As I stated in my intention post, my aim was to make a postcard and a poster for the exhibition. Now that it has past what I contributed to the event is as follows: A Poster, a postcard and a post with the embedded videos and a contextualized statement.

This turned out to be more than I internally anticipated to do but i guess it was for the benefit of the group so I didn’t really mind (that much). The postcard seemed to be a wasted effort on my part since the task was outsourced and by the time I was notified it had already been finished. The poster was finished and was part of my expected duties. The post with the embedded videos and a contextualized statement was a last minute addition since I was unable to get in touch with the rest of my group members so I took it upon myself to finish up these tasks. The videos had to be submitted to the media server at RMIT University and since I live a considerable distance away from the campus, so I decided to reach out to my group members but one was busy and I received no ward from the other. Therefore I opted to submit them via Google Drive in their original quality.

This turned out to be quite a grueling week for me since I had a number of tasks that I had not anticipated to be doing. The fact that it was also a busy week at work didn’t help things but at least it is now behind me and now I can finally enjoy a well deserved break

What We Envisioned
Monochrome Cowboy initially looked at making a short film of 15-20 minutes in length. The initial concept was that subtitles on screen reveal a person’s true thoughts as our character’s mental state will slowly decline into a downwards spiral. The original vision was that we would have a male protagonist that is left in a state of disarray, as he waits for the return of his girlfriend after they had a fight in their home. After that ‘Jack’ heads to his local cinema and watches a foreign film. After sleeping thought most of it, ‘Jack’ wakes up with the ability to see people’s true feeling though subtitles. The conflict at the beginning served as a basis for all his insecurities as his mental state could only worsen from that point on. The narrative would eventually develop into an emotional climax where the girlfriend would return home and with his ability to see through the lies he would ask if she loved him and she replies “yes”.

What We Ended Up With
The end product was quite different than what we set out to do. Many factors contributed to this from actor availability to location scouting as instead we completed a short scene of the initial fight and a dream sequence. Being ambitious, we set out to complete a short film but we quickly came to realise that time was not on our side; therefore we opted to compete a well shot scene as a proof of concept. The character of ‘Jack’ has been gender swapped which was a positive change since many films have an insecure male as the lead. This change was due to actor unavailability and time constraints so Michelle, one of the group members of Monochrome Cowboy volunteered to play the role. There was a last minute notice that the location we were going to film at was no longer available so we had to improvise and ended up going to the gardens. The location went from being set in the bedroom of the unhappy couple to the scenic Botanical Gardens. It was a blessing in disguise as our frustrations wittered away at some of the sights the garden has to offer. We had always intended to include a dream sequence scene but it didn’t quite fit in the overall narrative but being a proof of concept and having the Botanical Gardens at our disposal we shot one. Since we all had to do our own cuts we were pleased at how different the scene turned out.

A3 Poster Jamie Cilia

This is the Poster that I created for the exhibition. As you can probably tell I am using a very outdated version of Photoshop. This is because my laptop decided to self destruct on me so now I have to use the family computer which is basic at best. I took a great deal of effort to familiarise myself with a program that I had not touched in years. The interface was kind of similar but it was very much lacking in features so I was not exactly able to do what I had envisioned. Being pressed for time with other assignments and work didn’t help either but at least I managed to finish it and hopefully fulfilling the criteria required for this project.

Jamie Cilia Postcard

This is my design for the postcard. It is a little rushed since I’ve been pressed with assignments and work but at least i managed to finish it in time.

For the exhibition day I intent to design the poster and postcard. This will aid my group in successfully completing Project Brief 5. I have also taken the role to write the contextualized statement for the website as well as including some of the videos that the group has made. I will also make myself available to aid others in my group that may be struggling. On the day I will be attending the presentations as well as aiding in anything that is required of me on the day.