Creative producer, Joanna Coles, who is maybe best known for her work as Cosmopolitan Magazine’s editor-in-chief, stopped by Stagwell’s Sports Beach Monday morning to discuss her latest projects and her obsession with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his fiance Lauren Sanchez.
Q: You’re a little bit of a media jack of all trades. What are you doing whilst you’re in Cannes and what sorts of conversations are you looking forward to having through the festival?
A: Immediately, I’m working on waking up from a really late dinner last night at Hotel du Cap, which was extraordinarily fun. The entire of Cannes is sort of a sport, isn’t it? When you can get through to the tip of it you deserve a medal.
Q: I do know. I believe I would like one other coffee after this. It’s quite early. I desired to ask you about a few of your current projects. I do know you’re doing production stuff. Tell me the way you got into that. I do know you might have a giant editorial background. What was your path?
A: I used to be a journalist for a very long time after which I used to be an editor for a very long time and now I’m more entrepreneurial. I’m buying up or optioning all varieties of material to show into quite a lot of TV shows, podcasts, and different varieties of media outlets depending on the fabric. I’m particularly frustrated by the writers’ strike in the meanwhile.
It’s hard to not be on the side of the writers but I even have an exquisite project with Amazon that I’m very enthusiastic about. It’s a giant psychological thriller. It’s starring Priyanka Chropa. After all, like everyone else at once we’re on this nightmare limbo period. We delivered the pilot script the day of the start of the writers’ strike but hopefully, it’ll get resolved and negotiations will resume and we’ll find a way to choose up where we left off.
Q: How did you get into this a part of editorial or production together with your magazine background?
A: Magazines are an exquisite vehicle for stories. When you’ve been a journalist all of your life like I even have–literally I began on the age of 10–you’re at all times scouring the land for stories you’re thinking that will speak to people. What’s essential is the story…an excellent story is an excellent story and it could possibly show up wherever–except as a tweet. Too short and perhaps not on the present Twitter.
Q: I do know you might be working on a book. What’s it about?
A: I’ve done a few books before. I’m actually working on a novel and I’m halfway through in the meanwhile, which is basically fun. I never did a novel before–I never had the chance to have the time before– and I do in the meanwhile. It’s a few group of friends. It’s set within the Bay area and it’s set in Recent York and it’s set in Kenya. I’m super excited. I’m halfway through and I told myself I even have to complete it by the tip of the yr.
Q: How much of it’s autobiographical?
A: Almost every thing that has happened in it has happened. I kind of molded all of it together and the characters are disguised nevertheless it’s such fun writing something where you may make it up. By the way in which, I’m hoping we’re going to see Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez walking behind us on the beach of their magnificent worked-out bodies. I believe I got a glimpse of them yesterday. I’m very much hoping they seem behind us.
Q: I hope we see the yacht and a helicopter touching down for us to go on there.
A: Exactly and I need her to be piloting obviously, and in the event that they do come behind us on the beach, I’m quite pleased for people to not hear what we’re saying.
Q: Let’s discuss your magazine background. The pandemic really crushed magazines. Do you see a white space developing? What do you’re thinking that is the long run for magazines?
A: I’m unsure the pandemic entirely crushed them. I believe Google and Facebook had a hand in it, too. To be fair, really the moving of just about every thing online and the arrival of the phone, which is a rare device for delivering content–very hard to not be on it more often than not. As much as I really like magazines– for me once I was growing up, they were real voyages of discovery– the phone is now that voyage of discovery.
What I miss is the anticipation of something arriving once per week or once a month, that will be this exciting trove of ideas but now the phone has taken over from that. So now magazines feel less vital and the cadence feels out of keeping with the very modern world that we live in. The thing I’ve noticed is that we don’t loosen up anymore. Every moment is taken up by the scrolling or listening to something. A magazine was once an exquisite solution to loosen up and to open your brain as much as recent ideas and that’s gone.
Q: What happened to women’s magazines? I’d expect in the ladies’s magazines to be exploding within the #MeToo era but many have gone out of print. Why is that?
A: Numerous them have gone online. I don’t think women aren’t talking to one another. They’re. They’ve just gone online and I’m actually working on a recent women’s brand in the meanwhile. I don’t have an excessive amount of to say about that but I’m enthusiastic about it.
