McCann Health Rocks Cannes Health Lions... Again!

We're back from the French Riviera after another rip-roaring success at Cannes Lions 2015. This Cannes update from us will come in the form of 2 jam-packed blog posts, purely because we have so much exciting news and things to share with you all!

We flew into Nice airport on the Wednesday before Cannes Lions week to join forces again with McCann Health for year 2 of the Health Lions (#HealthLions)

If you aren't aware yet of what McCann Health gets up to over Health Lions, then take a peek at our previous blog posts from 2013 & 2014 and get up to speed.

This year we set up our pop-up restaurant on a beautiful balcony overlooking the Croisette, the old Marina and the Med. A superb new location, a stones throw from the Palais des Festivals.

McCann Health spends a whirlwind 3 days in Cannes. During this time they host talks, lunches, meetings and dinners, give out healthy hangover-busting juices, and attend awards ceremonies, Palais events and closing parties. 

They kicked off the whole event with their signature juices, aimed to target those sore, early morning heads. The juices were packed full of healthy vitamins and nutrients...

Like beetroot which lowers blood pressure and fights heart disease.

Parsley which is rich in Vit C, B 12, K & A - meaning it keeps your immune system strong and supports kidney function. 

Ginger which can aid with nausea and and digestive issues. 

And carrots which contain more Vit A than you could shake a stick at, while also hosting other powerful health benefits including beautiful skin, cancer prevention and anti-aging. 

All handed our by our lovely McCann Health Juice Team. Who grabbed one? 

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After the juices had been handed out, delegates filtered into the Palais des Festivals for a talk of a lifetime. 

This year McCann Health landed a 1hour speaking slot at the Palais. The brief from Jeremy Perrott Global Creative Director of McCann Health was to find two speakers who have fought for their creative lives. Gunner Laura Gregory knew just the two. 

Slam poet and TED speaker Shane Koyczan and Hollywood director Ilya Naishuller joined McCann Health for an incredible talk. The duo spoke separately but collectively brought the audience to their feet. 

(L-R) Ilya Naishuller - Director, Jeremy Perrot - Global ECD of McCann Health & Shane Koyczan - Slam Poet

Unfortunately we can't share the video of the talk with you - trust us we'd love to! To make up for it here are some snippets from their talks and some pictures of Shane, Ilya, Gunner Laura and McCann Health Jeremy Perrot.  

(L-R) Shane Koyczan, Laura Gregory, Ilya Naishuller & Jeremy Perrott

Day 2 of talks included an amazing panel for UNF Presents: 'Creative Solutions for Saving Women's Lives Around the Globe.' The panel welcomed Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan, Dr. Raj Shah, Dr. Naveen Rao at Merck for Mothers and Aaron Sheridan, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer at UNF, and covered everything to do with women's health. 

If you are interested in anything else Health Lions related, there is a huge amount of information, snippets, photos and backstage chat on their website: CLICK HERE 

Feeling full of creative juice post talks, the McCann Health team put on quite the spread for their guests and team when cocktail hour rolled around. 

The genius Maria Elia and her amazing crew joined us for the 3rd year running, and set about creating amazing canapés and finger food. We were also joined by a new member of La Maison Bouffe - James, who was quite the mixologist - he wowed us with drinks including Lavender and Rosemary Gin Fizz, Espresso Martinis and Coriander and Chilli Bloody Mary's. 

(L-R) Jeremy Perrott Global ECD, June Laffey ECD & John Cahill Global Chief Executive Officer at McCann Health

(L-R) Nicole Cramer, SVP Global Chief Creativity Catalyst at McCann Health, Sheridan Thomas and Laura Gregory of Great Guns, Rahel Rasu Communications Manager at McCann Health, Deborah Zdobinski SVP Brand Communications Director at McCann Health

The McCann Health team ended their time in Cannes with a hearty breakfast on the balcony on Sunday. 

It was a fantastic second year of Health Lions, and yes, we will be back next year! 

Gunner's radio silence over!

We're sorry! Please forgive us... Total radio silence our end on the blog front. We decided we didn't want to update the blog so often and keep our news page up to date. Our blog will now focus more on events and what the Gunners get up to when we're out and about. That said - we have lots to talk about!

