This week we met with our colleague and friend Concha Wert to congratulate her on receiving the c de c 2022 Award of Honour and we took the opportunity to give her a short interview on what that moment was like and for her to give us her vision and opinion on our sector today.
- How did you experience the moment, what were your feelings and thoughts when you received the prize of honour?
“A sensation is like when you levitate and you start to lift a few feet off the ground and you start to float. Then it seems unreal what you are experiencing. It can’t be happening to me. And the most interesting thing is that thought is completely suspended. It was an infinite wellbeing. I saw people chanting and that was perhaps what impressed me the most. But I didn’t have a thought, because I was experiencing it.
I am very little about experiencing and a lot about thinking and normally my head is always processing things and letting go and letting go for me is very difficult, almost impossible. And that of suspending judgement and suspending thought and simply letting go. Well, it happens to me very rarely and that day it happened to me.
It was the most exciting moment I have ever experienced in my life, of course. But above all, the most comforting and most gratifying thing of all was to see that it was an important moment for people, beyond me, and I think that’s what’s important.
It’s not often that one’s work is recognised. So, it’s almost as if I’d won the lottery, because I’ve been recognised.
It was more exciting than emotional, it was a beautiful thing but without any kind of sadness and I think it contributed a lot to the moment we were coming from and what had happened the previous two years. I think people needed to feel part of something.”
- How have you experienced this edition in previous days and how have you seen it this year?
“This year, for the first time in my life, I have been more of a spectator than a doer.
When you’re inside you experience it in a completely different way. I think it was good, or as a spectator I didn’t see any faults. I know that they have worked very hard and that they have worked like lions. This edition I think it was a test and a bridge edition, because during the pandemic the ways and means in which events could be held changed radically.
The way in which we participate, go and consume and what we expect from this type of event has changed a lot.
You almost have to think of it as an arena where people go and nibble from here, nibble from there. But not to have, as we have traditionally had and have had until the 19th, everyone in one place, but to make it much more modular and with more spaces for the attendees. I think this is a time of transition and that we will see how this type of event will work in 2023.”
- From your point of view, what is the creative level in Spain at the moment?
“I was surprised because I thought it was going to be worse, because of where we come from. Yes, there are quite a few things that I think already show that there is beginning to be a little bit of maturity and maturity in the management of change in being able to have learned to work in full transformation and then creatively there are peaks. Perhaps not as many as in other years, but it is also true that it was still a strange year that we had not finished.”
- Where do you think our sector is going after a difficult few years?
“Predictions are quite complicated, or even impossible. I believe that there are a series of factors that will not only continue, but will continue to influence, logically the technological part and the part of tools that are currently on the rise, from augmented reality, virtual reality, etc., that will not only diminish, but will become another tool and will be incorporated in some way into the processes, which means that we will see more spectacular things, because what this new technology does allow is to increase the spectacularity of what is done to a superlative degree.
But then in terms of the other part, that of thinking of strategies, of finding ideas, etc., I think that has always been very good and that part will continue. Then the most complicated part, which is the dissemination of this content, which is where the real, the real knot lies, that is, how to disseminate and distribute all this content, which can now be better in many ways. That is the big knot. And that’s where we are still trying to figure out what to do.”
- How do you see the sector in terms of production, how do you think it is evolving?
“In terms of the quality of the work, there is a common denominator in all the pieces I am seeing, and that is that the whole production is brutal. That is to say, now you don’t see a crappy piece, you don’t see it.
So there are many times what you miss is that you’re not telling me anything. In other words, it’s a firework, it’s a firework that at a given moment can catch your attention momentarily, but you don’t get anything. Well, let’s say that it’s not there, the balance is not yet there.
The other day I spent I don’t know how many hours watching it and suddenly I stopped to think about it and I said that the production is brutal in every sense, that there are many pieces that I could put a blemish on. I don’t know what you’re telling me, but not what you’re telling me about the production, but what you’re telling me because there is no clear idea here, nor is there one in any sense.
I think that the production sector, from the times I have been to the APCP, from the times I have listened to you and from the times I have spoken to production people, is very clear that there is a restructuring pending in many ways. Not only does it affect the way production companies are in terms of their organisational structure and their business form, but also in terms of processes, in terms of how they work, in terms of their relationship with the different suppliers, and so on.
Another thing is, as it happens to agencies, everybody knows that they have to reform structurally, but nobody knows how, which is another thing that happens. There is no formula, everyone has to invent it.
I understand that everyone knows that they are in the process of restructuring and that the formulas that worked until now no longer work. And I am even talking about business structures. But it is not so easy to tackle and undertake these new changes.”
