How to start a movie about sci-fi cowboys

For our film opening, we are really interested in two genres: Western and Sci-Fi, and the possibility of combining them. This is ambitious, as they are really different genres, and they are already hard to do separately. But we have a good team and I think it would be good to take the challenge.

The project consists of creating a film opening, so, in the following post, I'll be describing, analyzing, and reflecting on two Westerns (McCabe & Mrs. Miller and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY), and for Sci-Fi, as it is a genre that I know better, it will be only one film, and it will be the classic Blade Runner.

McCabe & Ms Miller

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a Western film that tells the story of a gambler and a prostitute who become partners in a mining town in the Old West. The opening, quickly after a wind diegetic sound which establishes a mood of solitude, inserts a song by Leonard Cohen to show a lonely man riding his horse alone through the woods. The wide aspect ratio benefits these long shots that seek to establish the place the film takes place (a fictional town in Washington) as well as to highlight how lonely this character is by showcasing how small and alone he looks in a big environment, through the shot composition.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY tells the story of a group of three men that get together to seek a treasure. From this opening I'd like to highlight how several appraches are made to some extent. The use of long shot stablishes the place, but the constant use of inserts stablish a serious and tensioning tone. 

Blade Runner

Prior to some long shots of a futuristic LA comes the opening credits, in a black screen and a serif font (these fancy fonts with detail on the edges), and after this, text gives context to the world that the movie is going to show. I believe this text uses the same font, to maintain the serious tone established by the music during the credits. After this, a series of shots of the city are shown.

Analysis and Reflection

As a common trait, all of them use their wide aspect ratio for a series of establishing shots (long shots), all of them establishing an environment: forest (McCabe & Mrs. Miller), futuristic L.A. (Blade Runner), and the desert (THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY). This is done because making the setting clear is of high importance to these films due to their unique settings. This is great news, as for my previous posts I said how the approach that establishes a setting or context is the one I find the most organic. Despite sharing the same approach, I believe combining these two genres may be really difficult, as we would have to establish two almost opposite concepts, and at the same time.

The three film openings take almost the whole two minutes until they show a close-up of their characters; THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is the exception, showing close-ups of two characters around 00:00:40. This would be a good window to showcase some elements of the mise-en-scène, like props or costume design, to show either Western or sci-fi elements.

Another window to establish the coexistence of both genres can be like a tool Blade Runner uses: a text that summarizes a little bit of the context. This would be the easiest one, but there are two problems with it. It is a low-key and lazy way to do it, and it would consume precious time of the two minutes we have for the film opening. It is a good tool to expose, but due to the context, it won't be useful. I believe we may decide just to go with one of the two genres.