Long story short, today was the best day of my entire
summer. Yes, probably better than the
entirety of the Film Festival, simply because I’m still pissed that Coppola
won.
I will probably always be mad about that.
Those terrible feeling aside, however, today was an awesome
day that has to be memorialized in glitter and terrible decisions. That’s right, it was Pride.
Here’s the thing, I missed Pride in Atlanta this year to
come to France. Yeah, I was a little
bummed, but I mean, it’s France, so there
really isn’t any reason I should be complaining. That being said, imagine how stoked I was to discover that YOUTUBE BEACH WAS THROWING THEIR
OWN ALL-DAY PRIDE PARTY!!!!
Those exclamation points are necessary. Perhaps I need even more.
But I didn’t go to Pride immediately. No, I started off the day with a very reasonable
stint in the Lumiere Theatre. It was a little
disconcerting, actually, that after the Entertainment Lions had ended, the
Palais was almost completely dead. The
only events happening were in the Lumiere for the entire day. So Shona and I took a hint and camped out in the
balcony for the morning, spending about four hours watching talks.
We started off great… and then went downhill.
The first talk, ‘Can’t
Stop the Feeling’: Emotional Advertising, a Masterclass was riveting. Hosted by IPA and adam&eveDDB, the
seminar features speakers Craig Inglis fom John Lewis and James Murphey and Richard
Brim, the masterminds behind the John Lewis Christmas ads. I believe I mentioned this in my application
interview, but he John Lewis ads are always among my favorites every year. There is a cinematic quality to them that
inspires me as a filmmaker, and further comforts me that advertising can be a
stimulating career path with my skills.
I loved this talk; they discussed what led to creative
advertising, and also how emotional advertising lent itself the courtesy of not
necessarily having to be “on brand”.
That is, the advertising doesn’t have to be obviously about the product,
as long as there is some connection.
Most of the John Lewis ads aren’t explicitly about the store, but the
emotional connection to giving gifts and showing commitment that the ads create
in the audience leads them to find an outlet for this emotion: and John Lewis is
there to provide. This is the purpose of
emotional advertising; it leads consumers to become as attached to the brand as
they are to the advertisements themselves.
Following this talk, things started to get… boring isn’t the
correct term, but they didn’t capture my attention. I could blame my ADD, but I equally blame the
fact that I had things to read on my phone.
That being said, I probably didn’t pay enough attention to the next talk
as I should have.
What I did glean from
the presentation by Christine Lagarde from the IMF, however, was mostly
platitudes that I’d heard many times before along the lines of the presence of
women in business. Not that I disagree,
but I felt I’d heard the same things from Helen Mirren. Others who have better attention spans than I
do (and who are probably just better people) have told me that the talk was
amazing, though, so I’m probably going to end up streaming it again later this
week.
The final talk I saw in the Lumiere, though, was just… it
was terrible. We’d been told to attend
the Martin Sorrell interview with Ron Howard and Robert Kraft. I was expecting a lot from this, and don’t
get me wrong, I loved everything that Howard had to say.
But Kraft. Oh my god, I don’t think I’ve ever heard such
kinds of nonsense outside of Fox News. “If
you compare our domestic violence statistics to the rest of the NFL, we’re
below average. We’re actually not that
bad.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Don’t get
me started on his business plans.
I know a lot of people that walked out of this talk. I almost did myself. It’s enough that I ended up leaving afterwards,
instead of staying for the next talk. I
really just wanted to get to YouTube Beach.
And boy am I glad I did.
I got to meet Laganja Estranja, one of the contestants on
RuPaul’s Drag Race, and then I proceeded to get a dance lesson from her! And even more, I met amazing people, got a
free shirt, and painted glitter on my face.
Basically, I had the time of my life.
I feel like there is some way that I should describe Pride. But at the same time, there isn’t a way that’s
necessarily appropriate or relevant to this blog. We ended up not getting home until 2:30 AM,
and I know for a fact that there were many others who got home even later. The party never stops, and I’m so proud to be
who I am.
Pride is a celebration.
It’s fun, it’s loud, and it woke me up and brought me back to a good mood
following some of the talks in the morning.
If only I could finally wash all of this glitter out of my
hair.
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