Introducing 'The Grey Cloud'

The Grey Cloud is an exciting film by 3am Studios. Set in the streets of a metropolis at night, The Grey Cloud is an evocative noir thriller loaded with suspense, atmosphere and pathos. Co-Directed by Matt Peek and Cameron Ford, (who first teamed up together to produce Too Far, - Tropfest Finalist for 2005) The Grey Cloud is the story of one evening, one couple and one of the city's best kept secrets.

With expert cinematography, solid performances and first-rate costumes and design, the film deftly renders the noir underworld through which the characters weave.

The Grey Cloud is the recipient of the Tropfest 2007 award for Best Cinematography. Matt Peek and Cameron Ford are currently writing a comedy series entitled “Too Far” (based on their 2005 Tropfest Finalist short film of the same name), and have received Film Victoria development funding for this project.

Click here to see the feature article on The Grey Cloud - published on the Kodak website!

Growing Brain Involvement

Creating the dark inner city underworld of The Grey Cloud posed a wide range of design challenges - and whilst Production Designer Amelia Marasco was more than up to the task, there were several special jobs for which Growing Brain was asked to contribute. These included: designing the signage for The Grey Cloud venu, the branding for a fictional whisky brand 'Jimmy Sneeze' (which became a key part of The Grey Cloud's media profile) and the poster for the film.

Growing Brain also produced the behind the scenes documentary 'Behind The Cloud' and produced the interactive DVD menus, DVD packaging and label designs and a promotional flyer advertising the DVD release to cast and crew.

Grey Cloud Signage

The setting for the film is the fictional bar from which the film derives it's name: The Grey Cloud. In order to quickly establish a period and a sense of character for the bar, the film required appropriate signage to be designed.

Working closely with the directors, Growing Brain set out to design a classic neon sign that could be temporarily mounted in the street location.

Jimmy Sneeze Branding

The Grey Cloud was created primarily as an entrant for Tropfest 2007, and as part of the rules of the competition, film makers had to include a ‘signature item' in the film. The inclusion of ‘the signature item' (TSI) helps identify the film as being one produced for Tropfest competition.

The TSI for the 2007 competition was ‘A Sneeze', and the directors felt that a novel and interesting way to intergrate this into The Grey Cloud would be to create a fictional brand of whisky, called: Jimmy Sneeze.

Growing Brain created a label design for the fictional brand, which was then reproduced as stickers and applied to the prop bottle. The reactions from audiences and media were positive, and before long a bottle of Jimmy Sneeze became a regular part of the media profile of the film.

Grey Cloud Poster

The poster is an important first point of contact for any film, and is an important tool for quickly communicating the film's style and character to a potential audience. For The Grey Cloud, Growing Brain designed a poster that pays homage to classic poster design using the simplest and most powerful of elements to create a compelling image.

Jimmy Sneeze Poster

As a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the success of Jimmy Sneeze, we went on to create a poster, advertising the fictional brand of alcohol – albeit in a more modern mode than the 40's noir setting of The Grey Cloud.