Over the course of completing this Project Brief my attitudes towards it have traversed the space between negative and positive, excited, engaged, bored, anxious and worried. At the beginning of the Brief I was having doubts about where I was going with this degree and what I should be striving to get out of it, it was during the early stages of this brief that I had finally, weeks into the semester, found the perfect uni/work/home life balance and I welcomed this with open arms. Somewhere between Project Brief 3 and 4 I decided to turn my apprehension towards the world of things I’m yet to know into motivation for learning, an opportunity to find out things and tune skills I wouldn’t get anywhere else.
I was really happy with the group I had been given for the assignment, and within our first discussion together; Alex, Jules and I had a clear focus of through which medium we wanted to tackle the assessment~film. Julia and Alex had both produced previous work throughout the course that I had looked at with admiration, so I was looking forward to seeing what we could do when combining our skills. In the first group discussion I had said something along the lines of me not enjoying filming, to which Alex and Jules had been accommodating. Although that was an immature attitude that I quickly changed, when I decided to face any opportunity I was given, head on with a focus on personally getting something out of it ~ whether that be as simple as learning how to level a tripod or something much more complex like conducting an interview. Our focus on using film to present our investigation led us directly to the idea of tackling the project in a report or documentary style, as we were endeavouring to answer a question above all.
As with any large project or collaboration effort there will always be snags; we are humans after all. Some of the problems we faced as a group was the initial take-off speed. Because our final product was so reliant on other people – outside of the degree through our interviews, a lot of time was spent arranging times that worked for all parties. This was not a problem in the end but it did result in us seeming a little underprepared in some of the initial W.I.P. presentations to the class.
Another element that was hard to overcome was the attempt at making our content textured and playful which became apparent as one of the most important elements of the project to the people who would eventually mark it. Somewhere within the second draft phase, Alex had the idea to illustrate some of our ideas through the use of a prequel comic book. This was a great idea and really tied in well with some of the information we were presenting because it was about the comic book industry. The way in which we would make this comic was a troubling subject at first because none of us had any skills in illustration or zine-making. In the end we constructed a 6 page simple zine, combining some elements of the comic book model. In the end it was hard to compile much information in this prequel comic but because our final film piece is so information heavy we decided that a simple comic, purely for the sake of experimenting with comic making was ample. In the end, the simple comic has been laid out flat and scanned into the computer, although it is truly at its most appealing as a tangible comic. Our simple comic I guess embodies the way institutions and their power really determine the reach of any artistic endeavour, and our first attempt at comic/zine making will only ever be held by a small amount of people.
One of the great things about our collaboration effort and our group was that each member really shone in various different parts of the making process. It is in these areas we let each other work at a pace and to an idea that they saw fit. Our group worked really well on building on each others ideas, never dismissing any idea (because no idea was truly a bad one), but building upon ideas and morphing them into our eventual project.
Another thing that really worked well was the fact that we were able to interview some really inspiring and successful people in their certain fields. A highlight for me was being able to go to the ABC studios in Southbank with Julia and meeting Patricia Kervalas, it was really great to see the place that some of the people completing this degree will probably end up. Being able to talk to Mark O’Toole was really eye-opening and it was great to hear his ideas on the media institutions he’s been involved with over the years.
Overall the experience was a truly good exercise in me learning again how to cooperate with people to work towards a brief and an end result we could all be proud of. My team members and I encouraged each other and helped each other out when there were difficulties. Honestly Julia was the rock in our group and her determination to produce a high quality piece as well as her overall drive and passion inspired me and helped me to work harder.
