2013 Western Film The Lone Ranger

2013 Western Film The Lone Ranger – American action-adventure film directed by Gore Verbinski. The film is based on the radio series of the same name. For the first time the heroes of this film appeared in a radio broadcast Jan. 30, 1933 on radio station WXYZ, broadcast in Detroit (Michigan). Station owner George W. Trendle wanted to broadcast a western, which would please the audience of children. He came up with an honest, strong and authoritative character, which the children could admire. So appeared general concept of “Lone Ranger.” The film stars Armie Hammer in the title role and Johnny Depp as Tonto and explores the duo’s efforts to subdue the immoral actions of the corrupt and bring justice in the American Old West. William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, Ruth Wilson, James Badge Dale, and Helena Bonham Carter are also featured in supporting roles. The film marks the first theatrical film featuring the Lone Ranger character in over 32 years. It was released theatrically on July 3, 2013. The Lone Ranger was poorly received by film critics and underperformed at the box office.

The scenery of the mine “Sleepy Man”, which was built near the town of Creede, Colorado, interspersed with these miners buildings that miraculously preserved from XIX century. New buildings included a 60-meter-long railway tunnel, the entrance to which was a 12-foot fake rock, about 1.5 kilometers of railways, lifts and mining trucks. Adits and drifts were built from scratch, but decorators draped them so skillfully that it seemed – that vaults were about to collapse.

The Lone Ranger

In the gorge of “Dead Horse” was a “plateau of spirits” – a rock with a relatively flat platform on which saved by Tonto John Reid wakes up. At the top of the rock was built high ritual platform. “It was a pretty flimsy construction of about five meters in height, – the Armie Hammer. – I was standing on top of this fragile construction, which swayed in the wind with an amplitude of a meter. Below me was a gaping chasm depth of 600 meters. It was scary.”

Before the shooting consultant of history of North American Indians Vahatuvika William Welker and his assistant Troy had a traditional Indian ritual to attract good luck in the studio Albuquerque Studios.

Andrea Riseborough and Sarah Gadon were auditioned for the role. Jessica Chastain and Abbie Cornish were auditioned for the lead female role, but lost to Ruth Wilson.

Filming began on February 28, 2012 and lasted for seven months in the four south-western states of America, as well as in Southern California.
The fictional town of Colby in Texas – a dusty border town, where grew John Reed and his brother. Verbinski and McCready visited several cities in the West, trying to find a suitable one. But in the end decided to build a town from scratch near Rio Puerko, 50-odd miles from Albuquerque.

The really difficult was the construction of the so-called “Hell on Wheels” – mobile tent city, which served as a prototype for real-world villages that appeared like mushrooms after the rain, in the XIX century. They followed the workers building the transcontinental railroad, and fully justified its name. Colorful playground of “Hell on Wheels” was recreated in the territory of one of the warehouses of Albuquerque, which was rented for five weeks. Then the scenery was transported to the city of Lamy, New Mexico and constructed again.
In the process of filming used three American locomotives of XIX century for a number of large-scale and spectacular scenes. “We built them in the same way as we have built a full-scale model ships for the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean “.

In the city of Sun Valley in California visual effects coordinator John Frazier collected two full-scale engines that could move the rail laid on the road – the historic “Jupiter” and the engine, which the crew called “the Colby train”. Subsequently, it was transformed into a locomotive “Constitution.” Steam locomotives were collected by hand down to the smallest component, changed only two important details. Modern locomotives used hydraulics instead of steam.

The village of Comanche warriors was built in the green valley of the crater of an extinct volcano with a diameter of 19 kilometers. This place is a national nature reserve and is called the Valles Caldera.
Especially for filming in Rio Puerko was built fictional town Colby, almost all of which had 12 buildings with four walls, including the train station, a stable, a saloon, a hotel, a bank, the sheriff’s office, various shops, as well as eight kilometers of railway tracks.

Almost no scene of the train was filming at speeds below 50 km / h, and sometimes – and at a speed of 60 km / h. William Fichtner himself performed the stunt in one of the scenes where his character jumps from the roof of the car moving at a speed of about 30 km / h on a galloping horse.

For the filming of the movie tailors sewed 1500 costumes, as well as hundreds of hats, shoes and other items of clothing. Some of the accessories were rented from other film companies.

In order to “wear out” wardrobe used a variety of tricks. Costumes were processed through pebbles in a cement mixer, some places are “worn out” by means of kitchen graters. And sometimes the costume were processed by gas burners.

The image of Johnny Depp’s character was taken from the paintings of the artist Kirby Sattler, called “I – Raven”. Sattler portrayed an American Indian warrior, whose face was painted with white paint with four vertical stripes – two on each side. In the long hair were woven crow feathers, and on his head sat Indian crow.

John Reid – Armie Hammer’s character mask was carved from soft goat skin.

In order to create the wonderful world of “The Lone Ranger” the way it was seen by Gore Verbinski, he had to collect a rather impressive team. It contained six art directors, eleven decorators, two illustrators, a painter, a lot of storyboards, two graphic designers, two modelers, Coordinator of Research, assistant director of the art group and 274 builders.

Before filming began, all the actors spent some time in the camp “cowboy boots” at a ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There they learned to ride, shoot, handle the lasso, saddle horses and to manage a wagon.
After the shooting in the town of Creede, Colorado Johnny Depp for four hours had been signing autographs to local residents. Despite the fact that the official population of the town is only 290 people, out of nowhere appeared almost a thousand wanting to get a Hollywood movie star’s signature.

some statistics:
4.5 months preparation period;
3 days rehearsals;
150 shooting shifts;
31 week period of production in the five states;
3000 camera settings;
more than 1,000 hours of film material shot;
more than one million man-hours.

The Lone Ranger – the first film starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, not directed by Tim Burton.

“Tonto” in Spanish means “fool”, so the Spanish version of the name of the character replaced by the “Toro”, which means “ox”.

During the filming of one scene, Johnny Depp had to fall down from a horse, he later expressed his gratitude to the horse that she kept him alive. Only due to the fact that the horse instinctively jumped over Depp during the execution of a trick, he escaped with minor injuries and scratches.

Depp has stated that he believes he has Native American ancestry, possibly from a great-grandmother. He has said that he considered the role a personal attempt “to try to right the wrongs of the past”, in reference to portrayals of Native American culture in the media.