My photographic storyboard is based on 'vampire movies' a sub genre of the horror genre. This genre has its own codes and conventions, I made sure that I applied some of these codes and conventions to my storyboard so that it would fit into the genre and become easily recognised what genre it is when the audience are watching. The ‘Vampire Movie’ has is own conventions, I included some of these for example: Fangs - fangs are seen as the most important feature to a vampire. This convention comes from early vampire films such as: Dracula (1931) made by Universal Studios and Dracula (1958) made my Hammer. Another is: Vampires having no reflection – when Ellen looks into her pocket mirror she sees that she has no reflection. The convention of vampires not being able to be in sunlight as it ‘burns’ them, I have also used for when Ellen steps out into the sun and is struck by a burning sensation on her skin. This convention has been in many ‘vampire movies’ such as a more recent vampire films e.g: 30 Day of Night (2007). When Ellen steps out into the sunlight there is also a hint of glowing coming from her skin, I got this idea from the massive franchise of: The Twilight Saga, the vampires seen in these films, skin glistens when in sunlight, I adapted this idea to a slight glow for the skin of my vampire character. As well as using conventions from the ‘vampire movie’ sub genre, I included conventions from the main Horror genre too. Some of these include: low key lighting, and isolated location (the forest) and the ‘monster’, being Ellen in my narratives case and the use of blood. Although I did challenge some conventions within my narrative as usually the vampire movie tends to feature male characters preying upon female victims, compared to in my narrative where Ellen a young female is preying upon a male.
The target audience would be in the age range of 15-25 because people in this age range are most attracted to the Horror Genre. However the content could be seen as graphic due to the 'gore' shown and therefore the certification given to this could be 18, making the target audience change to 18-25. This film wasn't aimed at a certain gender, as males and females both like to watch horror films. Although, stereotypically horror films are watched predominately by a male audience.
My story could be seen as mainstream due to most mainstream movies coming from Horror, Adventure/Action, Thriller genres and my story fits into the Horror Genre. It can also been seen as mainstream due to the recent explosion of vampire movies due to major success of the twilight saga and vampire movies seem to attract audiences in due to this. However it can be seen to be on the indie scene as it’s a low budget, British horror which does not seem to attract masses of audiences, due to it not being all fancy and financed/promoted by a massive Hollywood Studio. Instead this story would most likely be produced by companies that mainly produce horror films such as: Hammer. Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s.
The photos used in my storyboard are main shots to the story line. Its gets the main plot across to the viewer. But there would be more storyline in-between these shots, where the characters personalities and own stories would be developed, along with the initial vampire seen in the establishing shot, appearing to kill more people and chaos being unleashed as vampires are being created and attacking innocent victims. As the last shot shows Paul escaping and Ellen left for dead, there is no actual reference to whether she is actually dead or not, meaning there is potential for a sequel. Horror films don’t have to have rational explanation of events where as Thriller might do e.g: if people die in a thriller they stay dead; in a horror film they may come back to life, in the sequel Ellen might come back to life just how Dracula returns from the dead in; Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).
I used the black and white style of shot during the 3 shots to show a passage of time and that this was a flashback. I got this idea from such films as: Raging Bull (Scorsese 1980) in which the story looks back to boxing in the post-war period. Also I did incorporate some use of symbolism. This can be seen with Ellen’s character being dressed in near enough all black to show the evilness she has encountered and will inflict upon Paul, and the use of a bright blue top to show at the beginning she was an average nice girl. Pauls character when he is first introduced is seen to be wearing red shoes to show that he is about to encounter danger.
When I was first devising my storyboard I created a far too complicated story line, which would take a lot of effort to create and I did not have the time to do so. Therefore I did a re-draft of the story to make it much more simple and do-able. I still stuck with the basic story line from the original idea but adapted it, to make it more suitable and realistic to create. Once it came to actually taking the shots (the photography) there was no major issues which I countered. However, one issue was it was quite bright on the day I took the photos, so I had to try and find darker places within the location to shoot from. This was resolved by darken the photos once put on the computer. Another practical difficulty was making the fake blood and applying it on the actors. It was hard to find some of the ingredients needed to make the fake blood and once on the actors, they had to be very careful with what they touched etc.
The target audience would be in the age range of 15-25 because people in this age range are most attracted to the Horror Genre. However the content could be seen as graphic due to the 'gore' shown and therefore the certification given to this could be 18, making the target audience change to 18-25. This film wasn't aimed at a certain gender, as males and females both like to watch horror films. Although, stereotypically horror films are watched predominately by a male audience.
My story could be seen as mainstream due to most mainstream movies coming from Horror, Adventure/Action, Thriller genres and my story fits into the Horror Genre. It can also been seen as mainstream due to the recent explosion of vampire movies due to major success of the twilight saga and vampire movies seem to attract audiences in due to this. However it can be seen to be on the indie scene as it’s a low budget, British horror which does not seem to attract masses of audiences, due to it not being all fancy and financed/promoted by a massive Hollywood Studio. Instead this story would most likely be produced by companies that mainly produce horror films such as: Hammer. Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s.
The photos used in my storyboard are main shots to the story line. Its gets the main plot across to the viewer. But there would be more storyline in-between these shots, where the characters personalities and own stories would be developed, along with the initial vampire seen in the establishing shot, appearing to kill more people and chaos being unleashed as vampires are being created and attacking innocent victims. As the last shot shows Paul escaping and Ellen left for dead, there is no actual reference to whether she is actually dead or not, meaning there is potential for a sequel. Horror films don’t have to have rational explanation of events where as Thriller might do e.g: if people die in a thriller they stay dead; in a horror film they may come back to life, in the sequel Ellen might come back to life just how Dracula returns from the dead in; Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).
I used the black and white style of shot during the 3 shots to show a passage of time and that this was a flashback. I got this idea from such films as: Raging Bull (Scorsese 1980) in which the story looks back to boxing in the post-war period. Also I did incorporate some use of symbolism. This can be seen with Ellen’s character being dressed in near enough all black to show the evilness she has encountered and will inflict upon Paul, and the use of a bright blue top to show at the beginning she was an average nice girl. Pauls character when he is first introduced is seen to be wearing red shoes to show that he is about to encounter danger.
When I was first devising my storyboard I created a far too complicated story line, which would take a lot of effort to create and I did not have the time to do so. Therefore I did a re-draft of the story to make it much more simple and do-able. I still stuck with the basic story line from the original idea but adapted it, to make it more suitable and realistic to create. Once it came to actually taking the shots (the photography) there was no major issues which I countered. However, one issue was it was quite bright on the day I took the photos, so I had to try and find darker places within the location to shoot from. This was resolved by darken the photos once put on the computer. Another practical difficulty was making the fake blood and applying it on the actors. It was hard to find some of the ingredients needed to make the fake blood and once on the actors, they had to be very careful with what they touched etc.
I gained new knowledge from creating the storyboard such as: I now know how to frame a shot to get the best possible effect/reaction from it and a greater understanding of camera angles. I learnt how to give direction to actors and step into the shoes of what it’s like to be a director.
Overall, I am very pleased by my storyboard and enjoyed working on it and editing the shots etc.
