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No, you DO NOT have to rub your eyes in disbelief. You read it right. A PowerPoint or Keynote can actually help you launch your Hollywood career. It has been done before and with great success. In fact, we know of two celebrities that catapulted their way to the Tinseltown thanks to their presentation. Wanna know who they are?
The first is one of the biggest Hollywood stars at the moment. She is the darling of Peter Parker aka The Amazing Spiderman, the Oscar-nominated heroine of Birdman, the witty high-school student of Easy A and the eye candy of many a glossy magazine covers. Ya, we know you guessed the celebrity at the very first hint- Emma Stone. Turns out Emma is not just a Hollywood star but a PowerPoint star too!
Emma Stone’s Tryst With PowerPoint!
Hollywood Actress Emma Stone. Credit: commons.wikimedia.org
By the time Emma turned 7 years old, she knew she belonged to the Tinseltown. When she turned 14, she decided to make the big jump. It was must, however, to convince her parents for the same. So she turned to the most powerful persuasion tool before her: PowerPoint! In an interview, she shared:
"I made a PowerPoint presentation for my parents when I was 14. I asked them to let me move to LA.
"[It was] all about why I should be an actor. I never wanted to do anything else, from 7 on. It wasn't a flight of fancy." (Source: Whosay.com)
The trick worked. Do you know the title she gave to her PowerPoint presentation? “Project Hollywood 2004” it was. Absolutely professional! Parents were convinced, Emma dropped out of school, and moved to LA to audition for the big break. This is an unbelievable but true story. And this was not the first time she had delivered a presentation to her parents. Here’s what she shared in another interview:
Is it true you created a PowerPoint presentation for your parents to let you move to Los Angeles?
I put it together when I was 14 to convince my parents to let me move to L.A. It had worked out well because a couple of years before I had tried to convince my parents to homeschool me and I did a presentation with really old school boards. And so a couple of years later when Power Point came around I did it with that. It’s easy to do; you just drag clip art. The gist of it was, “just please let me move to L.A. to be an actress.” I had ‘Hollywood,’ a classic at the time by Madonna, as the soundtrack. There was no metaphor there; it was very literal. I really was a forward thinker. (Source: Moviefone.)
Here’s another proof that she really was a forward thinker:
“I make presentations because when I feel strongly about something, I cry. When I feel really passionate, I get overwhelmed, and it makes me cry. I learned early on to be more logical and make presentations."
Well, we are really happy for Emma. She is a wonderful, charming actress and now we know, a great presenter too!
I dunno it was taking cue from Emma or somebody else, Gen Y is fully exploiting PowerPoint to convince their loving parents. Read how Twitterati are going ga-ga over PowerPoint on the social media.
Let’s move on to the second celebrity, who is credited delivering one of the most powerful presentations in the world. Who is he? He has served as the 45th Vice-President of the United States of America and is also the proud winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is the subject of the Academy Award-winning and the most popular documentary on climate change ever: An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore, no guesses needed.
Al Gore: The Presenter who Ignited the Climate Change Movement
Al Gore delivering a Keynote address. Credit: en.wikipedia.org
How did a presentation launch Al Gore’s Hollywood career? Here’s how. On May 27, 2004 in New York City, after the premier of The Day After Tomorrow, Al Gore presented a 10-minute version of his climate change presentation at a global warming town hall meeting. Producer Laurie David luckily happened to be sitting in the audience. He was so inspired by Al Gore’s presentation that he decided to make a movie out of it. He quickly assembled a team to bring this idea to fruition which included producer Lawrence Bender.
Two years later in 2006, An Inconvenient Truth premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and opened in New York City and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006. The movie created a sensation. Not only did it receive critical acclaim but also became a box office hit, grossing $24 million in the U.S. and $26 million in the foreign box office. The documentary went on to win two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song.
The documentary shows clippings of Al Gore’s Keynote presentation. Later in an interview, Lawrence Bender credits Al Gore for inspiring this documentary, “Sure, 'An Inconvenient Truth' was my first documentary. What a wonderful experience. I saw Al Gore doing his slideshow presentation, and had this nutty idea that we had to make a movie out of it.”
What made Al Gore’s Presentation so Powerful:
Not only did Al Gore’s presentation had hard-hitting content backed by facts and years of research, but it was also a powerful visual spectacle like any top Hollywood movie. Visuals rather than text filled up the bulk of his slides. A combination of photos, diagrams, graphs, video clips accompanied with bare minimum text formed the basis of a powerful, engaging presentation that audiences were not used to seeing at all. Here’s a YouTube video showing Gore’s award-winning Keynote presentation by Duarte Design:
See the difference a presentation having brilliant content and design can do to your life. Do these celebrities inspire you to create an out of the world presentation the next time? A knockout, power-packed one like Al Gore’s or a cheeky, cute one like Emma Stone’s? Great, good luck with that. And whether or not it launches your Hollywood career, it surely will be a blockbuster hit with the audience!
If you have an unbelievable PowerPoint story too, do not keep it a secret. Share it with the world and with us by typing it down in the comments section below.
Need free resources to help out in designing your next presentation? Browse our collection of free PowerPoint templates, PowerPoint themes, free icons and maps to make an awesome presentation!