Awards news first, and 3 of our directors have picked up a bunch of awards over the last few months.

Jonty Toosey picked up several awards for his Kaspi Bank film starring Antonio Banderas, including the festival Grand Prix at Red Jolbers Festival and Gold at Best of Central Asia Awards. If you haven't seen the film, watch it HERE. 

Olivier Venturini picked up best film idea at the Australian International Fashion Film Festival for his film for The Fableists - a sustainable kids clothing company. (watch the film on his reel)

And finally Joseph Oxford has won a load of awards for his amazing short film ME+HER, including Best Animation at the Aspen ShortsFest, and the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Monadnock International Film Festival. Joseph's work has also been featured on The New Yorker's video page.

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On to new work and Calum Macdiarmid has just shot his first music video for the amazing Chloe Black for her first single '27 Club'.

Calum has obviously found his music video feet, as he spent yesterday shooting another! Watch this space for more info on that!

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Both Laura Gregory (GG Founder) and GG director Remo Camerota have been doing talks recently.

Laura has just done a talk in Dubai at Dubai Lynx awards. She was joined by director Omar Hilal, and together they attended the ECD talk in Dubai, which was attended by all major ECD's from the Middle East.

Laura Gregory and Omar with Johan Olson, Attila Nyeki, Falvio Zanni, Jamil Assidy, Ahmed Nazzal, Eli BouChayaa, Mario Daou, Alain Mhawej, Ramzi Moutran, Sascha Kuntze, Akram Dohjoka, Ossama ed Kaoukji and Paul Shearer.

Remo hopped across the pond to Hamburg to speak at the latest BBDO Directors Lounge. His talk was very well received with BBDO Creative Director Steffen introducing him as "one of the most inspirational directors" he has seen in years.

Remo managed to steal a few moments of calm in his crazy 48hours on the ground to capture some of the city:

Cheers to a great talk Remo!

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You might remember a news article about Andy Morahan directing a live opera for the ENO back in May 2014. Peter Grimes was a huge success, and screened to cinemas across the UK live from the ENO. It was so well received that Andy has been asked back to direct round 2. This time it's La Traviata. It will be screened LIVE across the UK tomorrow in selected cinemas as part of the ENO Screen. For more information, visit your local cinema's website.

Andy comments: "This is a fantastic opportunity to film an overdue revival of Peter Konwitschny's very stylised version of Vedi's classic Opera 'La Traviata'. A moving tale of society and morality, this masterpiece combines characters you care about with powerful melodies you’ll recognise right away. It makes for one of the most emotionally engaging and popular operas of all time and I feel very lucky and privileged to be able to film it for the ENO at the Coliseum and take it 'live' into over 400 cinemas in both the UK and Europe."

Let us know if you're going to see it, tweet us @greatgunstv

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Seeing as we love to finish off a blog post with a great lunch, why break tradition? We had a lovely lunch with some of the Rainey Kelly team last week at the York & Albany - and took along two of our directors Calum Macdiarmid & David Hartley. 

Unfortunately we were all so hungry by the time the food came that we forgot to take photos! Hopefully these pictures of the pudding we had last time make up for it?

Gorgeous profiteroles, smothered in melted chocolate, with a scoop of chocolate ice-cream on top of chocolate soil. 

And our favourite - a salted caramel apple cheesecake, laden with caramel sauce and accompanied by a tart apple sorbet. 

Go on, have another look at it close up.... don't lick the screen! 

We highly recommend the York & Albany. Part of Gordon Ramsay's collection of pubs and restaurants, it's located at the top of Parkway, just by Regent's Park. Pop in for a afterwork drink, or after a long walk round the park. Their bar snack menu includes pizzas, sausage & mash and crispy squid rings. Though we go for the pizza every time ;-)

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We promise not to leave it so long next time! We have lots of exciting things coming up, so keep your eyes peeled.

As always you can contact us / tweet us / send us stuff / chat to us via twitter @greatgunstv

Love,
The Gunners x

a GREAT summer

What a summer we’ve had. London has been (mainly) bathed in sunshine and the Gunner’s have been busying away throughout. We’ve traveled, tweeted, filmed, BBQ’d on our roof terrace, signed new directors, and won awards. We’ve had videos go viral, interviewed for D&AD and even spent time with Gromit. We decided to keep the blogging to a minimum over the summer months and hit you all with a massive update - so here goes... 

