Jack Blog
June 24th, 2015 By Jack Morton
The thirst is real!
Having spent the last two days in and out of auditoriums and workshops I’m embarrassingly tired for a supposed “young” lion. This is physically due to the heat, which has lead me to write this whilst sitting on a delightfully cold marble floor within the Palais, and to also assume that anyone wearing more than one layer of clothing is either Australian or mad. And mentally tired from the onslaught of new insights and learnings from the several seminars I’ve been fortunate to attend so far. One of which was “Erotica before Internet: how muscles changed the world” a brilliant conversation between McCann Helsinki CEO Petteri Lillberg and Tom of Finland Foundation’s President and Co-Founder Durk Dehner. Having been a fan of Tom of Finland’s work for many years, I was amazed at how influential it had been in not only establishing 1950’s gay culture but also how it created the californian Gym culture, in order that men could look like they did in Tom’s uber-masculine images.
Full-on
Having never attended Cannes Lions Festival before, I could only go on what others had told me / warned me about (predominantly The Gutter Bar) and they were right – Cannes is an absolute beast, a brilliant, bustling, rosé-chugging Beast. The schedule is full-on and filled with so many high-profile speakers that I could really do with Hermione Granger’s Time-Turner. Thankfully I’m part of the Young Lions Creative Academy, who have planned for us to visit specific talks throughout the week as well as preparing workshops with leading creative practitioners in order for us to enhance our individual creative approaches. We’ve also been fortunate to have had private Q&A sessions with Busta Rhymes, Ryan Seacrest and Youtube Vlogger Grace Helbig.
A theme for the week
An underlying theme that has run through much of the chosen talks and workshops so far has been the need for self-belief and confidence in utilising our individual creativity, along with removing the fear in sharing our personalities through our work. This is something that I’ve been keen to learn about for a while and I’m thankful to have been given the opportunity to be surrounded by other young creatives and also leading creatives who have their own individual quirks and techniques when it comes to solving creative problems. Techniques that I know will be incredibly beneficial when taking on future projects!
So far so great
It’s also been great to chat to other creatives across multiple disciplines without the focus being on a client. Here we have the opportunity to talk about creativity in a space that has been created to nurture and celebrate it. There’s a keen sense of solidarity at CannesLions, whether it’s during a creative workshop or standing/slumped outside the Gutter Bar at 5AM.
Here’s hoping the rest of the week is as eventful!
Want more insights from the Cannes Lions Festival? Read our white paper Cannes guide to buzzwords: 8 newbies on what’s real and what matters to brand experience to learn about the marketing trends you can’t afford to miss.