PROJECT PROPOSAL



The Good Old Western Film Festival Proposal

Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines

Luz

Your University

The Good Old Western Film Festival Proposal

Part 1

The film festival project is focused on bringing some southern comfort to the urban streets of New York. The focus of this project is to have university students in the New York area get involved with the western film genre and bring some of the culture of the southern United States to the north. As well, the film will bring the rural environments to urban neighborhoods for New York university students, as well as students all over America. The aim of the project is to unite the north and the south of the United States through the genre of western films. The film festival will be open to university students right across America; however New York City is a location that is a convenient location.

With Times Square as a backdrop, western movies will play on the big screen and the square will be decorated with tumbleweed, horses and actors who are dressed as cowboys, as well as actresses who are dressed as cowgirls. There will also be a number of film professors from the local universities in New York who will speak with the students present for the festival about the history and current state of the western film genre in America.

The film festival will celebrate more than 100 years that the western film genre has been present in America.

Part 2

The following are three films that will serve as the main attraction of the festival, played on the big screens in Times Square in New York:

• 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

• True Grit (2010)

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)

Now I will go into an explanation of each film:

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

This is an American western that is directed by James Mangold. Some of the actors of the film include Peter Fonda and Russell Crowe. The main actor is a civil war veteran and also a poor rancher. Due to a default on a loan of money he owes, his barn is set on fire. The movie also includes a western gang that goes around killing and stealing from people. A character named Wade is put on the 3:10 train to the Yuma Prison. The film also includes Apache Indians and a Chinese laborer. There is more adventure involved with this film that has a sad ending.

True Grit (2010)

This film is directed, edited and written by the Cohen brothers and produced by Stephen Spielberg. The original film was in 1969 and starred the western movie genre classic actor John Wayne. The narrator and protagonist of the movie discusses how her father was murdered when she was only 14. The police know who did the murder, a man named Chaney and the narrator Mattie tries to get more information regarding this from the police. Mattie wants to hire a Deputy U.S. Marshal and the police officer gives her three suggestions of marshals. She does not at first have the money to hire the marshal that she wants, but then she does some horse-trading to come up with the money. Again, this story ends sadly as well and Mattie does even ever end up paying the marshal.

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

This silent short film is written, directed and produced by Edwin S. Porter who was also a cameraman for Edison Studios. The movie is 10 minutes long and considered a true classic in filmmaking, as well as the western movie genre. The basic plot of the movie is that two bandits break into a telegraph office to stop a train so that they rob it. This story ends sadly as well.

Comparing the Movies Selected

3:10 Yuma (2007) and True Grit (2010) are remakes of western movies that were made earlier in time. The cinematography of these films is beautiful and would put a rural landscape right into the heart of Times Square in New York through the stunning images of country life. The drama, the twists and turns of the plot of these films will have the university students in Times Square coming to a standstill from their busy lives to capture the events of the movies. Along with the professors that will be also be present from the local universities of New York, the professors can supplement the visual content of the movies with more background knowledge of the significance of the western genre movie to America on a personal level with the university students.

In particular, the movie The Great Train Robbery (1903) will be a visual pleasure on the screens of Times Square. Being a short film which only lasts 10 minutes, as well as also silent and New York Times Square is not often known for being particularly silent, this film could lend to a quiet nature of the space as the students absorb the black and white visuals of the movie and/or the silence can also serve as an interesting sounding board to the voices of the acting cowboys and acting cowgirls, as well as the professors’ voices present who can give context as to how innovate The Great Train Robbery (1903) was for its time.

Part 3

The rationale of this film festival is to explore the rural, adventurous, thrill-seeking, dramatic and tragic nature of western films in an urban environment to unite the northern and the southern parts of the United States, as well as the eastern and the western parts of the United States. If the film festival turns out to be a great success in New York as its pilot location, then other locations in the southern, western and mid-west parts of the United States will be chosen to continue The Good Old Western Film Festival.

University students need to examine this genre because of all the history that is steeped in western films in America. Taking The Great Train Robbery (1903) as an example, this film was extremely innovative for its time being one of the first films to be shot on location rather than in a film studio. University students also need to understand that there was a historical time in the United States when the northern parts of the U.S. and the southern parts of the U.S. were divided. It is often through our media forms, such as the western film genre, that can unite these divisions.

Students who are predominantly in urban settings will learn about rural culture through fiction western film. They will also get to have fun with western culture with cowboys and cowgirls, plus learn the academic knowledge of western film with the local professors’ that will be present to discuss the western film genre.

The new knowledge that will be gained is that Times Square in New York will be used to introduce rural life and western film genres to an urban environment. The meeting place will bring together students from all over America, new friends will be made, new conversations and new ideas will be discussed, someone may be motivated to produce or to direct their own western film, many new things will come out of The Good Old Western Film Festival.

The Good Old Western Film Festival is important to ensure that more people know about the genre of western films in the United States and their long-lasting history in America.

References

 “3:10 to Yuma (2007)". Box Office Mojo. . Archived from the original on January 18, 2010. Retrieved June 20, 2016.

 Barnes, Brooks (December 26, 2010). “Strong Start for Coen Brothers’ ‘True Grit’". New York Times. Retrieved June 20, 2016.

Dirks, T. (2016). “The Greatest Westerns,” AMC Film site. New York: AMC Networks. Retrieved June 20, 2016.

Souter, Gerry (2012). American Shooter: A Personal History of Gun Culture in the United States. Potomac Books, Inc. p. 254.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download