First up lets talk awards and screenings... we’re so proud of our directors who have collected an array of awards over the past few months. Mikko took home a Gold Lion for FragileChildhood

Jonty Toosey won Best Of Show for Molson ‘Beer Fridge’ 

and Shearer clinched a Bronze Clio for Nike Ordem at the first ever Clio Sports Awards. 

Olivier Venturini has had his brand film for the Fableists shortlisted into two fashion film awards so far. We've happy to say that Fableists 'Finn' has been selected for the London Fashion Film Festival and the Australian International Fashion Film Festival! If you haven't already seen the film you can watch it HERE

Ron Scalpello's new feature film PRESSURE is set to make its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival later in the year. A trailer is yet to be released - but have a read of this to get an idea of what to expect.

Olly Blackburn makes his return to UK television with E4's brand new series Glue - which starts this September. Written by Jack Thorne (This is England '86, This is England '88 alongside Shane Meadows, Skins and Shameless) Glue will tell the story of police officers investigating the death of a teenager found underneath the wheels of a tractor. Watch the trailer HERE. 

Olly has also just completed on his newest feature film Kristy. 

It's going to screen at the BFI London Film Festival in October. Here is a short write up from the BFI:  

British director Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch) proves that college life can still be a killer. As her fellow students depart for Thanksgiving with their families, Justine prepares to spend the holidays alone in her dorm. With just the campus security for company, she finds ways to fill her days, but her peaceful break is suddenly shattered when a gang of bloodthirtsy outcasts invade the halls and Justine finds herself on a desperate fight for survival. Blackburn expertly blends traditional stalk and slash thrills with moments of striking visual lyricism, and in the lead role Haley Bennett infuses Justine with the strength and ingenuity to forever ensue her place in final girl history.

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The world of social media has gained a new account as Laura Gregory joins Twitter for the first time! 
@blacknapkinT41 is Laura's personal quest to find the best food, bars, chefs, cocktails and black napkins for the solo traveller. 

You can expect great restaurant recommendations, links to interesting news articles, foodie pictures, her best hotel picks and more... think underwear that helps you fart with confidence!! - definitely worth a follow. 

She also has a busy lead up to 2015 with a diary jam-packed full of jury duty and judging. She re-joins the judging panel for the LIA awards 2014 as jury chair for Music Video, TV/Cinema/Online Film Production and jury for Post Production. She will also be sitting on the Eurobest Jury which this year takes place in Helsinki in December. Laura who is already on the D&AD Board of Trustees will also take on the role of judging the Black Pencil New Blood awards as well as the D&AD Next Director Awards.

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Speaking of D&AD - Andy Morahan has just done an interview with them, talking all about his life behind the lens... 

You can watch it by clicking HERE

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The next stop for the Gunners is Singapore for the Singapore Grand Prix followed by the Spikes Awards. After last years success choosing DDB's keynote speaker for Spikes (we sent over Game of Thrones and Great Guns Director David Nutter to speak) Great Guns was approached again this year to supply to the key note speaker. We chose Casey Neistat  who will speak about his path in the world of new media. 

From having written, directed and starred in a television show on HBO to building a personal YouTube Network with 100,000,000 views, he will walk the audience through his journey both professional and personal. Focusing on how never learning the way you are supposed to do things forces you to pave your own path and that process can yield unexpected successes. 

It's going to be good! 

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As you know we love a good lunch and what better way to end this mega roundup than with just that. Yesterday we took the lovely Shots team to Shoreditch House to chat about what we had been up to and what's coming up. 

It was a pretty glorious Tuesday on their rooftop! 

We went simple with a classic pizza

Ryan from shots plumped for the steak with perfectly cooked french fries. 

We shared the salad. Definitely going to try this at home. Strands of courgette soaked in lemon juice with warm haloumi cheese, smoked paprika and coriander. Simple and delicious! 

SH is members only but they have a fantastic sister restaurant downstairs called Pizza East where you can gorge on sourdough pizzas, gorgeous salads and as much antipasti as you like! 

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We promise to not leave it so long before our next blog post! 

The Gunners x