Jon Favreau Revives the Western in Cowboys & Aliens

The images of the alien ships we've seen hint at a take reminiscent of ancient cave drawings. What was your inspiration for their Sci-Fi designs?

Jon Favreau: There was that first photograph of a spaceship was from I think the 1870's, not far from here - they had the first shot of a UFO was like a cigar-shaped silver thing in the air.  There have been certain recurring themes and sightings and - the way film has treated them, UFOs.  So we tried to reference stuff and make it fit into the cultural memory of alien stuff. I grew up around the time of Close Encounters, E.T. and then Alien I like a lot, and Predators. So we're definitely going for more of the horror side of the alien movies - and although we have quite a bit of CG - I like the way they told stories before you could show everything with CG and it was a real unveiling of the creature, little by little, and using lighting and camera work and music to make it a very subjective experience.  So we tried to preserve that here, even though we have ILM and we could show everything from the beginning, it's nice to let things unfold, in a way - especially because you're seeing through the eyes of these people in this Western milieu. 

Then for the Western, we really tried to embrace that and not try to update it too much or change it or make it more accessible for a younger audience.  We figured that the alien side of things hopefully will take care of the people who don't know the Western, but for people who love Westerns, let's do it using all the archetypes of the classic Western films.  So we're really trying to do something, you know, we're really trying to do something classic here, and that feels like it could have been made at an earlier time, except for the technology with which we can show like effects, which is nicer that - be dealing with this, rather than just motion control, lighting rates and things.  But again, using as much practical as we possibly can, then using CGI to help make it look not so stiff.

So we have Legacy [Stan Winston's effects company] doing a lot of the alien work with us and ILM working hand in hand with them.  And as you can see, we're sort of shooting - you know, these backgrounds here are things that a lot of movies would just shoot it in a convenient place and put that in. We really found these wonderful locations and then as you'll see later - maybe we'll walk you guys around - is the base of one of the alien craft there and you'll see that that's what we're building off of, so we have practical things that people can interact with.

Was it challenging to find a unique design or approach with so many other Sci-Fi movies in existence?

Jon Favreau: Yeah, it's very hard.  Actually, Steven Spielberg was very involved at that point.  And it's hard to have a brainstorming session with Steven Spielberg because he'll start talking about, 'Well, in E.T. I did this, and then in...'  You know?  [laughs] It's hard to not be distracted by that.

You're hoping those stories will come up when you sign on to work with these people, and between Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, half of what's fun about this project is just getting to know these people and be colleagues with them, and getting to either get their advice because they've done so many of these films.  Talking about an action sequence, the way you break something down with Harrison Ford...I mean, between Indiana Jones and Star Wars and the Jack Ryan series, he really has a real deep understanding of filmmaking and how to make action scenes work. Usually the actors I work with are really tuned into dialogue and character, but he really understands the whole overall of it.  So I've learned a lot from him and of course, Spielberg and Ron Howard. 

Talking about film theory or storytelling, or what would be exciting; and then hearing stories about what they've tried and how they did it.  And me being able to pick their brain about, 'How did you do it, either back then, or what's worth exploring now?'  And then sharing the resources of people that they've worked with.  It's just been - at this point in my career, it's really a welcome - a welcome new layer to add, to be able to actually have people that I can ask questions of and who know so much about making movies.

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Bringing the Western into the 21st century (but keeping it old school)

Casting the cowboys

Blending genres and surprising audiences with the movie's brains