Ted Royer’s Cannes Diary

Campaign Brief Asia asked Droga5New York ECD Ted Royer to be our eyes on this year’s Cannes Lions Film & Cinemajury. Here are his FINAL DAY observations on the judging.

Forgive me, I have been slacking. No, I wasn’t drunk the whole time, but I have been judging some long days, gotten the flu and have a very weird bump rapidly growing on my neck. Things are not looking good for me. But the work is great, and seeing how this is my last entry, I’ll jump straight to the big winners, some of my favorites and comment on other stuff.

All week long we were worried there might not even be a Grand Prix, and seeing how the last time that happened the jury was almost run out of town, it was a huge relief when several things clearly rose to the top.

Grand Prix was unanimous. It’s a piece of work that crosses manyboundaries, and does a brilliant job of pointing the way forward. It’san instructional film, a documentary, a product demonstration, a viral,an interactive piece, and a beautiful brilliant stand alone film all byitself. It’s the Phillips Carousel work done for their large format TV. Seek it out and have fun.

Some of the other contenders for the top prize were:

Love Distancefrom Japan. A gorgeous piece of work, beautiful on it’s own and onlygaining in power when you know the whole story behind it. All thejudges loved it. In this business we tend to disparage “easy” clientslike condoms and beer. I often say to creatives, “To put a condom ad inyour book, it has to be the most amazing condom ad in the world,otherwise don’t put it in because it’s a category that is too easy todo.” Well, congratulations to GT Tokyo, you may have actually made themost amazing condom ad in the world.

James Boag’s Draught magic waters. Great spot. Probably couldn’t have been produced much better than it was.

Other gold winners include the epic Times of IndiaChennai saga, a huge favorite for some judges, a very funny, very”French” Stella Artois campaign from Mother, and a really interesting”other screens” installation piece from the Chambers Hotel inMinneapolis.

Personally, I thought the Bruce Lee work for Nokiadeserved a bit more. It was as big a viral piece as I’ve seen all year.I think some of the judges may not have fully understood the subtlehumor in it, how it wasn’t just an homage and imitation of Bruce Leebut was done in a really tongue-in-cheek, funny way. Nice stuff.

TheK-SME Credit campaign from Thailand made everybody laugh out loud andcontinued the tradition of Thai humor making a strong showing everyyear in Cannes. Everyone always has high expectations for Thailand, abig compliment to the industry there. The Semir clothing spot had adash of Thai humor as well, even though it was from Shanghai. Good work.

Congrats to all the winners, and good luck for next year.

Day Three

As predicted, things are getting better. We watched internet filmstoday, and there were some real standouts. Things should get throughnicely despite British judge Bil Bungay`s best attempts to killeverything in sight. Someone get Bil a machine gun, he`s in a killingmood. Also all respect is due to Toshiya Kono from Japan, who insistson watching every piece to the very end, even when its fairly clear itwill be bad. With Toshi, you get your money`s worth in judging.

Nowthat I`ve thought about it, it still is a sausage-fest here in thisjury. There are only three women out of a total of 21 judges (22 if youcount David Lubars). The three are the hilarious Lisa Bennett from DDB,the saucy and hilarious Sophie Shoenburg from AlmapBBDO in Brazil, andSteve Back from Saatchi in Australia. No, wait, I meant to say my goodfriend Janet Kestin from O&M toronto, of Dove fame. And each daythey split the women up so there´s one in each group. I guess theydon`t want female block voting.

So yeah, interweb films today. Ican`t talk about specific work, but suffice it to say there´s reallynice stuff from a brand that rhymes with Bella Bartois, and somenot-so-nice formulas that keep popping up. Even internet stuff hasfallen into repetitive types. It´s not enough to just find some mildlyinteresting artist or musician and then do a documentary about how coolthey are and then tack on your brands logo as if to say “we know howcool this guy is, so we must be cool to.”

