Tales from the red carpet

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…

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