Tales from the red carpet

Talking to Vyomesh Joshi and Emilio Ghilardi

This morning, I will have the pleasure of meeting up with Vyomesh Joshi, Executive Vice President, Imaging and Printing Group, Hewlett-Packard Company and Emilio Ghilardi, Vice President and General Manager Consumer Business, Imaging and Printing Group, Europe, Middle East Africa to talk about the HP Digital Photography Story and HP’s role at Cannes. They will also be blogging live from Cannes, so watch this space!

Telling our Digital Photography Story at Cannes

First of all, I am very excited to be here, I am very impressed with our 500 square meters on Grand Palais. The 60th Anniversary large format photos printed on HP DesignJet all the way down the red carpet, look spectacular!

Emilio and I spent the morning with 6 lifestyle journalists including GQ, Vanity Fair, Les Echos, Marie Claire, I`m Pregnant and Le Figaro telling them all about our Digital Photo story. Douglas Kirkland, the famous celebrity photographer, joined us to tell his story about how anyone can take, share and print great pictures with HP technology – and you don’t even need a lot of training!

These journalists will be taking photos of various events throughout the period of the festival and I hope that some of those photos will make it into their magazines.

Keep coming back to check this blog, as we will also have some great photos, taken by Douglas.

I am proud to see the important role that HP is playing at the festival with all of our technology enabling the expression of creativity.

Opening night at Cannes

Yesterday was opening night at the Festival de Cannes and I can truly say that I felt like a star, well we all did really – if only for a few minutes. Walking down La Croisette and being photographed by the very best in the industry, I can see how it could go to your head… very quickly.

But as the REAL stars came down the red carpet, we really stood in awe and enjoyed the moment, or should I say the many moments!

Opening night was a blast. The stunning Diana Kruger did a brilliant job (in English, French and German) as Master of Ceremonies.

And here are the members of the jury. President Stephen Frears and the jury members Maggie Cheung, Toni Collette, Maria de Medeiros, Sarah Polley, Michel Piccoli, Marco Bellocchio, Abderrahmane Sissako and Orhan Pamuk.

And then of course there was the screening of My Blueberry Nights, the first English-language film for Wong Kar Wai’s, starring Jude Law and Norah Jones. I did enjoy the movie (great acting), although it could have been a tad shorter if you ask me…

So, out of these great films up for grabs, which one would you like to see win the Palme d’Or?

An Old Mistress (Une Vieille Maitresse), Catherine Breillat, France
The Love Songs (Les Chansons d’amour), Christophe Honore, France
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel, France
Yasamin Kiyisinda, Fatih Akin, Turkey
Breath, Kim Ki-duk, South Korea
No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers, U.S.
Zodiac, David Fincher, U.S.
We Own the Night, James Gray, U.S.
Mogari No Mori, Naomi Kawase, Japan
Promise Me This, Emir Kusturica, Serbia
Secret Sunshine, Lee Chang-Dong, South Korea
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu, Romania
Tehilim, Raphael Nadjari, France
Silent Light, Carlos Reygada, Mexico
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, France
Import/Export, Ulrich Seid, Austria
Alexandra, Alexander Sokurov, Russia
Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino, U.S.
The Man From London, Bela Tarr, Hungary
Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant, U.S.
The Banishment, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia
My Blueberry Nights, Wong Kar Wai

Cannes Jerry Seinfeld fly?

Wow, that was quite a stunt! Watching Jerry Seinfeld flying from the top of the Carlton Hotel on La Croisette, all the way down to the beach, was quite an experience! This guy is truly funny and more importantly, he clearly doesn’t take himself too seriously…. yes, I know he’s comedian, but let’s face it, it takes a brave man to put on a leotard (Long Johns, tights or what ever you want to call them), and fly through the air – flapping his wings, yes you heard me, I said flapping his wings!

Co-actor Chris Rock — who provided the running commentary for the stunt — clearly had the easier job of the two stars of DreamWorks’ latest movie the “Bee Movie“.

Prior to Jerry’s spectacular outdoor stunt, we had all been privy to the “insider story” of the Bee Movie — at the Espace Mirimar Theatre — presented by DreamWorks CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg along with Jerry Seinfeld (without the leotard), Chris Rock and members of the DreamWorks team.

I must say, watching those Bee Movie clips, I was really proud that HP is the Preferred Technology Partner of DreamWorks Animation SKG – yep that means HP technology was used in the creation of this movie. Digital animation and visual effects for “Shek the Third” also came alive on HP workstations. Judging by the clips and the audiences reaction to the hilarious scenes, my unbiased opinion is that this is definately a MUST SEE!

So tell me, what do you think of animated movies? Did you know that it takes over 4 years for DreamWorks to make a movie like Shrek, Madagascar and the Bee Movie?

Photographer – Amir Assefi

First Impressions

Cannes, as a town and an event, is much bigger than I expected. Surprisingly a few streets back from La Croisette you would not know that the Festival is happening but once you reach the coast you are immediately struck by the billboards. Every building seems to have some promotion or other for a movie that is going to hit our screens soon. In the hotel lobby stacks of movie industry magazines are stacked high and as the bundles disappear a new bale is stacked on top.

Leafing through the magazines it is hard to believe that there are that many movies out there vying for business. As an outsider looking in one tends to forget that films for some people are their bread and butter, it pays the bills and puts the kids through college. Because despite the glamour the first impression one gets is that this is serious business. Cannes for people involved in the film industry is the world’s most glamorous trade show.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS FROM CANNES

This is the first time that I have ever been to Cannes – let alone to Cannes Film Festival – and I think I have strayed on to the set of a French remake of “The Player”, the late and much lamented Robert Altman’s brilliant movie about making movies.

