Researching the West: Director Gore Verbinski, Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Composer Hans Zimmer.

What this Director/Producer duo manage to create when they take on a genre is a very fun, family action adventure with plenty of comedy. However its not just the massive spectacle and drama of world that they manage to capture but also the essence of the genre, that a lot of directors somehow miss. They can have all the costumes, props and sets but miss what really makes the film feel like the genre. Both these films have soundtracks that give the films its tone but also give it its emotion, this is delivered by the one and only Hans Zimmer. These two franchises could easily be believed to be in the same universe, and this switching between genres with the feeling that it could be within the same world is something I would love to capture in my comic. Comics cannot have soundtracks, however I do listen to both of these as I work, and I find it really helps me get into the world of my characters. If ever I made a motion comic, website or something of the kind that needed music to fit, I would certainly look at Hans Zimmser's work for inspiration.

Reaserching the West: Pocohontas

As much as this, Dances with Wolves, and Avatar all have the same narrative, I have always felt that Pocahontas has always given the best version of the story. The opening line to the song 'Colours of the Wind' is this:

"You think I am an ignorant savage, and you've been so many places, I guess it must be so, but still I cannot see, if the savage one is me. How can there be so much that you don't know?"

This line sets the scene perfectly. It reminded me of a quote I once read from the Native American John Fire Lame Deer, it read:

"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilised men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilised to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilised society."

This really does make you agree with the Natives, and look back at what white history has accomplished with regret. The way white men called, and still do call the members of 'under developed' countries savages. 'Savage' a word the real Chris Kyle used to describe Iraqis during his tours in the Middle East. Weather it is wrong for a soldier to speak like that, or weather it is what you must enforce into someones mind when sending soldiers into an illegal war to kill is another argument. I would argue that it is the governments fault, and not the individual who has been sent to witness such violence and terror, but seeing the bigger picture and seeing a perspective from both sides of a war is certainly something everyone should be taught, but wouldn't that knowledge make it that much harder to pull the trigger? If it did should it be taught anyway? This is another argument altogether, the mere point I was trying to make, is how these words are still relevant today. People seem to think that others different from them are lesser in some way, we can invade that country because we're smarter right? we're civilised enough to build guns and nuclear weapons enough to destroy the world several times over. So we can. When did this become or world? How has this state of mind remained in power for so long? Politicians. Ever since we've had them, this is the running theme. How do we believe we're smarter when we are literally killing our planet? do we have someplace else to go when were done with this? No. So why continue? Why not take ourselves back to a time before we had the power to destroy the world? Why not outlaw it? Profit. Money. Money has become so important that we value it over other lives. As another quote says:

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children."

Which pretty much sums up my point in a far more poetic way. This word 'savage' seems to be the wrong way around. They may have been more uncivilised, but when was civilisation a good thing? In the bigger picture. We are, and always have been the savages.

The lessons taught and lyrics in the songs say so much more and are still relative today compared with anything heard in Avatar. For instance, as Pocahontas stops John Smith from shooting a bear singing the line:

"You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you."

 This speaks not only to the bear, but also the way the foreigners see the natives, and sums up racism in a whole, in a way that makes it every bit as ignorant, arrogant and outright stupid as it is. This is not to say that the Native American was not racist to the white man, they were, it's only, from their only experiences with the white man, how could they not be? There is an anonymous quote from a Native American that sums up the way people 'believe' in a religion about peace and understanding and either find a way to twist it into hate or completely disregard it. Which is found in many religious extremist groups, from Al-Qaeda to the KKK. It reads:

"When your people came to our land, it was not with open arms, but with Bibles and guns and disease. You took our land. You killed us with your guns and disease, then you had the arrogance to call us godless savages. If there is a Heaven and it is filled with Christians, then Hell is the place for me."

The rest of the song goes on to describe how beautiful the world is, when you see it in all its natural beauty, something that is hard for us to do now with our depleting forests and species. My only real problem with this film, that I understand, but do not agree with, is how it leaves out how the Native Americans were slaughtered. In the film, the white man realises that this is wrong, lock away their boss and turn to go home. While in the real story of Pocahontas that this is all based on, the story and ending is completely accurate, however I do thing it's important in a film about the Native Americans to show what really happened, even if it is child friendly to not portray the white man as some hero. Although in the real story, this is accurate, in the grand scheme of things, I feel it doesn't quite show us for our true colours.

