretty high.
But still it’s a great movie and the gravel pit is pretty tolerable.
Unfortunately I’m not so much into the stranger flicks. I only know the first one in and I hate it! Mostly because of the poor image quality. Don’t know wether my DVD version is to blame for that…
Try the second one. Its better in my opinion. More original, not as much a FFD ripoff as the first movie. improves on the flaws of the first film. Plus I believe there is a good share of gravel pit scenes!
[quote=“Dillinger, post:3, topic:1673”]Mostly because of the poor image quality. Don’t know wether my DVD version is to blame for that…[/quote]true, true. Alpha dvd’s quality is awful and I haven’t heard of a better version.
The first stranger was shot in th elios Mexican village so I forgive them for shooting in a gravel pit since there is not too big a point for a low budget film to waste money by filming one short riding scene in Spain.
I actually love these cheap ass gravel pits. There just so cheap! Especially in Shoot the Living. But in this case, I think it helps the film for many reasons. 1) The film is very slow and results in a mysterious mythic atmosphere. At least the sand pit makes it mythic. An open, endless pit.
Django Kill has an interesting pit in the beginning. Interesting because they were in Spain when they shot the pit scenes using a Madrid construction site. Why not go to the surrounding plains around Madrid? Or Almeria or Barcelona.
Even here in densely populated Germany you can find bits and pieces that would make a nice SW location.
But these bits are so small, that you could only ride through them for about half a second ;D
Haha, yeah!
I’m still planning to shoot the first (I think it would be the first) feature length Dutch western. There’s also a lame theme park involving ponies somewhere in the north of the Netherlands. It has a western town of sorts, so that would be good for the town scenes.
Regarding the first picture, I was actually surprised to find out there are Dutch landscapes like that. It would work nicely for desert scenes. A friend pointed this out to me, as he actually lives near the place.
Of course the second is a gravel pit. I think you can find those in any country.
I spent a lot of time in that region during my military service, a long time ago
I always thought it looked a little like Almeria, minus the burning sun (but that didn’t some actors any good)
The Veluwe must procure some good locations too
After all there is a song that goes:
"Wij zijn twee eenzame cowboys,
Wij zwerven door bos en door hei
De Veluwe is onze prairie …
… and the rest I don’t remember"
(We are two lonesome cowboys, we wander through the woods and the moors, The Veluwe is our prairie …)
Oh well. How about Spanish construction site.
