“It was a dark and stormy nightI”: ask students to explore “horror” as a genre, and the chances are they won’t go beyond rehearsing every cliche they’ve picked up from films.
Try storyboards. Have them plot a horror narrative as a storyboard, deliberately using every visual cliche they can think of - the gothic castle, the wild sky, the batsI Analyse the storyboard, frame by frame. Ask what each image contributes to setting, atmosphere, characterisation and tension-building. Now try a second storyboard, this time asking for new images to fulfil the purposes identified in the earlier analysis - tomorrow’s cliches. Use that as a basis for further writing or filming.
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