Sifting through

Monday morning. Try to regain some semblance of normality apres Cannes. But first indulge in a spot reflection. I wish I could do this every day of my life from now on. Maybe I'm not a man, but I'm an acTOR.

Come to Cannes, it's alkaseltzer for your creative soul

It's fair to say my reportage has been pretty shoddy. That's maybe because there's just too much to say. There's a lot happening here all the time. Most of the week has been spent sat in the dark. And not out of necessity (though sometimes...). But it's not all bad. Whilst we've been there in the dark, we've heard some pretty inspired thinking. There's a section in the programme where all the judges tell their Cannes story. It's only short. And no, before you roll your eyes and think 'how self-indulgent' they're not. One guy tells us about how, back home he had befriended a street dog. His agency adopted the dog. And then, when it came to Cannes, they brought the dog with them and he went up on stage to collect a lion. Cats and dogs on stage together, who knew it could work. Anyway, I digress. My point is one of the stories, well more sentiments, that seems to crop up time after time is that Cannes is your refresher. It's what keeps you going the for next 364 days. Again, some cynics out there might say 'Well it's just because it's one big piss-up'. Yes, yes it is. But when you're not sitting in a darkened hotel room recovering, you are, as I said, sitting in a darkened seminar room (some of which are the most spectacular lecture theatres I've seen) imbibing what can ONLY be described as alkaseltzer for the creative soul. And it's not because we're going round bumming some self-indulgent sham award entries. There's some seriously good work here. There's some even better ideas. And there's a limitless amount of pasion, which would make anyone- even those totally cynical about awards- proud to be a part of this industry. We sure do know how to play hard ( and everyone knows that). But what people may forget is boy do we know how to work hard too. And love every minute that we do it too. So that's an overview. Specific details, the nitty, the gritty, I'll regail you with later, but for now my friends, sio nara.

T-Minus 4 and a bit hours

Yep, the day of reckoning is upon us. We're the first Young Lions category up to compete. I feel like we should e jogging on the spot, limbering up and generally stretching in our  hotel room. It's a very odd feeling. Preparing, attempting to prepare for this. 


So we get our brief today at half 5. And these are the preparations so far. Catch up on a much missed sleep as possible. Put together a shopping list for 24 hours of thinking and working. Then I think we're just about set to go get this brief done.

A summary of our day

Cannes Young Lions - Day 1 from Casey Hennessy on Vimeo.

Here's to tomorrow.

And for tonight

Road test pint cam. Nothing too heavy like, just break the back of it a bit.

Making ourselves acquainted

Back in the hotel room. We've spent the afternoon wandering around. We've seen some pretty swanky places to eat, some nice cars and even nicer boats. I'm sure that's a vulgar word to use when describing such sublime vessels. We've walked up to the festval hall, overheard some judges, seen the red carpet (and taken a few touristy shots) and then seen the Cannes Lion chauffeurs leave with precious cargo. Tinted windows prevented us from being able to work out who they were. In our minds it was Sir John Hegarty followed swiftly by DeBono and then Friendly Fires bringing up the rear. The sun is still shinning here. I think later we go work on our Gutter-bar-ometer. Make the most of the head start.

So far today

Forgot to charge the mac.
Forgot ipod lead.
Insulted French taxi drivers with my mixed up version of French numbers ^_^ ooops.
Turned up at a hotel where we aren't supposed to be till tomorrow.


But the sun's started to shine and this is the view from our room.

And this, the view of our room.

And now that we're here and have a the rest of the day to go for a walk and have an explore.

And they're off

Well we're on our way. In a few hours Casey and I will be hitting Cannes. Where do we start? An evening to explore and find our feet then competition time come Saturday/ Sunday. You'll have to excuse the lo-fi post. I'm having to rely on the iPhone as I forgot to charge the mac prior to leaving. Of all the things! At least everything else is in order.

Prepare to be papped

Yup, that's right I got me a camera. Whoop, whoop! Expect more unexpected pap pics like this. 

