Neal Mohan, chief product officer for YouTube, will headline the 2018 NAB Show Opening on Monday, April 9 at 9 a.m. in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Mohan will discuss the future of TV and entertainment and how the intersection of content, hardware and software is allowing media companies to reach more audiences in new ways.
The opening event will also feature NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith’s “State of the Broadcast Industry” address and the presentation of the NAB Distinguished Service Award to “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts. The event is sponsored by Blackmagic Design.
Mohan is responsible for YouTube products and user experience on all platforms and devices globally, including the company’s core mobile applications, technologies like Live and VR, subscription services YouTube Red and YouTube TV, and vertical experiences such as YouTube Kids, Music and Gaming. Products for media partners, content creators and musicians are also part of his portfolio.
Prior to his current role, Mohan served as senior VP of display and video ads at Google. He headed advertising efforts on YouTube, the Google Display Network, AdSense, AdMob, and the DoubleClick family of programmatic ad platform products. Additionally, he helped elevate the overall digital media industry by building innovative solutions for millions of Google’s advertising and media partners around the world.
At NAB Show, Google will showcase its media solutions via demonstrations at booth SU218 and will participate in more than 30 talks during the course of the show, both in conference sessions and presentations at the Google booth.
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More