Director and choreographer Erin Murray has joined the talent roster at Los Angeles-based production studio FLORENCE. This is Murray’s first commercial representation in the U.S.
Murray hails from Lagrange, Georgia, growing up with a strong passion for ballet and with the initial goal of becoming a professional ballerina. As her artistic expression evolved, the extreme discipline that dance taught Murray at a young age shaped her approach to future career pursuits of choreography and direction. She incorporates her experience to great effect in her work, having developed her own unique visual language in her intuitive movement-driven projects.
Murray combines dance and filmmaking to create captivating pieces for artists including Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Charli XCX, and Muse. Her narrative short Hydra was named Booooooom TV’s Best Short Film of 2018. The experimental film is a dance narrative that offers commentary on identity, herd mentality, and indoctrination. The short has been selected for festivals and screenings around the world, including the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Dance Camera West, RAW Film Festival, San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Mexico City Video Dance Festival, Riff Festival Norway, and CAPITOL Dance and Cinema Festival.
Her “Phenom” music video for Thao & The Get Down Stay Down offers a striking commentary on our current reality blended with inventive visuals and choreography, earning Vimeo Staff Pick distinction. She directed her first commercial for Electrify America, a fast-charging electric car station brands in the U.S. Her work has been featured in multiple print and online outlets.
Alli Maxwell, executive producer at FLORENCE, said, “Erin’s work continues to span music, commercial, and narrative projects, always displaying a thoughtfulness and rhythm unique to someone with her dance background. Her work is human and always feels effortless.”
Murray regards her joining FLORENCE as a major step in her directorial career, citing the company’s “knowledge, logistically and creatively,” adding, “They understand my voice and they know how to leverage my specific skills within the industry, and to collaborate with the right people and brands.”
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