Director Chris Wilcha has come aboard the roster of Park Pictures. Already at his new spotmaking roost, he has turned out jobs for Hyundai and Canon.
For the latter out of Dentsu America, Wilcha directed “Barcelona” in which a young couple embarks on a quest to re-create what had been a botched photo at the place where the woman’s parents first met. The commercial is the first in Canon’s “Your Second Shot” Project, which gives people the opportunity to re-do tragically missed photo ops.
Wilcha’s second Park-produced spot, Hyundai’s “Classroom,” is part of the car company’s “Hope on Wheels” campaign out of Innocean Worldwide. The subtle but intensely moving “Classroom” hauntingly employs an emptied-out classroom as a visual metaphor for children lost to cancer.
As a filmmaker, Wilcha is perhaps best known for ushering the hit storytelling show This American Life from Chicago Public Radio to television via Showtime.
“We’ve been huge fans of This American Life for a long time,” said Jackie Bisbee, partner/exec producer of Park Pictures, “and were amazed at how Chris translated people telling stories on the radio into visually innovative television without altering the soul of the original.”
Wilcha served as director and co-executive producer of This American Life, which earned two Emmys in 2008–one for Outstanding Nonfiction Series, the other for Outstanding Direction for a Nonfiction Series. Wilcha shared the directing honor with Adam Beckman for the “Escape” episode of This American Life. That same year This American Life also scored recognition at the International Documentary Association Awards.
Prior to Park Pictures, Wilcha was repped for spots by Chelsea. His body of work spans commercials, pilots, and shorts. His has earned a reputation for blending narrative filmmaking detail with the emotional realism of the documentary.
His first-person documentary, The Target Shoots First, which chronicled the director’s stint in the marketing department at mail-order record club Columbia House, garnered a shelf full of festival awards and aired on Cinemax and the Sundance Channel. His other documentary projects include The Social History of the Mosh Pit, Second Hand Stories, and I Pity the Fool. Wilcha recently moved from New York to Los Angeles where he is currently developing a project for producer-director Judd Apatow.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More