Tim Godsall Directs Visa/Toronto International Film Festival Cinema Trailer/TV Spot
By Robert Goldrich
Being a hit man isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. There are new found financial responsibilities which were never covered in the Mario Puzo books.
Consider this cinema trailer/TV spot, “Mobster,” in which a young, gun-wielding hit man is putting the screws to a guy who presumably hasn’t paid his friendly loan shark.
“Three days. You get three days or you end up like Paco,” warns the mobster. A bloody Paco is lying dead, face down on the kitchen table, next to the guy being threatened by the hit man.
Additionally, the mobster has a baseball bat-carrying colleague who puts the lumber through a nearby TV set screen.
“Got it,” says the man at the receiving end of this intimidation. “But you didn’t have to smash the TV.”
“I was trying to make a point,” explains the bat man.
“Yeah, well you’re going to have to pay for that.”
The hit man chimes in angrily, “I don’t pay for nothing. It’s a movie. Nobody pays for anything in the movies. You smash things up and walk away. That’s the way it is.”
The supposed victim now takes the offensive. “What do you think happens– a little fairy comes in and cleans up your mess.”
Suddenly Paco wakes up from the dead, adding that the mobsters are going to have to buy him a new shirt since the one he’s wearing has blood all over it.
“This isn’t even your stuff,” says the gun-toting hit man. “It’s props and wardrobe.”
Exasperated, the hit man walks away, muttering the parting line, “I’m pissed.”
A supered message appears which reads, “If life were like the movies, you wouldn’t need Visa.”
Visa is then identified as the official credit card of the Toronto International Film Festival (the weeklong-plus fest had ended at press time.).
“Mobster” is one of two trailers/TV spots that promoted Visa’s sponsorship of the film festival. The other, “Sniper,” is similarly themed when a rooftop sniper successfully shoots and apparently kills a man in a building across the way. But just seconds later, the supposed victim is standing alongside the sniper, telling him that he will have to pay for the window shattered by the bullet, as well as new clothes since his are now blood stained.
Tim Godsall of untitled, Toronto, directed the two-spot package for Leo Burnett, Toronto. (Godsall is repped in the U.S. via Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles.) James Davis executive produced for untitled, with Tom Evelyn serving as producer. The DP was Tico Poulakakis.
The Burnett creative ensemble included chief creative officer/copywriter Judy John, creative group head/art director Israel Diaz and producer Karen Peterman.
Editor was Chris van Dyke of School Editing, Toronto. Online edit facility was AXYZ, Toronto. Colorist was Elaine Ford of Notch, Toronto. Audio post mixer was Mike Rowland of Wanted Post-Production, Toronto. Music was done by The Hive, Toronto.
Principal actors in “Mobster” were Wesley French, Tony Cianchino and Sevag Sagherian.
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