5 Reasons Why Film Remains the King of Cannes

Is there a new King of Cannes? Is Film out? This very question reminds me of those articles you see once in a while that say brands are dead. Brands will never die. If anything, brands continue to grow in importance every year as people navigate an increasingly over-stimulated, choice-rich world. New categories are essential to the future of the business, but film is the category that sets the highest bar for us all.  

Although glamorous tech categories will always keep the industry on its toes, by all accounts, film still remains the king of Cannes. 

Today, film has morphed into new forms. The medium lives on so many different platforms like Snapchat, GIFs, Instagram and Vine shorts. There’s never been a more exciting time to express a brand’s POV through film than now. Many experts in the industry have pointed to creative campaigns driving shareability and effectiveness. Hands down, the Film Lion is the ultimate creative award in our industry. So much so that Cannes has evolved categories to reflect how film itself is progressing and working, including Online Film, Viral Film, Branded Content & Entertainment and Screens & Events. 

Here are five reasons I believe film is still the King of the Cannes Festival:

1. Film is reaching more people than ever before. Globally, consumer Internet video traffic will be 80 per cent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2019, according to Cisco. Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, according to YouTube. Twitch video broadcasts are up 83 per cent to more than 11 million per month. 

2. Film can be any length. Creativity is being unleashed. You used to be limited to a specific period of time – 30 seconds, 30 minutes, 60 seconds, 60 minutes.  Now, film can be as long or as short as the story calls for.

3. Film is morphing into new forms. Snapchats are films. A GIF is a film. An Instagram short is a film. Oculus Rift made one totally immersive movie in 2014. Imagine the VR films that lie ahead. 

4. Film is non-linear. ‘Makers’ craft stories in multiple formats that we can consume in numerous ways. As a viewer, I can enter the Marvel universe at any point, through movies, shorts, TV shows, exclusive online content, social and comics. Through film, we can create worlds, not just stories. 

5. Film quality is improving and there’s more on the way. Just as Neil Young has been railing about audio compression for years, Silicon Valley is working to crack the code on video compression. Higher quality translates into deeper emotional engagement, which is what film is about in the first place.

So is film out? Absolutely not. I’m excited to be in the audience at the Cannes Film Shortlist event on Saturday, June 27. I’ll be laughing, gasping and crying with the rest of them, marveling at how film is changing and remaining eternally powerful at the same time.

Colin Drummond is Partner/Chief Strategy Officer at Deutsch LA