These points will make a major part of our world and the way Natives see foreign creatures, in a way that makes the audience completely agree with them.

Researching the West: Assassins Creed, Black Flag

This game gives the player an undeniable sense of freedom, which seeing as it's a Pirate game, it should. When I played through this game I remember setting up my exercise bike in front of the TV and playing simultaneously (I know, genius right?)  and the time would fly by. But for my I got greedy, which fits the pirate tone. As in most game you can upgrade your ship until it becomes the most deadly in the Caribbean, until then, there are alot of ships you will simply not be able to go up against, such as the Man o' Wars and the Legendary ships. This challenge made me desperate to take down the biggest, hardest ship in the game, these Legendary ships are so heavily armoured that you have no chance without the upgrades. Heres a reference of size between a you ship 'The Jackdaw', and a big ship 'Man of War'.

And then you have your Legendary ships, that are twice to tree times the size of those. But me being as determined as I was, I decided to swim to one, and trying to take everyone on board without fighting the ship, and without my crew, I realise now this was slightly stupid as these ships shot you a long way off. As I swam for about half an hour, trying to dodge the sight of the sniper, I eventually (on what must have been the 4th time) made it, and as I approached the ship, clutching to the the wood as I pulled myself from the water, the cannons blew me far from the ship, and I instantly died. You need to have almost everything fully upgraded to do this. This took me a long time to learn. And it takes a long time to do this. Although the free running, and story where great elements in this game, and every great game should have broken up gameplay to keep in interesting, taking down huge ships was my personal favourite bit of this game. The control of the ship is amazing, and I've never seen a game that does this so well. You are still in charge of your ship as the character, but you have the ability to give the orders, of shooting the Motars (a long range, big damage shot that shoots to the sky and lands on ships afar), your broadside cannons (normal vertically aiming cannons you see on ships), your swivel guns (that you can fire to do extra damage after the initial shot has been taken, your chase cannons (which fire forwards for an enemy you maybe in pursuit of), or your heavy shot (an extremely powerful shot from your Broadside cannons), you can also throw fire barrels that you can explode from the back of your ship, in case someone in chasing your tail, and you can choose the speed in your ship, which changes how fast you can turn. You can also ram enemies with your ship. After these sometimes lengthy battles, you have the option to board the ship, to take crew, treasure, and parts of the destroyed ships. In this you have to aboard the ship and kill a percentage of the crew, and sometimes a few specific people on board. I found these battles to never get tiresome, I would sit on my bike for hours playing, dripping in sweat and seriously needing a shower without realising the time gone by. You also find these pre-defeated ships, which have a certain amount of time to be before exploding, in this short space of time you can board the ship, and take what you can before it blows. You can also explore underwater shipwrecks infested with sharks, save stranded men and take them as crew, and take floating treasure, go up against strongholds as well as go fishing for sharks and whales, often meaning taking out a row boat and harpooning the animal. This game did not only capture the ascetics of being a pirate, but also the atmosphere and exhilaration of it, the want to be the most feared and powerful ship on the seas. These ideas are something I would want to have in my comic, different ranks of ship, different battle techniques, maybe even each ship could have a different method of combat depending on the animals on board or the animal the Captain is, to mirror his hunting techniques?

Researching the West: Read Dead Redemtion

Although I have talked briefly about the map of Red Dead Redemption and how its terrain varies, and land is full of hidden stories. I have not gone into detail about how the areas will influence my work, and what elements I would like to to influence from, and what might be in them in my world.