Nor it is good totake an idea that would work as something in ad length and stretch itout to 3 minutes. I know the internet has freed us ad people from therestrictive and stifling 30 second limit, but if you don`t have thatmuch to say, don`t take forever to say it. Lots of ideas that wouldprobably get a lot farther if they ad been judiciously edited will diebecause they just bore the judges. So long does not equal good. Goodequals good.

Tomorrow we do the shortlist.

Day Two

Still divided into groups. But things are moving a long nicely.

I’mseriously depressed, because we watched Public Service today. Damn.Child soldiers, land mines, cancer. I know these are extremelyimportant causes to fight for and bravo for those who gave their timeand support to these, but seeing them all at once like that makes onewant to curl up in a ball and weep. Some really good stand-outs in thecategory. It should be nice. Creatives seem to have a real penchant fortelling stories in animation, which, while sometimes beautiful, causesthe viewer to become really detached from the problem. I’m just saying.

It’s tough watching this because you sympathize for the problemin these ads, but have to vote for the idea, not the organization. So alot of this work might actually get me to donate, but that doesn’t meanthe creative solution is worthy of a lion.

And for Public Service, the things that really seem to get us wonderfuland talented judges buzzing are the spots that offer easy ways to help,not just depictions of the problems. People want to be armed with a wayto behave or act, not just asked to donate.

Also shimmering mandolin soundtracks seem really, really popular when you want to make people sad.

Then we saw categories for alcoholic drinks and candy. I guess theythought we needed that after all the public service. Some funny stuff,but there seems to be echoes of skittles everywhere, and few thingsthat match that high standard.

Happiness Factory has had quite an impact around the world becausethere are more than a few animated spectacles with huge crowds of happycharacters all marching happily in support of whatever product they’reselling. Happiness Factory was great, but these imitators seem a bitcreepy, kind of like watching parade footage from facist dictatorships.

More raining food spots. I’m sure tomorrow will be better.

Day One

I’ve noticed that any time someone writes a “diary” from Cannes or TheAndy’s or wherever, they always start by subtly bragging. They say howintimidating it is to be on a jury with such great people, and howwonderful it is just to be in the presence of such talented creative.But what the writer really means is that by extension he or she iswonderful and talented. See how that works? So here goes:

It issuch an honor to be among such great and talented creatives on thehighly prestigious and intimidating Cannes Film Jury. Only the verybest wonderful and talented judges here. Etc.

Now a few stats:film entries are down by about 1,000 over last year. Attendance is downby 40% or so. And everyone’s talking about it being a “down” year. Butif you think that attendance was even less in 2003 than it was thisyear, it doesn’t seem so down after all.

That said, things have changed here, and they’ll never be the sameagain. Film used to be the undisputed king of the show. And while it’sstill up there, winning other categories has pulled right along side interms of prestige. Titanium is the one everyone really talks about(probably because of it’s rarity).

However, a great film is still a great film. And still hard to getexactly right. And now we have web films, long form, ads, installationvids, the works. Lots of formats, lots of options.

For the first few days they’ve split the wonderful and talented bunchof us into three groups, so I haven’t had a chance to see everything.But what I have seen is less than inspiring. And the judges in theother groups are all saying the same things.

There are a few formulas that get repeated over and over again, So Iwill list a few of these formulas in the hope that anyone reading thiswill never repeat them again. I urge any creatives out there readingthis not to ever again write the following ads:

1. A product (usually a laptop or cell phone) magically transforms theworld or a city (usually by using light) and everyone gets happy.

2. A person (usually a child) smiles and runs through a city. Then thatperson get joined by more people, all smiling and running, then a hugecrowd gathers, all smiling and running, Then we see them begin to”create” something out of everyday objects. Then we see a long distanceshot of the “creating ” something, usually from a car window. Then adog watches them. Then they step back and admire what they’ve created(usually a big logo).   

3. People are depressed. Then it rains a food product or drink product from the sky. People get happy.

4. A guy in an office wants a product so badly he does something reallystupid to get it. Everyone else watches with deadpan looks on theirfaces.

Please don’t write these ads. Please.