Shake Shit Up

Friday June 24^th, 2016

As today brought the Entertainment Lions to a close, we got to see some very influential and successful people speak on their work in the entertainment industry. The first talk we saw was between Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Group, speak with Harvey Weinstein, founder of The Weinstein Company. Very cool to be in the presence of such powerful yet interesting people. 

After this we made our way to the Inspiration Stage, to see Spotify discuss the industry with DJ Mark Ronson. Mark has done producing work with famous people such as Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars and Christina Aguilera. He helped produce some of their top hits, like Uptown Funk and Rehab. His advice to the audience was to be open to any idea at any time. I find this to be something that I will take into my career, because the more open minded you can be, the more creative potential you will have. 

The third talk we saw today was on Masculinity, a subject that is not brought up as much as women empowerment, even with all of this gender equality stuff. I did not realize how much of an issue it really is, but then I realize I have never really taken the time to think it through. The media focuses on women trying to become equal to men throughout different industries and markets, but we all need to step back and realize that men are sensitive and subseptible to things too. There is an increasingly growing gap between ideology of how men are perceived and what men are actually doing. One speaker, Dr Michael Kimmel, stated “don’t try to be something you’re not, if you’re an asshole, be an asshole. We want authenticity.” From such a young age boys are told to “be a man” and to “man up,” these are horrible things to say to someone when they don’t know anything other than that. The next speaker was the producer of Miss Representation, an amazing documentary that I highly recommend watching. She discussed how less than 50% of men actually seek help for depression and that every day 3 or more boys in the USA commit suicide. These words hit home to me, having been personally affected by both in the past. These are the statistics and the people behind the statistics that feel they can not speak up, and it could all be because someone told them to “man TF up” when they were 13 years old. Gender equality really goes both ways, and that is something that needs more light cast on it. Shaun Ross also spoke about the difficulties of growing up as an African-American Albino. However, it was the people who told him that he “couldn’t” that drove him to pursue his dreams. He also touched on the fact that a lot of brands need to open up their minds, because we live in a world that is so confined that non of us look the same. He left us with this advice: “Make the world uncomfortable, shake shit up.” And with that, I was inspired. 

Masculinity panel in the Lumiere Theatre

After an influential day of wonderful speakers, we headed to the Samsung penthouse suite. There we found lots of Virtual Reality, 4D VR and a 360 camera- oh and free food. The 4D VR was my favorite, it was a very strange sensation standing on a moving surf board with VR goggles on, but SO cool. Now we’re back in JLP getting ready to head back to Cannes for the closing fiesta of the Entertainment Lions section of the festival. Sadly, tomorrow is our last day of the festival itself, but we still have a week here to look forward to!

360 Samsung Experience

Robson and Hawk experiencing the 4D Virtual Reality

Xo,

Shan