My latest scrub of the film had me stopping and rewinding quite a bit for sure - but in the end they were all very well done cut-aways with some great actor movements.
Although I concede I may have missed one - I’d still challenge them.
p.s.
I actually only posted this response to get the thread up to a second page.
Agreed with the Rev & ENNIOO regarding amount of blood, if blood is used. Too much spray just gets a bit goofy. I think the best route in regards to blood/graphicness would be to focus on realism for impact, instead of going over the top and being cartoony.
There’s an odd one in A Bounty Killer For Trinity, when Jeff Cameron shoots someone with a sawn off shotgun, and the squibs look like white powder ones, really weird.
In agreement here.
However, in my twisted mind, we have to acknowledge the unbalanced nature of “reality” in the spaghetti western universe. How much do we focus on achieving a realistic amount of blood when in the same world I can shoot your hat off your head and keep it in the air with bullets which btw are audibly ricocheting (off of wool? the atmosphere?). And then there’s the bit of realism fact that we actually wouldn’t see a blood burst if we shot a guy wearing a thick poncho at 20 yards. So it’s a slippery slope - that’s why I just keep looking to what is on the actual celluloid as my compass… and even that gets jacked up when we see the random guy who has way too much red paint strewn across his ripped shirt. Ugh.
[quote=“Guanto, post:21, topic:3288”]My latest scrub of the film had me stopping and rewinding quite a bit for sure - but in the end they were all very well done cut-aways with some great actor movements.
Although I concede I may have missed one - I’d still challenge them.[/quote]
Not that it is that important, but there are definitely some squibs in the final shoot-out. I checked …
Leone, the chief inspirer for SW violence, used squibs only in the scene with Wobbles’ suspenders (without being bloody) in OUTW and in the pup flashback in DYS (with more blood than necessary). In the heydays of SW squibs were only rarely used but it increased after 1967 (Bonnie and Clyde, Night of the Living Dead), and The Wild Bunch then opened the flood gates. Still most SWs in the 70s showed extreme violence mostly without squibs. Only in the so called twilight Spagies (4 of the Apocalypse, Keoma, Mannaja) it became a habit.
What other SW tropes are you gonna explore/utilize in your production? I know how you mentioned sound earlier in emphasizing a gunshot, are you considering dubbing all your sound, not just the standard gunshot loop? Cause I’ve noticed the dying croaks and gasps in individual kills, absent background noise, help to punctuate the death of someone, usually a main character. 
Blood equates with immediate or imminent death. Immediate is usually reserved for the minions and their over-and-done-with demise, but imminent is the climatic better, it prolongs our vengeful enjoyment of the realisation of that bastard meeting his maker, and having but a few seconds to adjust to that concept. I’ve just rewatched 2 of my favourite deaths to see how blood is or not used, and it quite surprised me in the latter’s.
I’ve mentioned L’arena whereby Curly gets shot through the carnation on his lapel - it’s the opposite of a squib - he thinks he’s won the duel but blood slowly turns the white carnation red - fuckin’ genius.
But, I was somewhat taken aback with a rewatch of Milian’s death in The Bounty Hunter (particularly after I’ve just said that I wanna see the buggers bleed) - I would’ve sworn there was blood - but no. Except for a smudge of crimson on the side of Wyler’s eye and an equally impotent graze on Milian’s cheek - no more blood… but oh! what a death. Sure, there’s some clichéd gripping of the chest, and twirling to hit the ground, but the only bodily juices on show are the dribbling of drool, and the most poetic use of a single tear.
And boy, do those fluids make up for the lack of claret!
Any blood was created in my own head… I could have sworn it was there…
Which brings me on to another thread
http://forum.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/topic,2449.0.html
No it is important, I’m analyzing this stuff to a fairly unhealthy degree. Can you help a brutha out and give me a minute mark?
Leone, the chief inspirer for SW violence, used squibs only in the scene with Wobbles' suspenders (without being bloody) in OUTW
Yeah that’s not a squib, but a very cool trick none-the-less. Watch it frame by frame sometime when you have a chance.
Still most SWs in the 70s showed extreme violence mostly without squibs. Only in the so called twilight Spagies (4 of the Apocalypse, Keoma, Mannaja) it became a habit.
Never heard the term “Twilight” (Please tell me no one sparkles when they are shot). Fully agree with your overall assessment.
Yep. As I mentioned earlier in the string here this exact phenomenon blows me away with almost every movie I go back and research, and now I’m convinced its part of the magick.
Full ADR and Foley, not recording a single bit of audio in the field. This is Spag 101 but you should see the looks I get when discussing this with others involved in the production. Oddly I am over confident with this aspect of the project (far more than the visuals) because first and foremost I am a musician/songwriter with a good dose of studio/recording/mixing experience under my belt. I’m lifting some of the iconic Foley right from the original flicks. For instance I decided to do this with the gunshots once I realized every film shared a similar library (making me question ownership) and then when I further learned that library was ripped off from pirate ship canon fire in the now public domain Captain Blood (Errol Flynn). The dying croaks and gasps are called “Efforts” in the ADR world - and they are high on my list. And VERY good observation on the music and sound stopping right before the gunshot and into an “intimate” death. Although if you crank the volume very high you can still hear the faint sounds of the “wind” sound bed which never stopped. Sergio was such a rock star, he actually painted scenes with sound - he chose to put bootsteps in for Clint but not the other 20 people in the saloon - or he chose to pop the windmill and the water drips on Strouds head - even though there would be a dozen other ambient sounds in any given scene in reality. He just took his brush and used broad bold strokes on only the subjects of a scene he wanted to shine a Foley spotlight on. Brilliant, none of us here can say it enough.
Yeah…Bloody well right!..
You can always Trust Lenzi to bring the blood!
If you have an uncut version they are easily to spot in the final MG shooting. 2 scenes with more than one squib per body.
At 2:13 and 2:27 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTx_BxMJ6Rg
I feel like I owed it to the group to report back in. The “smoke/dust” squib field/screen test went about 1000X better than I could have ever imagined. There is something very gunpowder/desert about it… something very spaghetti. I’m moving on to other hurdles.
Thanks all!
You’re quite welcome! ;D
No worries, Guanto! Proper looking forward to seeing my “Chief Consultant” credit at the end of the movie now! ;D
Very nice trailer, Guanto.
Like it alot…captures the spirit !
Mission accomplished! Thanks gents.
Looks cool. I like the title which sounds like a direct translation of some cheap and obscure italian western.