audio-visual:
Vision – desert scenery, laying the visual tone, desolate, wild, cruel, magnificent and heroic, pointing out the relationship between the role and the environment.
Close up – enlarge the details, create drama, increase the contrast attribute of the character, and make jokes.
Slow-motion: endow the action with beauty and create a lyrical slow rhythm, slow down the action, lengthen the audience’s watching emotion, and make sudden jokes fast and slow.
Lens movement: a large number of motion lenses, combined with action drama, create action wonders with the sense of the chaos of the scene and the sense of movement of the characters.
Editing: fast editing, with the large-scale movement of scene or character action, enhance the overall action rhythm and scene effect, and make the action/scene spectacle more prominent.
Soundtrack: heroic, rough and wild style, whistles, guitars, violins and another soundtrack with Western flavour make the heroic spirit and western spirit more prominent.
Scene: the desert at the junction of the United States and Mexico, the town and desert landscape, the common narrative scenes of western films, the contrast between the desert landscape and human industrial landscape, and the contest between the two forces (Western traditional spirit and industrial capital ambition).
Character settings:
Overall image style: “judging ugliness”. The images of a large number of animals are rough, ugly, dirty and messy. On the one hand, they correspond to the harsh western environment and reflect a strong desire for survival; On the other hand, this style of judging ugliness forms a unique aesthetic. The ugly and cute style arouses the heart of love, contrasts the ugliness of sin and praises the value of spiritual beauty.
The character image has experienced transformation, chameleon, water thief, rattlesnake and tortoise have all experienced image transformation, which makes the character image get rid of simple binary opposition and make the image more plump and three-dimensional.
Character attribute: the combination of human nature and animal nature, explore the interest of Westerns different from the human world, enrich comedy and jokes, and diversify visual wonders.
chameleon:
Animal attributes: I’ve been simulating colour change, but I can’t find my own nature, corresponding to “who am I?” Asking questions, changing colour and avoiding can mean avoiding the real self; Being kept in captivity as a pet, comfortable, idle and addicted to fantasy, the heroic dream is just an illusion of self paralysis.
Character attributes the growth experience from fake hero to real hero, from cowardice, hypocrisy and self-deception to the beating of reality. After recognizing the reality, the discovery of courage, wisdom and real self – the growth of hero. Different from the distinctive and single character of cowboy/heroin western films, it pursues the growth and change of characters in genre films.
Female owners: hardworking, kind-hearted, brave and innocent female images echo the female images in western films.
Tortoise: the real villain of the film, the disabled businessman boss corresponding to the Western past, represents an emerging capitalist force. Arrogance and authority also represent the corrosion of capital to people and the greedy pursuit of material reality. He puts the town residents in the midst of fire and water. His cold-blooded, greedy and tyranny LED to self-destruction.
Spirit of the western regions: idealistic personality, the metaphor of heroes, cowboy in the great escort in the wilderness.
Rattlesnake: tool man, villain’s minions, typical villain image, Lange’s real enemy, breaking Lange’s last psychological defence line, and also the last obstacle for Lange to face fear and finally grow up.
Villagers: innocent villagers, waiting for the salvation of heroes, creating a bad social environment and highlighting the characteristics of main roles.
Props / images:
Water – the water in the desert is like the “gold” of the human world. In western films, human material desire is changed into survival desire in the animal world, which is more in line with reality. At the same time, it is also the motivation of the characters’ actions and the clue of the whole narrative.
Seeking water: turning the religion of “water” into holy water, with a strong sense of ritual, the action of seeking water, the pilgrimage to water reflects a religious spirit, more highlights the bad real-life and seeks spiritual sustenance, with some perspectives of criticizing hooligans.
Western rule: control water, control everything. As a symbol of power and capital, water has become the goal of the western world. The opposition between good and evil, law and tyranny, justice and evil reflects the tone of the western film.
Owl / Narrator Music: paragraph narration, the rhythm of the film is better controlled, the whole narrative context is clear, and the growth and changes of characters are more distinct; Breaking the fourth wall makes the story more playful and interesting.
Details:
Surrealist dream: fear and ideal, hero’s encouragement and abstract treatment of transformation, and the promotion of internal spirit.
The integration of comedy style: fun, contrast comedy, the common techniques of genre films.
A large number of tribute elements: soundtrack, close-up, composition, fighting scene, character characteristics, clock props, picture style, etc. on the one hand, skillfully use the real “character” Westerns to the animation form to produce a formal interest in “new bottled old wine”, and the animal world version of “wilderness escort”; On the other hand, it also inherits the spiritual characteristics of classic westerns, shapes western heroes and transmits western spirit.
The narrative mode of genre films:
Narrative mode of Western Film: orderly and stable situation → disturbed and damaged environment → united to the outside world → the emergence of lone ranger → return to order and stability.
Hollywood hero narrative: about the growth of “Heroes”. (“the journey of heroes” — Analysis of Hollywood mainstream story model)
Narrative model of Lango:
1、 Character prototype
- Hero – Lango
- Mentor – pangolin, spirit of Western Regions
- Gatekeeper – Eagle
- Messenger – Sheriff identity
- Morpher – tortoise
- Shadow – rattlesnake
- Allies – Doudou et al
- Prankster – fellow teammates
2、 Story stage - Daily world: Lango’s life in a glass box.
- Call of adventure: Lango was lost in the desert due to a car accident.
- Refuse to summon: encounter an eagle and have fear.
- Mentor appears: pangolin appears.
- Crossing the first threshold: the provocation of the gang of bar villains.
- Test: the eagle frightens away the villain, kills the eagle and becomes a sheriff.
- Go deep into the tiger’s den: find the stolen water and fight with the water thief.
- Severe test: the water is lost. It is found that the tortoise has used the water source privately. The rattlesnake appears, revealing Lango’s identity and losing his spiritual will.
- Get a reward: leave the town, cross the road, enter a dream, see the spirit of the western regions, recognize yourself again, follow the plants and discover the turtle’s secret.
- On the way home: regain faith, return to the town, pick up the badge and make a plan.
- Rebirth: Lango fought with rattlesnake, was caught in failure, saved himself with bullets in the water tank, and let the tortoise perish.
- Triumphant return: the town is moistened by water. Lango becomes the Sheriff of the town and a real hero.