When I was watching this short film, I have to say I was impressed at how they were able to bring the camera outside to film some of the scenes. Usually, with other short films around this time period, all scenes would be indoors with minor props set about to give the feel of being in the outdoors and forests. Edwin Porter did a magnificent job using body language from the actors in order to bring out the full story of what was unfolding in this silent film. With only the clicking of the slides and frames to keep my ears busy, it was nice to be able to understand what was going on just from the visuals.
I noticed once or twice, for the rather violent or potentially harmful moments against the actors, that Edwin did the stop-frame edits. He'd stop filming, have everyone freeze where they were, and replace one of the actors or objects with a dummy, and then continue filming. This would not be able to be picked up on unless someone was looking for it, and it'd make the viewers think that the violence received by the dummy was actually being received by the actor that had just been there.
I also believe that they used blanks when they were shooting their guns, to create the sudden smoking effect without actually shooting anyone. At first I thought they were just using puffs of smoke, but in the final scene where the robbers are in a face-off with the townspeople, I realized that the horses were acting jumpy; so I feel it's right to assume there must've been sharp sounds, such as is typical in shooting a blank from a gun.
Overall, I actually rather enjoyed this film, and was rather disappointed at how short it was. It makes me more appreciative of how the creators and writers were able to make a whole story begin and wrap up in such a short amount of time, unlike today's movies which drone on for hours to tell the whole tale - not that it's necessarily a bad thing, though.
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