Cannes was amazing. But too many stories to go into details with…

The city gets really nuts during the annually film festival in Cannes. Basically everyone in the film business is here during the approx. two weeks of the festival. Besides of the famous actors, directors and producers, you also meet new talents in the scene, a bunch of distributors, agents, marketing people, world-class photographers, the fans and of course the thousands of the other people, who just want to get a piece of the cake. Self-Marketing at it’s best. Everyone is someone and no one at the same time. Everyone knows everything and nothing as well. It takes a bit of skill of differentiate what is true and what not, who is important and who isn’t. It feels like LA sometimes, maybe because Hollywood’s impact in Cannes is highly visible.

For me personally it was great to be part of Adobe’s Reel Ideas Studio mentor team. It was really interesting to see the work of the students progress and at the end the 10 participating teams all made a documentary within a few days that was related to the festival in Cannes. They used Adobe’s Software like Director and After Effects to make the films. You can view the work created by the students from all around the world online at the Real Ideas Studio Web page.
The Mentors were highly qualified professionals from either different film schools like University of Southern California or the Vancouver Film School, Freelancers or Awards winners from film and illustration. Like Adobe Design Achievement Award winner 2006Paul Bellila who Mel and I had some great conversations with…

A highlight of the festival for sure was the walk on the red carpet for a world premiere of a movie. There is a dress code. So Mel in her red dress and me in a tux with a bow tie looked pretty sharp. Walking down the carpet through all the photographers does make you feel special. Even though they were just waiting for Michael Moore, who was a few feet behind us. He was there for his new movie “SiCKO”, a documentary on the American Heath Case System, which obviously sucks. I think it’s his best movie so far. Very touching movie, where you can barely hold back your tears, when hearing how bad these US corporations treat people in need.

I could also see a few other new movies and one on the beach at a beach screening. That was very nice and relaxing. The parties are said to be great at Cannes, but most people I talked to said that they were ok, meaning that they sucked. I guess a party works like a movie. If it’s too produced it usually sucks. Mel and I didn’t care much for the partys. It’s the same game as in L.A. so we know how it’s played, but weren’t in the mood for it.
Instead we liked to hang out with the “Adobe-Family” or with Mel’s friend Geeves, who was in Mel’s team last year at the Reel Ideas Studio and his buddy. Having fun conversations and some beers at the local Irish pub is definitely more real than talking to strangers, who don’t care who you are, on a multi million $ yacht. By the way, team “Cre8tive” made a documentary on that pub. Check it out…

Unfortunatelly 5 rooms of the hotel we stayed at, got broken into while we were at a screening, and over 10 laptops got stolen. Among them Mel’s and mine. That was really bad. Luckly we have backups, but still the insurance mess now begins…