Armadillo

In the many times I have played through Red Dead Redemption, and explored the vast and dangerous world that is the new frontier, I've always felt like, no matter how rough it is, Armadillo is home. Now I find this strange as the game places you in Mcfarlanes Ranch (a fictional ranch in the game) and I've always kind of knew if the game wanted you to have a home, that would be it. I realise the character has an actual home and family in the game, but you cannot 'sleep' there (sleeping is saving in this game) and therefore never really felt like your home as you never spent any time there. I don't know if other players did this but I would always ride back to Armadillo to save my game, and I'm not sure why. It's not like it was the only place to save the game, or that you could customise your room, or building, or anything like that. So why the attraction to Armadillo? I feel it may be due to it's resemblance to the real town of Deadwood (shown in the images below), or the similar layout to many towns you will see in western movies. They are usually one lone road, maybe two, that contain a saloon, a sheriffs office and a train station. Or maybe it's simply that I settled here on my first play and it's always felt natural after that. I'm admittedly not usually a big gamer, I've only ever really completed and got into Red Dead, Black Flag and the Arkham Series. Other games I've just finished the story and put it down. But Red Dead especially was my escape from reality. During the more severe years of my depression, I would go on this endlessly to escape anything and everything, so it's safe to say I know this game inside out, I could tell you where to find each flower or plant in this games map, or where each gang will be hiding out. This maybe another reason I felt it necessary to find a home and life in this game, as I was using it as more of a second life than just the game it was created to be.  

Whatever the reason in my subconscious for feeling like Armadillo was a home away from home, it  was and still is for me when I visit. One of these many possible explanations is the reason the main town in my world will be based on Armadillo. This is where the main character, or characters will live, and it will be featured in many of the stories. Even the interior of the saloon, playing poker, getting drunk,  or throwing out gang members (Usually the Watons Gang, you can tell as they usually have short or no selves and a red ribbon on their top hats) feels like chilling out in my living room. It's a strange and nerdy concept. But unfortunately its true, and the reason this will be the home of the main characters in my story. 

Although I rarely used it, the sheriffs office always felt like visiting a friend. Now I can't say I always treated this home right, weather it was robbing the bank or kidnapping prostitute and tying her up on the railway track and watch it mow her down. I always had an evidently and obviously misguided sense that I was this towns protector, the Batman to its Gotham. But hey, gamers gonna game. This does however make me feel like the main character who lives here, should be the sheriff Gorilla, Ambam, (the friend I would visit) and the vigilante rouge (character I would use as an avatar), who possibly will suffer from depression, to convey the stories I created in west (Raccoon, Sawyer Carson).

Thieves Landing 

This town has always had a dangerous and frightening atmosphere. The green and brown colour palette and water surrounding the town has always made it feel very swamp like. I've always seen this as a gang hideout, or where Gustave Sobek, the gunslinger crocodile would temporarily be living (as he's secretly a Egyptian god). I've always seen opportunity to turn this into a transportation of stolen goods town, where they could unload the pirate ships in the dead of night.

Pikes Basin

Pikes Basin in a gang hideout in the game, usually crawling with members of the Bollard Twins Gang members. It's a huge canyon, with little delicate bridges between the ridges. I've always felt like an environment idea like this could be expanded. A bigger Canyon, like, the Grand Canyon could hold a city of thieves. Pirate ships could sail through the bottom of the canyons, or maybe the canyons are only the tip of a network of underground caves that hide these criminals from the laws sight and jurisdiction. 

Hanging rock

This is in area of the game where there is hidden gold, beneath a large rock and tree with a noose on it. Hence the name. The idea to have a place where outlaws would take folk and hang them is an evil concept, but an interesting one. You could have a burrow or home under an area like this, where a vigilante makes a home, after perhaps intervening in a hanging and becoming injured, needing somewhere out of the sun to rest and recover. 

Fort Mercer

This in the game is a stronghold for gangs, usually held by the Banditos. One they must have taken and make into their own little town. This is an awesome idea, something I would struggle to better, but I would use it an area where gang kidnap other animals and keep them temporally before sending to Mauti for processing to be sold as either food or slaves. This idea of an already evil government, being corrupt in taking his own people for profit both suits the character of Mauti's history perfectly, as it is something he has done before.    

