On the very first day of the Academy, each of the 36 us were asked to show a 5-minute video that introduces ourself to the family and I decided to do a powerpoint and here it is! (order is from left to right)

The internet in our hotel is absolutely horrible and that’s why I’m catching my blog minutes at a wifi lounge inside the Palais des Festivals. It’s been crazy for the past 2 days. Yesterday we basically just spent getting to know eachother, it’s seriously a global meeting of all these talented ad-driven young individuals and I’m so honoured to be a part of the program. Every single day the lines are flooded with people coming in for their registrations – it’s quite serious here, you gotta bring your passport and you go to one of the 10 lovely booths to get your picture taken and a lanyard Cannes pass, as well, everyone receives a blue Cannes bag filled with great literatures and of course, the invitations to the many award ceremonies.

My goal is to wake up at 6:45 everyday (at least that’s the alarm time on the blackberry) and it’s been working. My other hypothesis of sleeping for only 5 hours a day is also proving to be true. Today we had the privilege to have a number of speakers coming in to speak, the big creatives at Leo and Ogilvy, and yesterday, Howard Draft, the founder and CEO of the great DraftFCB, dropped by to say a string of warm words and gave us the project of the week – 4 flip phones were distributed to 4 groups of 7 and they are to record their experiences at Cannes (in any format they wish) and update the videos on Youtube:

It just started yesterday and I welcome you all to check the videos @ www.youtube.com/rha_youngtalent

Tonight will be a very long one! We have a speaker coming in at 4 (that’s in a minute.. I gotta run soon) and then at 5:30, we have the Academy welcome cocktail party and after that there’s another party held by some Dutch Advertising Association and we still got to shoot and edit our video for tonight! (Or to the wee hours of tomorrow morning…)

Anyway, now that I’ve found a conveinent internet hub, i’ll be coming here during breaks to update. But please stay tuned, my presentation went very well (ie. i spoke naturally haha) and next time I log on, you’ll see it updated!

ZOOM ZOOM SOON.

Jia

Long day! Got up at 5:45AM to get ready for my flight from Munich to Hannover then after a 5 hour stop over, rode the most turbulent and nauseating flight (only for a short period but STILL) from Hannover to Nice. Right after, hopped on an 1 hr express bus along the Cote D’azur to Cannes only to be greeted by a cab ride that overcharged me a few euros. Myinability to argue in French has resulted in my submit to the greedy cab driver.

 The hotel we’re staying at is actually very decent, it’s a popular chain called ETAP and there’s free Internet in every room which is a PLUS – makes communicating, blogging, and researching that much easier during such a jam packed week.

As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I met a string of kids from the Academy – first, Joanna from Poland, Emmanuel from Nigeria (a very funny fellow), Victoria from Austria, Martha and Maria from Spain, and another guy from Milan. We all walked over to the Palais de Festivals today hoping to get our badges but unfortunately,we’d have to wait ’til tomorrow morning where there will be crowds of people.

The Palais de Festivals is the same one that the Cannes Film Festival was held at, we took a group photo on the redcarpet with Joanna’s camera and I’m sure we’ll take many more tomorrow to be shared. Right next to the Palais is the sandy coastlines of Cannes, lined by a few dozens of luxurious automobiles (guarded by a friendly French man).

We took a walk into town and it was so lively! Filled with European-styled architectures, high fashion shops, and beach bistro’s. There were many wealthy looking people enjoying glasses of wines with company. They all looked legitimate enough to be creatives. Well, they probably are. It’s funny because we’d walk around and one of those people we see… we’ll be drooling over their onstage performances sometime next week.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous up until just half an hour ago (it rained a little) – 9:30PM here still seems about 7PM in Toronto, very bright and lively, which is great because next week there will be many “nightly gatherings” lined up, haha. Hopefully it won’t rain like the forecast says! (Lydia just checked) Please, god bless our souls.

I seriously need to get some sleep soon. Everyone kind of freaked out over the making of their 5 minute video… I compared my standards with everyone else’s and I think my 5 minute will be a long one to endure. There’s 36 presentations and the festival starts at 9AM tomorrow. We’ve all decided from today onwards that we’ll all have breakfast downstairs at 7:45 and walk over to the Palais together.

It will be a lovely bunch. Update soon. Wish me the best tomorrow.

Jia