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    Inclusion

    By SHOOT StaffUpdated:No Comments1419 Views

    By Robert Goldrich

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    Now in its ninth year, The Art Directors Guild Awards competition has decided to recognize production design in commercials for the first time. The Guild, IATSE Local 800, has established a new awards category, which encompasses paid spots, PSAs and promotional commercials. To be eligible, a commercial must be 30 to 120 seconds in length and be designed and supervised by a production designer or art director.

    The new category is called Excellence in Production Design for Commercials. Entry deadline is Dec. 3, 2004, by 5 p.m. Entries must designate title, original airdate in 2004, time length, network or cable system, ad agency, production company and a narrative description of the stage and location sets.

    Announcement of the five nominees for commercials is scheduled to take place on January 13, ’05. The winner will be revealed and honored during a Feb. 12, ’05 ceremony at the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, Calif.

    The commercial recognition now goes rightfully alongside categories that recognize feature film, TV series, TV movies or miniseries, variety or awards show and music special or documentary. In a joint statement, awards committee co-chairs Dina Lipton and Robert A. Strohmaier Jr. related, "It is most fitting for the Art Directors Guild to include the artistry of production design of commercials into its existing awards structure. The efforts of production designers and art directors working in this have been too long overlooked and will now be recognized and acknowledged properly."

    Though not as high profile as when the Directors Guild of America (DGA) finally included recognition for commercial helmers in ’79, the establishment of a spot category in the Art Directors Guild Awards carries a positive parallel to that historic DGA step. The DGA Award for best commercial director of the year is arguably the most coveted honor among spotmakers.

    Similarly, IATSE’s Art Directors Guild, Local 800, hopes that its Art Directors Guild Awards will attain the same elite pedigree for spot production designers. Like the DGA Awards, the Art Directors Guild Awards competition is judged by entrants’ peers. Guild members serve as judges for both the nominations and the final winners across all categories.

    The Art Directors Guild Awards also present special awards of recognition. For example, William J. Creber, who production designed the Oscar-nominated Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, has been chosen to receive the Art Director Guild’s lifetime achievement award. He too is being honored at the ninth annual ceremony on Feb. 12. Creber has worked with such noted directors as Stanley Kramer, George Stevens and Robert Towne.

    Indeed, the inclusion of commercials in The Art Directors Guild Awards is welcome news to the ad community. And thankfully, there’s a mini-trend of spots gaining acceptance from artisan organizations. Last year, this column reported on the Costume Designers Guild, IATSE Local 892, starting a commercial category in its annual awards show. That marked the first time in its then five-year history that the Costume Designers Guild Awards formally acknowledged the artistry of commercials.

    Category:spot.com.mentary



    TikTok’s Fate Arrives At Supreme Court; Arguments Center On Free Speech and National Security

    Thursday, January 9, 2025

    In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.

    TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok's sale by its Chinese parent company.

    Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a "political resolution" and avoid deciding the case. It's unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect's views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.

    TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution's free speech guarantee.

    "Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people," lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.

    The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.

    The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that... Read More

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