MAY 12, 2000
Rick Wagonheim and Michael Miller, former mainstays at commercial production, feature visual effects, broadcast design, CGI and digital post shop R/Greenberg Associates, have been hired to head up New York-based Rhinoceros Visual Effects & Design as executive producers/partners….Director Graham Morris has signed for exclusive commercial representation with Duck Soup Studios, the Los Angeles-based animation house headed by executive producer Mark Medernach….Director Tony Diamond has come aboard No Prisoners, the Los Angeles-based commercial production house headed by president/executive producer Bruce Martin….Directors/designers Dan Yaccarino, Stacey Steers and Cathy Joritz, director Bill Kopp, and designers Aaron Augenblick and David Zweig have joined Denver-based animation/effects house, Celluloid Studios….
MAY 12, 1995
Director Willi Patterson, formerly of Willi Patterson Films (WPF), Los Angeles, has joined bicoastal GLG for exclusive presentation in commercials….Bicoastal production company BFCS has signed London-based directors Simon Delaney and Stuart and Andrew Douglas for exclusive representation in the U.S. spot market….New production house Avalon Images, Coral Gables, Fla., has signed director/cameraman Leo Kocking for exclusive U.S. representation….Principals/editors Steve Bodner and Ciro DeNettis have dissolved their 20-year-old company, The Editors Film & Video Services, to become staff editors at other New York houses. Bodner is now at Palestrini Postproduction; DeNettis went to Jeff Dell & Partners….Pacific Ocean Post (POP), Santa Monica, has added 3-D artist and animator Jennifer McKnew to the staff of its film division, POP Film….
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