At press time, SHOOT got word that director Larry Williams had died. He had apparently collapsed while walking his dog near the family’s Pasadena home on Monday evening (5/31). Williams and his wife, Leslie Libman, co-directed commercials through bicoastal Coppos Films….Two antirunaway production bills offering tax incentives to producers who film in California have cleared another hurdle in the State Assembly. At press time, both proposed measures were passed out of the California Assembly’s Appropriations Committee. Earlier the legislation gained a go-ahead from the Assembly’s Tax & Revenue Committee. Stay tuned….Class-Key Chew-Po Commercials, Hollywood, has signed director Walter Santucci who’s perhaps best known in the independent animation community for his "Evil Cat" cartoons which have appeared in Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival, as well as Manga Entertainment’s General Chaos animation tour…..Executive producer Matt Grayson has exited Mad River Post/Santa Monica…. Burbank-headquartered, publicly traded Four Media Co. (4MC) has bought London-based postproduction facility TVI Limited from Carlton Communications Plc for $10.1 million in cash. The acquisition expands 4MC’s international reach. TVI’s capabilities include editing, film transfer, sound editing and mixing, and DVD and CD-ROM authoring. 4MC is parent to such shops as Riot and POP, Santa Monica, and Encore Hollywood….Morty’s Digitorial, New York, has been relaunched under the name Slingshot Edit and Post. The company partners are president/editor Morty Ashkinos, VP/editor Bruce Ashkinos and executive producer Steve Ashkinos. The creative staff is rounded out by editors Jim Rubino and Jeffrey Bair; along with online/effects editor Kim Flood….
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