Directing Duo Speck/Gordon, Saatchi & Saatchi Team On Anti-Proposition 8 Short Film
Earlier this week, election day (6/8) in California yielded a woefully low turnout–a far cry from November 2008 when the presidential election and a controversial ballot initiative had voters flocking to their polling places in the Golden State. The ballot initiative was California’s Proposition 8, which defined marriage as solely being between opposite-sex couples. Proposition 8 narrowly won, overturning a California Supreme Court ruling that same sex couples had the constitutional right to marry. Appeals were filed in state and federal court–the state appeal, heard by the California Supreme Court, upheld Proposition 8 but allowed existing same-sex marriages to stand. The federal lawsuits are pending.
But rather than wait for the next judicial shoe to drop, creatives from Saatchi & Saatchi New York, and the directing duo Speck/Gordon (Will Speck and Josh Gordon) of production house Furlined have teamed on Devin & Glenn, a short film which argues tongue-in-cheek that the boredom, complacency, petty bickering, and falling out of romance that plagues marriage shouldn’t be confined to heterosexual couples.
The short introduces us to the title characters, two gay men who fall in love. We see their initial meeting and attraction which escalates into passionate romance and eventually marriage. However, keeping the flames of love hot is a daunting proposition as Devin and Glenn–portrayed by Justin Long and Mike White, respectively–get a bit bored with one another, exhibiting the classic symptoms of a couple that gets too comfortable and complacent. Add in some meddling in-laws and married life clearly isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Among the slices of life shown are Devin getting in the mood for romance only to find Glenn dead asleep in bed with the TV on. We see Glenn ask Devin out to the gym, an invite which is taken as an insult with Devin interpreting it as implying that he’s gained weight and thus needs to work out. We even get to the point where Devin is secretly looking at Internet porn to satisfy himself since his love life leaves much to be desired–only to have Devin discover him in the act.
Finally our “old married couple” is seen loading groceries into their car when a pickup truck drives by in which two guys are full mouth kissing, obviously hot and heavy for one another. They’re exactly where our married folks once were in their relationship.
A voiceover then hits us with the pitch: “If you disagree with the homosexual lifestyle, support overturning Prop. 8 and make them get married–like the rest of us.” A super guides us to MakeHomosexualsMarry.org.
The lead creatives on the job have since exited Saatchi–chief creative officer/copywriter Gerry Graf who is reportedly launching his own venture, and creative director/writer Chris Beresford-Hill who has moved onto BBDO. Speck/Gordon were directors and writers on the job, with Tami Reiker serving as the DP.
Editor was Haines Hall of Spot Welders.
Music composers were Andrew Feltenstein and John Nau of Beacon Street Studios.
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