To watch the introduction video in English, it's here: https://vimeo.com/113390945

The Porter Brothers is Wilhelm Kuhn's the thesis film for The London Film School. Wilhelm, a big fan of westerns, has always noticed the non presence of western in short-films and especially student short films. The lack of budget could be an explanation but his film is aimed at showing that it's an illegitimate one.

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Drawing from a long tradition of European westerns (Sergio Leone, Corbucci for the Italians Karl May, Harald Reinl for the Germans), we had the idea of developing this genre in France, taking advantages of the wonderful landscapes in the region of Auvergne. After the desertic Spanish open spaces that could be seen in Leone's films in the 60s, the American Frontier has been re-created in the volcanic and continental atmosphere of the center of France.

The Place:

We shot the film in Puy-de-Dôme, in the South of Auvergne. The landscapes that tit offers make up a wonderful place to go to on vacation, but obviously to film a western too!

http://www.vallee-de-lance.com/

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The actors:

The film includes 5 main characters, the actors are all native English speakers.

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Emmanuel Koutsis aka "Ned Porter"

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Glenn Conroy aka "The Pastor", being dressed up by costume designer Audrey Manin

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From left to right: Glenn Conroy, Daniel Sommerford aka "Quinn", Jina Rahimi aka "Mary", Cai Dale aka "Sam Porter".

The cinematography:

Our very talented cinematographer Jackie Teboul is also a graduate student from the London Film School. She shot the film with the new ARRI AMIRA on Angenieux lenses. She has had the hard task of doing justice to the visual glory that was -and still is- the Western.

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The work has been particularly difficult for the night scenes for which heavy lighting equipment was used on location.

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Special effects and make-up :

A very intense emphasis has been put on the reconsitution of the living conditions in the 1870s.

Props, wounds, dirtiness and obviously the costumes have all been carefully worked on.

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