Pat Baron’s Cannes Diary: Day One

| | No Comments

Pat Baron Profile Picture (1).jpgPat Baron, ECD, McCann Melbourne is Australia’s representative on the Cannes Lions Film jury. Baron, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is reporting exclusively for CB.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“What you gunna do over there?”

“Watch videos all day son.”

“All day, Dad?”

“All day son.”

“WOW, do they need a kid judge, I watch videos all day”.

 

As I leave for the 2015 Cannes Lion Creative Festival as a member of the Film Jury I feel like a kid again. Every year Cannes inspires us all to do great things. It’s a wild and intoxicating ride, ingenious, exhausting, exciting, loud, courageous and humbling. I believe creative solutions are more effective and successful and identifying those is what judging at Cannes is all about.

Today Cannes exemplifies creativity as a driving force for business, for change and for good. Work that changes the course of communications and sets a global benchmark for what good creative looks like. Each year, more than 300 members of the creative communications industries are invited to Cannes Lions to serve on juries to uphold these beliefs. Jurors are chosen on achievements from previous Cannes and this year I’m humbled to represent Australia as a member of the Cannes Lion Film Jury.

 

The Film category as defined by Cannes is traditional TV & cinema advertising and film content produced for online airing and other screens. This includes screens and events, branded content & entertainment film and viral film – some over two hours in length. It’s everything from outdoor to a purpose fit video for Instagram and personal devices.

 

I arrive Friday evening for the Film and Radio Jury welcome drinks held at the La Côte restaurant at the Ritz Carlton hotel. I’m excited to meet fellow jurors who’ve travelled from around the world. (Those from Europe will be looking a tad fresher than I – jet lag’s a killer.)

 

It’s a distinguished list of jurors including Japan’s Morihiko Hasebe, Executive Creative Director, Hakuhodo and Kate Stanners, Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi. On Saturday as delegates arrive, jury briefings and judging sessions commence. Initially we’re separated into sub-juries as the process to identify the shortlist starts. Every entry deserves my full attention – there’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears in each film, and I’m prepared to put the time and effort in on behalf of my fellow creatives and their work.

 

I’ll be looking for ideas that display a strong synergy with the brand, a dynamic and creative approach to the brief and exceptional execution. In particular, I shall seek out original creative ideas that make me feel something.

 

I’m particularly interested in personal device film and the innovative use of new interactive technology in online film. These categories continue to evolve the tools for telling stories as data and technology emerge.

 

It’s not my place as a juror to predict results and I enter this process with an open mind, to be neutral, objective and utterly impartial. Our president Tor Myhren, President and Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Grey has predicted with utter certainty six days of darkness in the jury room between 8.30am to 7pm (an under-estimate as judging overruns depending on time spent in debate).

 

It will take the film jury to next Friday before the serious discussion sessions to award Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions and Grand Prix are scheduled. There will be no shortage of opinion, emotion and caffeine circulating I imagine. Having won a Cannes Film Grand Prix, I know it will be an exciting moment for the winners.

 

I’ve had this week penciled in my calendar all year and since the preliminary judging commenced in March the anticipation has built. Even though I’ll miss the celebrity seminars this year – Al Gore, Jamie Oliver, Marilyn Manson, Will Pharrell, and  Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel, the white sandy beaches, crystal clear blue waters, blazing sunshine, Rose’, the Gutter Bar and mingling with other delegates, I can’t wait.