Screen Africa is represented at Cannes Lions this year by Pam Marsh. Here she shares some of her experiences during a non-stop Festival of awards, conferences and of course, parties.
“My highlight of the week is the New Directors showcase. It’s a fantastic display of creativity and a peep into the future. I wish there was an opportunity to show the work, it’s brilliant. Delegates start queuing an hour before to get into the auditorium, clearly everybody’s favourite.
After the showcase I had the opportunity to chat with Richard Myers of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide Creative Director for Culture and Tom Eslinger Worldwide Digital Creative Director, who gave me an idea of the process which is vast. They get over one hundred entries and have to get it down to twenty pieces which we view.
The opening of the show is always phenomenal. It’s usually a live show of sorts — a few years ago it was a moving stage which was actually mindblowing……but never mind that! This year, the showcase being in its 20th year, and they had Paul Arden introduce it, as he was the founder of the show. However Paul Arden passed away two years ago but there he stood live on stage talking about this showcase. The audience all took it in their stride, watched the fantastic pieces and then Paul Arden came back on stage to say goodbye. As he finished he’s speech, he went up in a “poof’ of smoke and the mic he held dropped to the floor – it was truly a brilliant piece of smoke and mirrors! (More about the actual effect in my Cannes article for Screen Africa.)
The seminars are turning into more of the same, about technology, engaging with the consumer, one on one, etc. It would be great to be hearing something brilliantly different, perhaps I just missed a couple of interesting ones. But you never know, some more today! Yoko Ono’s is a guest on a seminar today, I have a feeling the queue to get in will be crazy and I’m not sure she’s still got what it takes!!!
South Africa is hosting their beach party tonight, looking forward to seeing the guys that are here. I believe Jonathan Beggs Creative Director at Ogilvy JHB is spinning the disc’s………is that what you still call it?
