(Loz Maneschi & Lewis Clark from Cocogun were the Young Lions Competition film winners with Choose Me Again. They will represent Australia at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June.)
Reflecting on Young Lions feels a bit like trying to remember a wild dream. It’s a blur of outlandish ideas at lightning speed, unexpected moments, and overall is just completely surreal.
Both a marathon and a sprint, it somehow feels like it lasted a lifetime and just minutes, all at once.
And while those five days in the pressure cooker are all you’ve got to pull together a 60” film, the atmosphere is electric and enjoying the ride is essential. We knew this high-octane environment was awaiting us, like a bustling pre-service kitchen straight out of ‘The Bear’. So, we decided to adopt a chef-like approach to the process—preparation, we thought, will be everything.
In the weeks leading up to receiving the brief, we were reminded of something an old actor friend, Sal, once said of creative ambitions, and the balance between hard work and luck. “Luck is everything. It’s all just a bit of luck. But when the universe decides to send some luck your way, you’ve gotta be ready for it—you’ve got to be ready to accept that luck. And that, is the hard work.”
Needless to say, this stuck like some kind of prophetic tattoo in our minds, and it has since been stashed in our satchel of great creative career advice—thanks Sal! We decided this was how to approach Young Lions, and inspired us to become laser focused on getting ourselves in good creative shape to hit the ground running, no matter what was thrown our way.
Like any great partnership, over time we’ve come to put together a playbook of sorts, in the form of made-up phrases and inside jokes that keep us on track, lift each other up (and shrink us down to size where required), all in service of making the best work we can. These often come in handy, especially for something as blue-sky and wide open as a fresh Young Lions brief. As creatives who are constantly working on juicy and diverse briefs at Cocogun, one of these guides is a firm belief in being insight led, and not to rely on execution to do the heavy lifting for us. This was top of mind when preparing for our Young Lions campaign—not even the most expensive ARRI camera can make a flat idea look good (let alone our Blackmagic DSLR and a kit zoom lens!).
So, a pact was made: we weren’t going to even touch a camera, until we had crafted a robust, thought-igniting insight that could springboard into our idea. And with 80% of the judging criteria riding on creative and strategy, we knew we had to give ourselves the time to marinate in insights—one of the most sacred parts of our process, held with near-religious intensity.
Wednesday 9am. The Saveful brief hit our inboxes. First thoughts—these guys are super cool. Combatting food waste is something we both feel strongly about. We instantly aligned with Saveful’s mission, which always helps stoke the creative fire. We read it. Sat with it. Read it again, with coffee. Then once more, just to be sure. When we felt we understood the task at hand, and perhaps more importantly, understood what not to do, we began digging for insights around why Aussies may, or may not, use the ingredients they buy before they expire—a line of inquiry that came to be known affectionately as, ‘The DaVeggie Code’.
We thought a good place to start might be ourselves. It would be fair to say we are cooks on different ends of the culinary spectrum. To quote a line from our presentation to the Executive Film jury: “Loz, masterchef—meet Lew, disaster chef.” Having established this early on, we felt this uniquely positioned us with an interesting cross section of vastly different kitchen behaviours to pull from.
After some high-speed spitballing, we unearthed the realisation that despite our opposing levels of meal-prepping prowess, we both had ingredients lost to the back of our respective shelves. For whatever reason, they’d been used once, and never again. Loz has Ottolenghi, Bourdain and Samin Nosrat to thank for that—pomegranate glaze is great for a single recipe, but not something you’re reaching for every day. For Lew, cooking without a recipe is a bit of a foreign language, meaning that well-intentioned grocery runs end in defaulting to stir fries, and steak and salads. It dawned on us, these ingredients were bought for one moment of inspiration, then forgotten. Yearning for another chance—they were one-hit wonders. That line stuck. It made us both laugh. And then our eureka moment—why not write our own? The ingredients…they could sing it! And voila, our execution had started revealing itself, just as we hoped. The flame was lit.
We couldn’t sleep at all that night. At 5am Thursday, Lew decided to abandon hope of further z’s and hopped over to his midi-keyboard. One-hit wonder…what does that sound like? Not a jingle. Something sadder. Sweet. A little melodramatic maybe…in that 70s-ballad kind of way. Yeah, that’s interesting. Like a past lover pleading for one more chance. We wrote the lyrics and the chords. Closed all the windows and belted out the vocals at 6am. It was a little pitchy that early in the morning, but it felt painfully earnest—and that felt right for the idea. We wanted audiences to wonder why a bottle of dark soy sauce was pleading with them so deeply. By 11am, we came together for the finishing sprinkles and ‘Choose Me Again’ was recorded and produced. Finally, it was time to open the camera bag.
Casting the right ingredients was essential (and hilarious), as we scoured the shelves for the friendliest faces staring back at us, wanting each to have their own personality and charm. Some already had what we were looking for—a mournful king on longgrain rice or a wistful woman on refried beans—but a few needed a little extra character, so Loz designed some of the labels herself to bring them to life. Talent fees were exorbitant (we have Woolies and Harris Farm to thank for that).
From there, we darted around to the fridges, freezers and pantries of our nearest and dearest, wanting each interior to have its own aesthetic. It was a run ’n gun approach, but a good one. No overthinking. Just trusting the idea, and vowing never to say “we’ll fix it in post”. Every step, from the melody to the editing, was shaped by holding our insight as our true north, and constantly revisiting the question, “Is this right for the brief?”. By Sunday evening, we answered that question telepathically through a swift hit of the submit button. We think we speak on behalf of all uni students, creatives, and rental applicants when we say there is no feeling more haunting and equally exciting than those 5 seconds, post button-press.
Since being lucky enough to take home the national top spot, and with it an opportunity to have another crack in Cannes, we’ve been smiling like bloody fools. Grins unwipeable. Excitement unshakeable (our families are treating it like we’ve been called up for the Australian Olympic team). And yes, lucky is undoubtedly how we feel, too. But now, it all starts again. And so when mid-June rolls around and we’re boarding a plane to the south of France, our carry-on will be 7kg of camera gear, 3 outfits, and a whole heap of determination to do everyone proud. And we couldn’t feel more supported along the journey so far—from the ever-encouraging team in at Cocogun, through to our Executive Jury, the ACA, and Val Morgan putting their faith in us to give it another shot in France. We can’t wait to explore what Cannes has in store for us, and, with respect to our mate Sal, if a moment of luck comes our way, we’ll do everything we can, to be ready for it.
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