You gotta see this!

My boyfriend very kindly gifted me a camera app the other day. Yep another one (I love 'em, can't get enough of the things). And here are some of the results. This was bridezilla weekend, in the rain, in London.

It's called 'you gotta see this' and basically lets you take panoramas of anywhere you are. Me being me decided to do a vertical panorama, just to be awkward. And whilst some of the backgrounds you can set are a bit shit, there is this one that sets your photos like a window pane/ photo album.


The other one I would recommend which is a lot of fun is Flare. Will have to post Flare fun as an when I have something suitable to post.

If this were a wedding I'd be bridezilla

Ah! 4 days to Cannes and I feel so unorganised. Those who know me best probably won't be surprised. But it's looking like things are coming together, little by little. Two cameras sorted. A wardrobe is in the making. Name badges ordered (I joke). All we need now are the TEAM UK tracksuits. Oh and to make a time machine, go back to this weekend and make amends for what can only be my darkest hour of bridezilla behaviour. Sorry Sam. And then go a little further still and do all the other things I will no doubt have forgotten.

Karl's 7D

And before we went shooting, I got to play with Karl's rather nice 7D. I was supposed to be taking pictures of the football. But clearly Sarah's nose stuffed with gummy sweets was more interesting.

SHOOWUT

This is what we got up to last weekend. No reason, just fancied dressing daft. Clearly that's a lie, but we've been sworn to secrecy about what it is we're doing.

My outfit today defo looks like something out of Miami Vice

Lunch with a difference

Not 12 hours ago we were in the big smoke and this lunch we found ourselves somewhere else entirely. It's weird being in the city around traffic and buzz and people to then find yourself surrounded by fields, the odd barn and car noises have been replaced by the sounds of the wind blowing the corn about. Very odd. But nice.

 

Why don't DFS do this?

I love all things that are a bit crafty. Especially papercraft. And I think what I like best about this (apart from it being a totally brilliant way to sell sofas) is the A4 lined paper that make up the cushions. 

Sweet 16

Two unbelievably beautiful songs, one from a young songstress.
Amanda-Mair House by 4imaginaryboys

If I was a boy

I'd want to wear these.

Things I learnt at the weekend

I can't remember how it came about but got talking about the word tele- at the weekend. Or is it a prefix? It's a prefix, yep, for sure. Was intrigued as to how the word teleport came about. Considering teleports don't really exist how does it have a word for it? That's not me being a pessimist. Wish they did exist. It's merely me laying out the things I know to be true in an 'out loud' manner. If i'm wrong I'd welcome a correction on it. Yep teleport. How does something that doesn't exist end up with a name and that name end up in a dictionary. Which makes me think, maybe I cam make something up and if I work really hard at getting into everything, maybe one day it'll make it into the dictionary. But yeah so teleport, television, telegraph, telegram, all these words have it but what does tele- mean? Without the aid of iPhone at 5 o'clock in the morning in an attic room somewhere on the outskirts of Leeds we managed to work a definition from the relationship of all these things to one another. We knew it must mean something to do with long distance. iPhone corroborated. It means far. iPhone is defo much faster. But getting to the bottom of tele mystery without it was a lot more fun. In turn that got me to thinking about the word television. It must just one day have popped into the dictionary. Before it's invention it just wouldn't have been there. Maybe it's just my mind but that's weird to me. Something we're so familiar with now once, not so long ago, just wasn't there. I guess it's just the reverse of words getting dropped from the dictionary and language.

Things for Monday morning

One seriously flash in the pan weekend. mmmm flash, that makes me think of the Canon 5D I was allowed to play with this weekend (ta very much Joseph, you've changed my life with plastic, glass and pixels). Jesus, I really can't think straight after that one experience. What I was going to say is I may have found something to pass the time. Video time machine, it's dead fun. And this time machine vid looks like it has the potential to claim the crown of the first GIF ever what with it being from the 1890s, yeah.