Danny Glover, a noted actor who made his directorial debut in 2002 with the Daytime Emmy-nominated children’s special Just A Dream, is back in the helmer’s chair with a short entitled Second Line. Glover also stars in the short, portraying a wealthy and frustrated businessman who is forced to walk to work after his car will not start. The man is too busy and self-consumed to notice the people and places he passes along the streets of San Francisco.
Several of those he has either ignored or failed to help join him in his walk to work. As he reaches the office building where he works, Glover realizes what he has missed during his commute. His facial expression changes and he suddenly becomes aware of his surroundings as he helps a homeless man in front of the building. The film ends as the businessman enters his office building, turns around and notices another “lost soul” speeding by–also to be accompanied by those she has failed to notice.
Second Line was written by Nicole Middleton and produced by Moving Parts, Inc. The film’s DP, Michael Chin, was nominated for an Emmyยฎ in Outstanding Cinematography for The American Experience, a series of documentaries on American history. Editor of Second Line was Steve Edwards. The film’s creators and artists were inspired by the collective spirit of street parades or “second lines,” a longstanding cultural tradition in New Orleans that celebrates family and community.
Second Line is the latest entry in The Responsibility Project, which was created by Liberty Mutual and ad agency Hill Holliday, Boston. The Responsibility Project uses entertainment content to create a forum for people to discuss personal acts of responsibility. Through short films, online content and television programming, The Responsibility Project is a catalyst for examining the decisions that confront people trying to “do the right thing.” Individuals can participate in online conversations about personal responsibility and also review film shorts, including Second Line, on the project’s online community found here.
The initiative sprung from a Liberty Mutual television commercial which debuted on air in 2006. Directed by Laurence Dunmore of RSA Films and conceived by a Hill Holliday creative team, the spot–titled “What Goes Around/Home”–showed people performing good deeds and how one gesture of kindness begets another and another before completing a circle which brings us back to the original good deed.
The centerpiece of a campaign built on the mantra, “Responsibility. What’s your policy?, the commercial struck a responsive chord with the public, so much so that Liberty Mutual and Hill Holliday knew they had something special. So they built on that pay-it-forward spirit by launching The Responsibility Project.
See the short Second Line below:
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 โ 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