Bicoastal production house Valiant Pictures and branded content production company FreshFly have entered into a partnership for cross-promotional directorial representation. Valiant Pictures will utilize the FreshFly directorial roster for non-scripted branded content projects, while FreshFly will turn to the Valiant directorial roster with scripted commercial projects. The partnership allows both companies to remain independent while also offering further support to top brands and agencies with double the wide-spanning branded content offerings, for longstanding clients including PepsiCo, Labatt Blue Light, CarMax, Seagram’s Escapes, AstraZeneca, Breastcancer.org, and Vanguard. Valiant directors include the multi-award-winning Em Weinstein and Tiffany Frances, as well as co-founder Vincent Lin and the most recently signed director/DP Danny Corey, who helmed the viral CarMax “Call Your Shot” campaign starring Stephen Curry and Sue Bird. Among FreshFly’s roster directors are co-founder Sean Maher, who helped launch the shop in 2008, as well as Scott Whitham, Charles Morabito, and documentary filmmaker Glenn Holsten….
Carissa Clark has joined HARBOR as its director of sales on the West Coast for feature and episodic. Rochelle Brown also comes aboard to serve in the same capacity on the East Coast. A global company with operations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London, HARBOR is engaged in the moving image-making process spanning live-action, dailies, editorial, design, animation, visual effects, CG, sound and picture finishing. Clark is a seasoned postproduction expert with 10+ years of multidisciplinary experience. With a background in DI, production, and sales at Modern VideoFilm, Chainsaw (SIM) and EFILM, she has worked closely with a host of filmmakers such as Wes Anderson on Grand Budapest Hotel, Amy Poehler on Wine Country, Sam Esmail on Comet, and Emmanuel Lubezki on Knight of Cups. Brown joins HARBOR from her role as executive producer with The Mill Group, New York, where she played an integral part in the growth and development of the color department for both long and short-form projects. Her feature film credits include An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, Arizona, Waves, The Adventures of Wolf Boy, Uncut Gems, Zola and Let Him Go. She has supported major brands such as Nike and PlayStation. A successful 10-year tenure with Company 3 New York preceded her role with The Mill….
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