Chris Andrawes @ Emergence: Day 2 (Final)

With the surprise news on Day 1 of Emergence that my ever reliable Creative Director wasn’t able to give me the lift back to Perth he had previously assured me, Day 2 of Emergence had me a little bit nervous.

I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned in to find out if I’m currently stranded on beach in Margaret River or back home.

Day 2 kicked off with a fully wicked talk by kiwi designer Nick McFarlane. Nick talked about the pivotal moment in his life when he was rejected by an art gallery and was faced with the dilemma of going back to work with his tail between his legs or going back to the gallery. I think you can guess which one he picked.

Nick went on to talk about the long and arduous task of designing The Prodigy’s album cover for Rebel Radio, which featured twists and turns of client feedback that would make any other client look angelic in comparison.

Next up was super star photographer Russell James, who very casually flicked through brilliant photos from throughout his career, while simultaneously name dropping every well known person on the planet from Barack Obama to Kendall Jenner.

Russell talked about how photography is a language that transcends traditional language barriers and the power the camera has to tell the truth.

At this point I’m running out of words to describe the speakers, I’m going to go with “I-give-up-now thought-inducing” this time.

Everything got a whole lot more down to Earth in the form of a sit down conversation on stage with I-give-up-now-thought-inducing [told you] designer Ned McNeilage and moderator Richard Bullock.

Ned and Richard discussed the evolution of the industry in Perth and how exciting it is that you no longer have to run away to Sydney to do something creative. Ned backed this up by saying that when he was looking for a creative job in Perth, the most creative thing you could do was be a stock broker.

The final keynote speaker for the day was Jennifer Wilson, who spoke about the process of building a digital game to keep viewers of the TV show Sherlock (a personal favourite of mine) engaged throughout the show’s hiatus.

Jennifer discussed how the app sold 10k copies when it was listed on the app store for $2.99, but later sold one million copies when they switched to a freemium model. Despite the flip in numbers she said that they actually made more money selling the initial 10k.

Our time at Willy Bay came to a close with the unveiling of a music video that had been being created over the last few days by a bunch of high school kids, organised and directed by the guys from I-Manifest.

Much to my surprise, the video was good. ….like really really good. The whole room gave the kids a standing ovation. Very touching.

We wrapped up our Emergence learning experience with a Co-Lab on VR by Mike Dunn, I can only describe this as “really cool”.

Emergence Festival 2016 wrapped up with possibly the coolest most arty celebration ever, with live painting, 3D projections, acrobatics, and the incredibly (like, unreasonably ridiculously) talented Rachel Claudio performing music throughout the night.

I hung out with some cool arty types from throughout the week including new friends from Trilogy, who had some incredibly inappropriate views on things you could do computers.

But most importantly I hung out with the two new coolest people in the world Mel and Isabel from Meerkats.

The night ended with some incredibly loud but flawlessly performed 4am singing of Total Eclipse of the Heart and I’d Do Anything For Love in the Meerkats’ ridiculously amazing house on the beach.

After about 5mins worth of sleep Mel and Isabel incredibly generously drove Garry from Nova and myself back to Perth, meaning I survived the entire incredibly invigorating, creativity inducing, mind-blowingly good trip to Emergence …somehow.