Musical Chairs
Lee Wall of the indie rock band Luna has joined blast!music, a Los Angeles-based shop representing composers, songwriters and arrangers. Wall has composed spot music for such clients as MasterCard, ESPN, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and the acclaimed Sega “Beta 7” campaign–
Groove Addicts, West Los Angeles, has broadened the scope of its production music division with the addition of two libraries for distribution–one from Audio Network, the other that of the new contemporary label Liftmusic. Audio Network is a joint venture between Soundstorm, an Oscar-winning U.K. sound design house, and 100 leading British film and TV composers. The Audio Network collection has already proven its stateside appeal by inclusion in the SpongeBob Squarepants Movie.
Liftmusic, represented in the U.K. by Boost Music, consists of the work of 30-plus writers. Liftmusic includes offerings from the U.K. band Ox Blood, which has been likened by London’s Sunday Telegraph to rock icons Cold Play and Radiohead. Led by artists Jim Oxborrow and John Etkin-Bell, Ox Blood is an acoustic-based band.
Additionally, plans call for Groove Addicts to this spring launch a high-end composer scoring series designed for the trailer, film and TV markets, and exclusively available to specific campaigns. Entitled Full Tilt, these tracks will be released in 5.1 Surround, corresponding to a growing demand for HD-compatible formats–.
Wojahn Bros. Music, Santa Monica, teamed with Brooklyn-based JibJab Media on three animated trailers screened before every movie at the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. JibJab is the online animation studio best known for the 2004 election parodies This Land and Good to Be In D.C., which became part of pop culture after generating some 80 million hits on the Internet. The trio of Sundance trailers reflects the fest’s spirit of independence. Titled “Demolition,” “Line Painter” and “Catcher,” the trailers feature absurd characters tossing off the shackles of “The Man” and striking out on their own.
Each trailer is 30 to 40 seconds and features separate scores provided by the Wojahn Bros. “Demolition” has a “blaxploitation”-style ’70s funk track while “Line Painter” grooves to psychedelic-flavored pop and “Dog Catcher” moves to an alternative/folk jam. Common to each track is an independence-themed lyric.
The animated trailers aren’t the first time that Jibjab and Wojahn Bros. have worked together. Late last year, the Wojahn brothers, Roger and Scott, recorded the orchestral track for the Jib Jab’s animated holiday cartoon, Santa Claus, which premiered on Yahoo! Entertainment. The collaborations have teamed a pair of brothers–Roger and Scott Wojahn, and JibJab’s co-founders Gregg and Evan Spiridellis.
According to Roger Wojahn, the Sundance project took nearly two months to finish. JibJab showed the Wojahns the storyboards in November. The animation started out as rough pieces and was filled out as the music and sound design were developed. Vocals were added when the animations were complete. The trailers can now be seen online at JibJab.com.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More