Planning: Two Possible Openings to iWatch

Opening 1

Friends and family are gather at a graveyard where he is being buried for his funeral. However the friends hear his voice and discover his iPhone, which playing a video of him at a party.

Opening 2

The friends are gathered at a field where his ashes have been scattered to pay their respects. However the peace is disturbed when they hear his voice and discover his iPhone, which is playing a video of him at a party.

Research: Target Audience Feedback Regarding Our Possible Openings

We collected 10 responses from our target audience of around 14 - 24. Below are the profiles of some of the people who gave feedback on how they would expect iWatch to open.

Giac: 17: Media Student

This response reassured us that it is a good idea to include technology related events.

Deet: 17: Media Student

Enjoys watching horror films and his response included a lot of typical conventions of a horror film.

Sophie: 14: Art Student

Also this response reassured us of the technology aspect. The repeated mention of an iPhone means we may use an iPhone for the videos to be on.

George: 16: Drama Student

This response is very useful and has some effective ideas we could use within our opening.

Sam: 16: Media Student

From this response some more conventions are mentioned and could be considered when planning the opening of iWatch.

Research: Sharing Our Pitch With Our Target Audience

Our synopsis of iWatch, which we will present our audience with:

The film is based around a boy, named Josh who has recently and unexplainably died and his friends, Lola, George and Rosie are visiting the place where his ashes have been scattered. All 3 of them go silent to pay their respects and all of a sudden they hear the voice of Josh who has died. They look around and discover what they think is Josh's iPhone on the floor playing a video at a party that he took before he died. One of the friends picks up the iPhone and he looks through all of the videos that he has on the iPhone. As they scroll through, they find videos of each of them in their everyday lives. Thinking it was Josh being weird and taking videos, they find another video that was taken of Josh, which is filming him getting ready to go to bed. The friends are really confused about what they just saw and now know that it wasn't Josh that was filming them, it must have been someone else...

We have created a question on survey monkey to find out what an audience would expect the opening of iWatch to be. We decided upon using survey monkey as it seemed the easiest way to allow people that fit in our target audience when we ask them to put their ideas forward. You can see the question by clicking here.

Planning: 60 Second Pitch

This is a rough script for our 60 Second Pitch on 'iWatch'

Becca: My name's Becca.

Tayla: My name's Tayla.

Holeigh: And I'm Holeigh and this is our 60 Second Pitch on our teen horror film.

Becca: iWatch is the working title for our horror film and our targeted classification will be a 15. 

Tayla: We decided on this because the film is based around a boy who has recently and mysteriously died and his friends are visiting the place to which they scattered his ashes .

Holeigh: All of them go silent to pay their respects and all of a sudden they hear the voice of their friend who has died. 

Becca: They look around and discover what they think is his iPhone on the floor playing a video at a party that he took before he died.

Tayla: The friends pick up the iPhone and look through all of the videos that he has on his iPhone. 

Holeigh: As they scroll through the videos, they find videos of each of them in their everyday lives. 

Becca: Initially they thought it was him taking videos, however they find a video that was taken of the boy when he was getting ready to go to bed. 

Tayla: The friends are really confused about what they just saw and now know that it wasn't him that was filming them, so who exactly is watching? 

Holeigh: If you enjoy horror mysteries then you should watch iWatch. 

To watch our 60 second pitch click here. Our pitch is from 0:00 - 0:55.

Planning: Decision Making

We have decided of 'iWatch' as our working title. iWatch is going to be a teen-horror film and we will be targeting a classification of 15. The concept of this is a teenage boy who has mysteriously died. Whilst visiting where his ashes have been scattered his friends hear his voice and discover what they think is his iPhone playing a video of himself of a party. However looking amongst other videos they have suspicions of how he died. Each video contains the group of friends in their everyday life. Initially the friends think the videos were took by himself but they come across videos of him alone. So, who is watching?

Planning: Brainstorming Our Ideas

We have now began planning for our main task. The best way to come up with an initial idea was to produce a brainstorm. Together we came up with a few ideas and built upon each of our opinions on the general idea of the film. Also we incorporated some of the previous research we had done on horror films, in particular our questionnaire findings to find out people's preferences on horror films.

DENCH Films with our brainstorm

Photography Rules

In the technology part of our task we need to look at rules of photography in order to get good quality video. Hopefully this will result in the production of good footage for our main task.

The rule of thirds is where a picture is broken down into thirds, horizontally and vertically. This creates 9 sections. It is used by placing points of interesting at the intersections or along the lines as the human eye naturally looks at those parts first. Overall this makes a photograph much more appealing. However it is said that rules are made to be broken and many photographers don't use this rule and still achieve balanced and interesting shots.

The lines in the rule of thirds. This grid can be visible on most cameras so that it is easier to follow this rule and create a better photo.

Also the idea of 'looking space' should be put in place for portrait photography. Which is where the way a persons face is facing there should be more space that side than the other side. This is to ensure a photo not looking awkward and overall to make it appear easier on the eye.

For an example I have attempted to take a 'good' portrait photo. I did so by trying to incorporate the rules mentioned above.

This shows the use of the rule of thirds, as the eye is placed on an intersection this makes it the main focus of the photo and the 'looking space' as space is significantly larger the side she is looking than the other side.

To improve on this photo I would ensure on better lighting. For example by creating one side of the face with light and the other with shadow this could create an interesting and flattering effect.