 Tall Trees

Tall trees is a less occupied area of the map. It is still populated by Grizzly Bears, Wolves, Elk and other large dangerous animals. This area of vast wilderness I would take further, make it more beautiful, with lakes and waterfalls and have much more Native American tribes, as I think this is a hugely interesting part of 1800 Americans culture that is hugely underused in both this game, and almost all modern westerns, and when used in older westerns they are portrayed appallingly. Last of the Mohicans an Pocahontas are the only films I've seen where I thought they were half decently portrayed.

Coots Chapel

Coots Chapel is a church and graveyard that is never used in the game, and seems abandoned for the most part. It's always reminded me on the great animation 'The Blackwater Gospel' or maybe what was left after the events of that awesome story.

Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed is a ghost town in the game, and a well designed one at that. It's not just the derelict building that give it away, but also the paths and roads. The broken and abandoned pieces of junk through out the town. Players of the game even suspect that the fictional town is haunted, nothing was ever confirmed by rockstar, and although there are voices and gunshots in the supposedly empty house they only sound like every other voice in the game. After a bit of digging I found a secret room that you cannot gain access too, but does contain a number of people in it, just people like everyone else in the game, you can kill these men and shut them up trough a window outside, this seems to be where the rumours started and maybe escalated. However the interesting part is weather Rockstar (the developer) did this deliberately, to create rumours of haunting outside of that game, to give it the extra atmosphere. Red Dead is no stranger to mythological and supernatural qualities, such as the DLC Undead nightmare (a zombie infested prequel) and the Sasquatch you can find and hunt in game. 

Researching the map: Real World Inspirations - Mayan Temples

These ancient Mayan temples have a clear, visible history to them. They come in many shapes and forms but all have a similar ascetic. these kind of temple ruins is something I would like to include in the southern area of our world. I would like to make these cities in the mountains and forests, something that our characters could visit on occasion but not understand what they are or how they were built. Structures surrounded in mystery before large creatures like the Elephant are introduced. These kind of ruins can be conveniently placed on mountain tops to add to a dramatic atmosphere and scenic layout. 

Reaserching the map: Real World Inspirations - Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is one of the seven wonders of the world, and it's no surprise it has a reputation like that. The scale and size of it makes it an immense landmark of natural beauty. Its size and depth make it inspiring in many creative ways, and not including a location like this in our stories would be a huge missed opportunity. My initial idea would be to use this site as a mass gang-hideout, almost a city of thieves living in the canyons walls. This would make them hard to see and reach for the time period. Arial battles with birds would be particularly amazing in an environment such as this.

Researching the map: Real World Inspirations - Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood is a real town, and was one of the most famous cowboy settlements that was started illegally in the 1870's on land that had been promised the the Native Americans on the 1868 treaty. 

Gambling and prostitution businesses soon came into town, proving a profitable business Deadwood soon grew. 

In 1877 the Gem theatre saloon was opened by Al Swearengen and was burned down twice after being rebuilt. Causing Swearenegen to leave the town, being found dead and penniless on the road. An image of the Gem in its prime is below.

This town witnessed some of the most historic moment in history, including the murder of the famous Wild Bill Hickok, and he, as well as his murderer Jack McCall, as well as Clamity Jane are all laid to rest in the town. It also was built by some more famous western names such as Seth Bullock, E. B Farnum, Sol Star, Martha Bullock, A. W Merrick, Samuel Fields, Aaron Dunn, Valentine McGillycuddy, Reverent Henry Weston Smith and Charlie Utter. These incredible events were displayed in the HBO t.v show made about the town called ' Deadwood'. A promotional image is below.

The town is still standing, despite being fallen to a smallpox epidemic, a fire in 1879 destroyed more than 300 buildings, and another in 1959 destroyed more than 4,500 acres of the town. There is an image of the town today below.

This town was full of exiting and dangerous characters. People who were so engaging they have been remembered over 140 years later. The people, struggles and exiting times of the many rises, and falls of Deadwood is something I would like to replicate in one of our towns. 

Researching the map: Real World Inspirations - Sinkhole, Belize

This enormous sinkhole between America and the Caribbean is a vast, daunting, frightening concept. It's incredible size and depth is alone an impressive spectacle, but the idea that it plummets so far under the sea makes me wonder, could anything live down there? Something we do not know of? Although these may not be realistic questions, they are ones I can use in my world.