Director Norry Niven has joined Lucky 21, rounding out a talent roster that includes directors Robb Bindler, Chad Ostrom, Rob Pritts and Tom Ryan. Niven’s beauty and performance-driven work has received recognition from the AICP Show (Showtime’s “Funhouse” promo for the series Dexter), Promax BDA’s Best In Show (Sleeper Cell’s “Time Bomb”) and the regional Emmy Awards (work for ABC's Texas affiliate station).
Niven’s credits span such brands as Gatorade, McDonald’s, Ford, Lincoln, Showtime, Nintendo, Nestle and Visa. His celebrity fare includes work with Don Cheadle, Claire Danes, William H. Macy, Queen Latifah, Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Jon Voight. Niven has also directed athletes such as Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard and Cam Newton.
Lucky 21 EP/partner John Gilliland said Niven is “equally comfortable with celebrity talent as he is with effects, to deliver stylish spots at an epic scale.”
Starting his directing career at Hollywood-based The End, Niven then launched his own commercial production companies Stonecore Film in 1990 and Three (One) O in 2008.
“Running my own company was an invaluable and irreplaceable experience–because of it, my life is filled with rich relationships in this industry,” said Niven.
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