As we drove into the town every billboard was advertising any number of films and the main door of our hotel was swarming with paparazzi, but for some reaon they showed no interest in us. There is a technical term to describe the action of photographers when they meet the object of their lenses’ desire. It is not a phrase to use on a public blog, but it is certainly descriptive of their herd action.

After fighting our way through the throngs waiting outside our hotel we have met up with the rest of the HP party and have learnt that our screening this evening is likely to be either a French or Russian film. Fortunately both will be subtitled as my French is rudimentary (gleaned through diligent study of the films of François Truffaut) and my Russian is non-existent. I have seen Battleship Potemkin, but as it is a silent film my lack of Russian was not an issue.

I understand from the press tha there will be various events in Cannes to publicise the forthcoming film of The Golden Compass, from Philip Pullman’s novel Northern Lights. I have loved the trilogy since I read them so this is my “must see” film for the second half of this year.

To be continued…

The 60th Anniversary Photo Exhibition

The Cannes Film Festival may be a celebration of the moving image, but it has produced some fantastic photo opportunities over the years. This year, as part of the Festival’s 60th anniversary, HP’s portfolio of Graphic Arts products has brought the Festival’s rich history to life in a stunning photographic exhibition. Rare photos of some of the film industry’s biggest names have been collected from libraries and photo agencies and have literally turned the Croisette and the Cannes Railway station into an outdoor gallery, with 60 years of iconic colour and black and white images, celebrating the Cannes Festival.

The technology that has made this all possible is the HP Designjet Z3100 Photo Printer a 12 ink, pigment-based printer, which uses HP Vivera Inks for beautiful image quality and HP DreamColour technologies to ensure better colour accuracy. Tell me which iconic star you think should be captured in the exhibition? And why?

Some of the Festival’s VIPs will be receiving an exclusive limited edition photo album featuring shots used in the exhibition. Produced with an HP Indigo press 5000 the albums were printed in a single set, numbered and personalised and will never be produced again. That’s some souvenir. Which of today’s stars of the silver screen do you think should receive one of these albums?

Even if you miss the exhibition, there’s no chance of missing the images that virtually wrap the city. 500 square metres of these ‘casquettes’ wrap the Palais de Festival alone. It was all made possible by HP Scitex printers which ensured the different pieces matched one another.

This reproduction of the photographic image is a true marriage of technology and art and I am thrilled that HP could make it possible.

Stars in your eyes!

The South of France is a magnet for the great and the good of the film world at any time of year, but during the Festival, Cannes is swamped. As if the sunshine wasn’t bright enough, throw in the flash bulbs and the glint of diamonds and you could be forgiven for not being able to see very much at all. But here’s your chance to spot some stars, so go ahead and grab your sunglasses and let’s go and do some star spotting.

I’ll show you the photos, and you can tell me which celebrities you recognise!

Isn’t she just stunning!

And if you want to see what’s going on at night, check out the aftershow parties at this great French Blog Cannes 2007. Hugo has been busy catching up on the night live, so it’s time to brush up on your French… if you want to know Le gossip!

An interesting start to the day

I have arrived in Cannes, I am pleased. My plane trip was a bit more adventurous than usual. I have flown into Nice quite a few times; it is one of the more interesting landings. You descend over the sea and then just when you think things are going to get wet, up pops the runway and everything is fine. The only other more interesting landing is in StLucia – where in addition to coming in over the sea you have to dodge a big mountain inconveniently planted right next to the airport.

Today’s landing was a bit more exciting because the pilot decided to abort the landing at the last moment. I’ve heard about this before, but never had it happen to me. Today it did. I didn’t like it.

After getting off the plane things went distinctly up hill. transfer and hotel check in complete, I headed off to check out the HP Lounge. The Lounge is the location for the Design briefing that I will be hosting over the coming days for European industry analysts. It has been in the planning for weeks, and I was desperate to see how all the teams efforts had paid off. The short answer is HUGE!!!. We have so much cool kit. (TouchSmart, HP Compaq 2710, our new tablet PC, and a whole family of PhotoSmart with Q Control are just some of the devices) Place all together it is easy to understand why our businesses are doing so well.

Later today, Sam Lucente, Stacy Wolff, Randall Martin and George Daniels will be arriving. These guys are the design chiefs for the company. Meeting them and hearing their passion around the products they designed is going to be great. I’m looking forward to it.

More on that later – right now lunch is calling

Guillermo Del Toro makes flying visit to the Majestic Beach to see HD DVD and HP

It may be wall to wall celebs at Cannes, but you know you’re doing ok when they come to you. Talk about exciting. We had a very special person visit the HP Studio – our area of the Majestic Beach today, in preparation for a press conference that marks the release of his masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth on HD DVD and DVD, in various European countries.

It’s big news and HP is an important supporter of the format, with HD DVD drives integrated into some of our coolest products, so it was fitting that Guillermo decided to drop by our Studio on the Majestic beach, which is also being shared by our partners at HD DVD Promotional Group. They’ve got a really cool high def screening room, so am going to see if I can’t get to watch a few movies before the next parties start (I wish…)!!

Anyway, Guillermo’s no doubt pleased to be back after receiving a 22 minute standing ovation at last year’s festival after the screening of Pan’s and that may be part of the reason why he was so pleased to be part of the press conference.

Incidentally, if you happen to be a member of the media or even a keen blogger like me, and you want to see Guillermo and key bits of his film in HD. It’s showing at the Hilton Hotel at 11.45 am Sunday in the Salle Meditérranée. It’s also a great way to get to grips with one of the two formats in the current HD format battle without being overloaded by technobabble. Talk about a dream Cannes ticket.

Will try and get some pictures to upload later…..