Saville Productions has inked a deal with visual effects and 3D director Alessandro Pacciani for exclusive spot representation in the U.S market.
Saville Productions has inked a deal with visual effects and 3D director Alessandro Pacciani for exclusive spot representation in the U.S market. This marks the first time he has been repped stateside in the ad arena. UTA reps Pacciani internationally for feature projects. He currently has no exclusive commercial production house affiliation internationally. Pacciani is known for seamlessly meshing live action performance and pure photorealistic CGI elements with a cinematic storytelling style. His work has been featured in commercials for international brands such as Audi, Subaru, Nike, Arena, Google, and Universal Music….Production company Mothership, a sister company to Digital Domain, has signed directing duo Alex & Steffen–the Stuttgart, Germany-based Alexander Kiesl and Steffen Hacker–for commercial work in the U.S. Alex & Steffen's visual effects-driven creative work has earned the pair a reputation for high-energy storytelling, rich filmic visuals, wit and humor. Alex & Steffen met while studying at the prestigious Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg's Institute of Animation and Visual Effects. For their final student project, they directed “Racing Beats,” a photo-real CG Xbox spec spot in which two sets of mad pilots play “chicken” as they race furiously around airport runways in huge commercial airliners. The directing duo was promptly snapped up by Toronto's Spy Films (which still represents them in Canada and other countries) and went on to direct and supervise visual effects on more than 30 spots for brands including WWF, Mazda, BOSCH, MTV, Honda and others under various representational banners. Alex & Steffen directed and VFX-supervised a high-profile campaign for Snickers via BBDO Moscow featuring robot fantasy-animals. Alex & Steffen were also featured in the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes in 2006. They recently completed a series of nine character-based spots via Saatchi & Saatchi for Vestel. Alex also owns Unexpected, a Stuttgart-based post facility that handles the postproduction for all their spots, shorts and features, where Alex is 3D lead artist and Steffen is lead compositor….
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