CANNES – This year, Time Warner, Inc. has brought together two of the most prominent personalities in TV to talk about creative inspiration in the Cannes Lions International Festival Creativity.
Award-winning news anchor Anderson Cooper and chef and host of CNN’s Parts Unknown Anthony Bourdain talked about why they do what they do and how they keep themselves inspired to a theatre that was filled to the brim.
Discussing the stark contrast in their storytelling process, Bourdain says that he isn’t a journalist but at best, an essayist, “I try to give an honest impression on what I felt for a place at a specific time.”
As a journalist, this is a privilege that Cooper doesn’t always have. “In news, you want to be more creative but there are a lot of limitations,” he shares. This, Cooper tells the audience, is the reason why he always carries a small camera of his own from when he was just starting out as a journalist and even until now that he is never without a crew or two. Shooting and weaving a story out of behind-the-scenes footage that won’t probably ever air on TV is one of the ways Cooper keeps his creativity in check.
Bourdain, meanwhile, had a pretty straightforward response to the question: how do you stay inspired? He candidly answers, “Never compromise. Don’t give a shit whether people like it or not.” According to the chef and host, he doesn’t like repeating things even though it has been proven to work. “I don’t care about staying on television if I have to do the same thing [over and over.]”
For someone who see bad things happen to people on a regular basis, Cooper says it’s one of the things that help him stay inspired and passionate about what he does, “I embrace it. It should change you. It should keep you up at night.” And being a journalist helps him do something about it. “It’s a privilege to be in a place where I can help people whose voices have been taken away from them by war or political situations.”
