Director Mark Pellington and producer Tom Gorai of Los Angeles-based Pellington/Gorai have signed with bicoastal/international Propaganda Films for exclusive representation in spots and music videos. The deal also give Propaganda first-look rights to all Pellington/Gorai’s feature film, television and internet projects. In other Propaganda news, the company has committed to the Hollywood redevelopment push, signing a 10-year lease for a 30,000-square-foot office building in the heart of the city. The interior of the two-story building will be demolished, and a new space will be designed. The company’s four current Hollywood locations will be consolidated into the new site by early fall. The complex will include offices, production suites, editing bays and a state-of-the-art screening room. It will house Propaganda’s commercial, music video, talent management, television, film and new media divisions, in addition to Satellite’s spot and music video divisions…. Word is that director Richard D’Alessio is joining New York-headquartered Shooting Gallery Productions….Director Boris Damast has joined the directorial roster of bicoastal Celsius Films…..Feature filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Pecker) is making his spot debut via bicoastal The Industry: a more.com assignment for Citron Haligman Bedecarre, San Francisco….Denver animation studio Celluloid has added directors/designers Dan Yaccarino, Stacey Steers and Cathy Joritz, director Bill Kopp, and designers Aaron Augenblick and David Zweig….Stu Kuby has joined JSM, New York, as director of production….Bicoastal Johnson/Burnett Studios is opening a production office in Toronto this month. Tania Smunchilla, former VP, marketing/sales for The Post Group, Toronto, has been named to manage the new Johnson/Burnett, Toronto, operation….Bicoastal/international marketing communications company Pittard Sullivan has teamed with Goldman Productions, Cincinnati, to launch a joint venture audio company, RipTide Music. Richard Goldman, founder of Goldman Productions, will serve as CEO/president of RipTide Music, which has signed composer David Logan….
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