By BY CAROLYN GIARDINA
NEW YORK-The Canadian Consulate General, in collaboration with the New York City Economic Development Corp. (EDC) and the Quebec Government House, last week presented the CanApple Animation Forum, which was designed to showcase the talents of Canadian and New York-based companies with expertise in design, digital effects and animation. The forum was part of a full-day event, "Sheridan Animates Manhattan," organized by CanApple with Sheridan College, a top animation school based in Oakville, Ontario.
Organizers counted 270 total participants at the afternoon Forum, including 25 exhibiting companies, seven from New York and the remainder from Canada. "We were happy. All of the companies were pleased," said Canadian Consulate General representative Tony Raposo.
Prior to the event, show organizers said representatives from New York-based ad agencies were invited, but, as it turned out, there was no agency attendance, although exhibitors said they did make other valuable contacts. Several VH1 producers, for instance, made the rounds, and representatives from Canada and New York were also on hand to promote business incentives.
The day’s events included two presentations by Sheridan alums Steve "Spaz" Williams, who is repped as a commercial director by Complete Pandemonium, San Francisco; James Straus, animation director at Santa Barbara Studios, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Dennis Turner, animation supervisor at Industrial Light+Magic, and San Rafael, Calif.; Rick Sluiter of Walt Disney Feature Animation, Lake Buena Vista, Fla., who most recently served as art director on Mulan; and Bob Munroe, president/animation director of C.O.R.E. Digital, Toronto.
Their morning master class attracted roughly 400, and an evening showcase at the Museum of Television and Radio brought together 200. Presenters showed their work and shared their insights at both events.
The networking opportunity raised eyebrows in the New York community in recent weeks because EDC was co-sponsoring an event whose goals included generating business in Canada. EDC did not respond to repeated requests from SHOOT for an interview.
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