A belated happy holidays message comes in the form of this spec spot conceived, directed, edited and composited by John Budion of Click 3X, New York. “The Great Escape” opens with empty Coke bottles and cans strewn about the city suddenly moving on their own towards an unknown destination. Cans scurry along the sidewalk. A bottle floats in gutter water through the town.
The Coke containers are seen throughout New York, including in the subway and even Grand Central Station, with one bottle even getting off a train and going up an escalator to a rendezvous point we can only imagine. Finally we see the cans and bottles crawling up the side of a building and onto a tree above a bench on which is perched a sleeping transient who wakes up to find a full bottle of Coca-Cola alongside him, with a decorative bow attached.
He appreciates the refreshing gift as the camera pulls back to show theCoke aluminum cans and glass bottles strategically placed along the tree to spell out “Happy Holidays.”
Budion tapped into the production and post resources at Click 3X to produce the spec piece which was shot by DP John DeFeo.
Supreme Court Seems Likely To Uphold A Law That Could Force TikTok To Shut Down On Jan. 19
The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok's ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government's intelligence operations.
If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to "go dark" on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.
At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. "We might be in a different world again" after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a "political resolution." Francisco served as Trump's solicitor general in his first presidential term.
But it was not clear whether any justices would choose such a course. And only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration' in defense of the law a... Read More