Dracula

Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity. 

Depictions of Stoker’s Novel in Film

Choose a brief scene from Dracula and then go online, to a site like YouTube or Vimeo, to find clips from various film versions of Dracula. Find three film clips of the scene you have chosen. Create a document that does the following:

• names and provides a link to each clip
• describes each clip’s action, emphasis, pace, and atmosphere:
• What do the actors look like, what actions do they perform, and how do they deliver their dialogue?
• How is the scene visually designed using costume, setting, lighting, color, and so on?
• How does the camerawork create emphasis and control the scene’s pace through the angles and the lengths of shots?
• takes a position about which of the three clips is most faithful to Stoker’s original language and intent in Dracula:
• What do the scenes preserve from Stoker’s Dracula, and what do they omit? What do they add? How does this impact your judgment regarding which of the three clips is most faithful to Stoker’s language and intent?
• Which of the themes present in the scene from Stoker’s Dracula (Christianity as Salvation; The Old World versus the Modern; The Danger of Female Sexuality; Insanity, Dreams, and Fallibility; Outsiders as the Other) are also present in these three clips? How are the themes presented, and what makes one presentation more faithful than the other two?

Teaching Suggestion: The number of film clips required can be modified so that this activity requires more or less time, or is more accessible to students with academic challenges. For students requiring more of a challenge, you might require quoted evidence from Stoker’s text to back up assertions made about intent and theme. If students are struggling to understand how to describe and discuss things like lighting, camerawork, and so on, you can refer them to StudioBinder’s video resources on filmmaking, such as:

• Film Tone — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep1
• Production Design — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep2
• Film Blocking Tutorial — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep3
• Directing Camera Movement — Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep4