Production designer Jeremy Reed topped the commercials category at The Art Directors Guild’s 2005 Production Design Awards ceremony held on Feb. 12 in Beverly Hills. Reed garnered the honor on the strength of Bud Light’s “Headless Horseman,” directed by Douglas Avery, who at the time was with bicoastal Villains, for agency DDB Chicago. (Avery has since joined Furlined, Santa Monica.)
While the Production Design Awards competition is in its 10th year, this marks the second year that spotwork has been recognized. IATSE’s Art Directors Guild, Local 800, first established a commercials category to recognize the best work of ’04.
This past weekend, the awards ceremony also honored production design achievements in features and TV programs. The two feature winners were John Myhre for Memoirs Of A Geisha, which topped the period or fantasy film category, and David J. Bomba for Walk The Line, which took the contemporary film category.
Joseph Bennett won for single-camera TV series on the strength of Rome-Episode 1. John Sabato topped multiple-camera TV series for Mad TV (episode 1106). Stuart Wurtzel copped the production design honor in TV movie or miniseries for Empire Falls. And Roy Christopher took the award show variety/music special/documentary category for the 77th annual Academy Awards telecast.
The Art Directors Guild also inducted five more legendary production designers into its Hall of Fame, bringing the number of inductees to an even dozen. The five new inductees are John Box, Hans Dreier, Cedric Gibbons, Jan Scott and Alexandra Trauner.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More