The Cannes Lions opening and closing galas will have a large dose of Canadian content this year thanks to the Toronto creative collective S8.
S8 produced 45 minutes of montage video inspired by the Festival’s theme of Creative Playground that will be played in smaller vignettes throughout the opening and closing galas—and they did it all in about six weeks.
That agency brand may be unfamiliar to many in the industry though the constituent parts will be very well-known—most of them anyway.
S8 is the company that owns and operates post-production and effects shop Smith (which until last fall was better known as Crush, Lollipop, Notch and Axyz), as well as editing house Panic and Bob and production studio Alibi. More recently S8 added the creative content firm Creative Soul, which includes the accomplished Torontonian Director X, (aka Julien Lutz) who has shot music videos for the likes of Jay Z, Drake, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea as well as commercials for Bud Light and McDonald’s.
The S8 brand will now be the core, around which all the other services revolve, a restructuring to reflect the changing demands of clients, said incoming chair, Rodney Davis.
“The volume of content has increased dramatically, the time to get that content to market has shortened considerably, and the traditional broadcasting model is under increasing pressure, not only because of the lower budget, but because of the pace at which it operates,” he said.
“S8’s primary focus is to figure out for the clients how to get their solutions delivered with the best quality and within the required time frame to meet the needs of the clients.”
The galas in Cannes are extravagant affairs that take over the beach in front of the famed Carlton Hotel; aside from the free flowing beer and wine, and extensive selection of elegant food served at waters edge, the lights, music, and visual spectacular is befitting an event hosting the world’s most accomplished (and judgemental) creative minds.
Cannes Lions Opening & Closing Galas in 90 Seconds.
Producing the video in such a short period for such an important crowd, professionally speaking, was a daunting challenge for S8, but it was too great of an opportunity to showcase the expanded offerings of the company to say no, said Davis.
“We want to play on the world stage and hope Cannes will signal this in a big way.”
Landing the gig started with a casual conversation with Juan Woodbury, executive producer from Leo Burnett’s Chicago office, who also produces the the galas for Cannes. .
“Juan and I were kicking around ideas about where the industry was going and I was talking about the fact we were going down this new path, where we were going to get into a much more integrated offering as a company,” said Davis. Eventually Woodbury asked if they’d consider producing the video content for the galas. Woodbury then flew up to Toronto to meet with the S8 team in early May, they figured out they were all on the same page creatively, agreed to work together and the race was on with a two-day shoot booked for May 21 with Director X calling the shots from behind the camera.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve never been in anything quite like this,” said Gary Thomas, creative director of Smith, of the collapsed timetable for the work.
“Everything was kind of overlapping and accelerated. We had the editors down at Panic and Bob at [the shoot] so they were getting their heads around where things were going to go and what was going to happen.”
And after the shoot there were days that became nights and eventually early mornings of non-stop cutting and editing.
“There were moments when we would all look at each other at 2 o’clock in the morning and just start laughing because the task was just so gargantuan.”
Now all the editing and cutting and rendering are over for the S8 team. There may be a couple more late nights this week, but those nights will be spent on Canne’s famed Croisette, in the middle of the Creative Playground, with a rosé in their hands enjoying the fruits of their labour.
