Director Shaun Conrad has signed with Santa Monica-based Snug Films, the year-old shop founded by director Michael Grasso and under the day-to-day aegis of executive producer Fran Wall.
Best known for his fashion/design work, Conrad had most recently been at Tate USA, Santa Monica. Prior to that, he was with Backyard, Venice, Calif.
Conrad gravitated toward Snug based on his belief that the shop was well positioned to help him garner work in two prime areas–one being fashion/design, the other narrative storytelling which is reflected in his new documentary, Purvis of Overtown. He cited the company’s sales force and the fact that the shop has a small, manageable roster, which should translate into his getting the personal attention needed to generate the proper work opportunities.
The Snug directorial lineup consists of Grasso, Conrad and the recently signed Andreas Grassl, an established European director who is making his first formal foray stateside.
Shot with friend David Raccuglia, the aforementioned Purvis of Overton chronicles the life and observations of Purvis Young, a self-taught painter and icon of African-American culture and history. “Yes, I want to do more narrative storytelling along with the fashion/design work,” related Conrad. “I’m drawn to two very different but highly focused areas of spotmaking.”
Conrad grew up in Minnesota, then moved to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois. He soon met up with Backyard co-founder Roy Skillicorn, who got him some local Chicago market spot jobs for hair salon Vidal Sassoon. With enough commercials under his belt, Conrad soon joined Backyard’s directorial roster. Conrad has only high praise for the production company, now headquartered in Venice. “I learned a lot about directing, just being at the same company as [directors] Rob Pritts and Kevin Smith was a positive experience for me” related Conrad.
Three years later, in 2002, Conrad left Backyard and headed for the West Coast, where he linked up with Tate USA. He worked consistently in the fashion/design arena but then made a conscious decision–and adopted a strategy–to diversify.
“I intentionally took myself out of the loop with Purvis Of Overton,” he explained. What Conrad found during the documentary was a love of narrative storytelling. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime project, so I disappeared from the commercial scene for awhile.”
He returned to commercials last year. Conrad’s spot credits over the years include work for such clients as Kraft, Burger King, Fruit Gushers, Pillsbury, Mervyn’s, Earthlink, K-Swiss and Reebok.
Snug Films is represented on the East Coast by Arthur Portnoy, in the Midwest by Maureen Butler, and on the West Coast by Rachel Finn and Mary Saxon of Finn/Saxon Represents. Snug is repped in Canada by Maxx Film and in Germany by Wunderfilm.
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