By KATHY DeSALVO
Fischer Edit, a Minneapolis-based editorial/ visual effects company, has added compositor Scott Skaja and creative editor Randy Kramer.
Skaja will operate the companys Smoke. He rounds out an effects department launched last May when Fischer Edit added Flame/visual effects artist Mark Youngren (SHOOT, 5/15/98, p. 51). The move reunites Skaja with Youngren; the two previously worked together at Tele-Edit, a Minneapolis-based post facility. During Skajas nine years as an online editor/compositor at Tele-Edit, he also frequently collaborated with Fischer Edit supervising editors Charley Schwartz, Tim Taylor and Brett Astor.
Among Skajas recent credits are a package of spots for Dominos Pizza via Campbell Mithun Esty, Minneapolis, and spots for Dayton-Hudson/Marshall Fields and Colemans camping gear, both via Martin/Williams Advertising, Minneapolis; Korbel champagne via Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis; and TCI Cable via McClain Finlon, Denver.
Kramer comes over from a three-year stint at The Assembly Line, the in-house edit facility at Minneapolis-based agency Fallon McElligott, where he worked with creative teams and account managers throughout the planning and production process, from pitching new business to acting as supervising editor.
Kramer, who helped pitch the Miller Lite Dick campaign for Fallon, also edited the BMW of North America spot Stop and Go, which was comprised of footage from 1997 MGM film Tomorrow Never Dies. The spot earned a Silver Clio last year in the automotive category.
At Fischer Edit, Kramer has edited spots for Best Buy out of in-house agency Yellow Tag Productions, and for Northwest Airlines via Carmichael Lynch.
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