A woman stands on an escalator as a nearby elevator opens with its “up” arrow lit. Presumably she pushed the elevator button, decided not to wait and potentially caused an elevator full of people to have to stop on that floor.
Next we are inside a high-rise office building, looking out a window to see a lady’s feet dangling on the other side of the glass. This is followed by the sight of a body being dragged across the ground.
In later scenes, it’s revealed to us that a young school boy is pulling the dead weight of a live adult whose body is the one we saw initially. And it turns out that the woman outside the window is inexplicably on the back of a window washer.
Subsequent vignettes show another woman dragging a man along a city sidewalk. He’s horizontally laid out, reading a newspaper. We also catch a glimpse of a man who has a bicyclist–along with a bicycle–on his back in an elevator. Juxtaposed with this are people waiting to board a train.
A sign at the train station reads, “Every time we delay the train, the train ends up delaying us.”
We then witness a person trying to put a train token in a coin slot–while having to carry a fellow passenger.
A parting sign reads, “Don’t hold others back. Help our trains stay on time.”
This message urging passengers to be considerate of others was sponsored by Connex, operators of the rail transportation system in Australia. Mark Molloy directed the spot, which was produced by Aussie producton house Exit Films, Melbourne, for agency Cummins & Partners in Melbourne suburb St. Kilda. (Molloy is repped stateside by Santa Monica-based Furlined.)
Wilf Sweetland produced for Exit. The DP was Greig Fraser. Patrick Reardon was the production designer.
The agency ensemble included executive creative director Sean Cummins, creatives John Skaro and Roger Nance, copywriter Jonathon McMahon, art director Lisa Fedyszyn and head of broadcast production Mark Bradley.
Editor was freelancer Rohan Zerna. Jon Holmes of visual effects house Tide, Sydney, served as Flame artist and online editor.
Music was composed by Karl Richter of Level Two Music, Melbourne.
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