Lime off to Cannes …

The intention was to add here the highlights and learnings, etc of preparing for an international pitching competition at MIPTV, Cannes. As one gets their head filled with the potential prospect and the act of assembling something into order, good intentions go flying. So I will pick up from where I left off, or rather, where we’ve just come from…Cannes.

Phil and Jon in the Content 360 Corner, MIPTV, 7 Apr 08

So, we had a great idea:

‘The Great British Film made by the Great British public’.

We submitted the idea to Content 360, MIPTV’s cross media pitching competition. The category: BBC’s mass participation fiction and entertainment.

The weeks following the announcement that we hadn’t been selected and then we had (woohoo!) were filled with meeting past winners, industry practitioners and my colleagues at the BBC. Simon, JQ and Ed were immensely helpful in giving us direction to define how The Great British Film concept would play out across media - television, online and radio. The ‘mass participation’ angle remains the underlying distinguishing feature and requires the most consideration. Our challenges and the central questions continue to be:

• How does the idea continually engage a mass audience?
• How does the online community not just be the accompaniment to the television broadcast and not simply be a repository of user-generated content?

Being an interactive agency with the expertise in building online platforms, we had to partner with a television production partner. Efforts to get together beforehand with Glasshead Productions had ran aground. However I did catch up with Tom Dolan, Glasshead’s Head of Interactive, at the Monday night’s welcome drinks at the very nice Majestic Barriere hotel, while Jon and Phil slogged it out back at the hotel polishing their 5 minute pitch for the next day. After a quick and harried description of the project, we were soon discussing diagrams and timelines to help put the concept in perspective. Glasshead were well on board as television production partners.

Tuesday morning and a few niggling details remained. A last minute meeting between Tom, Jon and I helped incredibly. With a significant amount of experience in pitching to the BBC, Tom was able to hone in and give precise notes as to what needed to be said: Don’t postulate on what an audience of commissioners would already know about the social media / cross media environment, tell them the idea straight up front, kill the superlatives, no need to justify why you’re there; the idea will do that for you. And jump quickly into describing how you would make it work. Poor Phil was back at C360 Corner finalising the Powerpoint presentation unaware of the wave of changes about to descend. Jon and I both agreed that we should have meet much earlier.

Waves soon became trickles as the essence of what we needed to say was already there. We huddled around Phil’s laptop putting the right words and phrases in the right order. Rehashing right up until the last moment and over to the Palais we went.

The pitch went well.

Questions from the audience were a good guide as to how the concept presented itself. The key questions from the commissioners were: how would it all hold together and who offered the guiding hand? And of course, the inevitable, ‘who pays for it?’ Fortunately there was no short answer to that … good thinking Phil. A debrief ensued, although short. The consensus was that we needed to clear our heads and subconsciously reflect on proceedings.

Wednesday, the big day: The closed-door pitch with the BBC Commissioners, Martin Trickey and Nick Cohen. The organisers had told us beforehand that the closed door session was all about ‘talk, talk, talk’. No visuals or gimmicks to get your idea across. The commissioners after sitting in the 5 minute pitch the previous day already know the idea and will have pertinent questions. It is important to help them fully understand the idea, to have them see us as a possible team they could work with and make them feel comfortable with the idea of collaborating with us.

Phil and Jon were in the hot seat and our preparation beforehand with Tom provided well-considered answers to the hard questions. Funding? Check. Community involvement? Check. How the online audience is engaged? Check. How the television audience is engaged? Check. Budget? Check. They emerged from the room looking happy and relieved.

From this point on, the hard work was over and actual networking could begin. Wednesday night, the C360 networking dinner was held at the La Mandela restaurant on the beach. Sponsored by Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) it was a good opportunity to meet some of the other C360 finalists. I sat next to fellow Aussie, Rachelle Boyle, who won the Ogilvy category - Using the Power of the Brand for the Power of Good for her concept, ‘Fanta’s Likely Heroes’. A good story … only just joined CumminsNitro in Brisbane as a copywriter and was now in Cannes.

Thursday I was able to pick up the sessions from conference program. It worked out well that the focus for the day was on social media. Key notes from Bebo, MySpace and Creative Commons kicked off the day, followed by sessions including how UGC is breaking down the traditional paths into filmmaking, using social networks to highlight social causes, and how broadcasters are extending television programmes into the online world to involve existing and new audiences. At this final session, I got my chance to pitch a 30 second idea to Simon Nelson, Controller, Portfolio & Multiplatform for BBC Vision. He was interested and I have his business card. Watch this space for news on that.

The day culminated with the C360 Zapping Show, an unusual name for announcing the winners.

Alas, our chance was not to be. The accolade going to Poltergeist 360, an online drama game narrative controlled by the actions of its online users. It is always a point to say at this stage of proceedings that it was an honour just to be nominated. Quick words afterward from Martin Trickey suggested that the project need not die there. With some refinements we could have a chance to pitch again and get a slice of development money after all.

From my point of view, it was an honour just to be there and observe the mass machine of the global broadcast industry at work.

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