Digital Domain‘s hybrid production company Mothership has secured Neil Huxley as creative director. An experienced designer, digital artist and director, Huxley will work across advertising, games marketing, films and all media at Mothership and Digital Domain. In addition to overseeing design execution for client projects, Huxley will direct commercials and productions for screens of all sizes under the Mothership banner.
Already at Mothership, Huxley has directed a 90-second fully CG trailer for Bethesda Softworks’ “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” videogame out of agency AKQA. Featuring fire-lit stone carvings of death and destruction, and a stone dragon coming to life, the trailer premiered during the Spike Video Game Awards.
Huxley boarded Mothership after a stint designing fantasy user interfaces, stereo 3D graphics and heads-up displays for James Cameron’s Avatar and for Zack Synder’s upcoming March release Sucker Punch. A London native, he moved to Australia in 2002 to join Digital Pictures Iloura as a designer before staking a claim in Los Angeles where, as an art director at yU+co, he worked on opening title sequences for director Snyder’s Watchmen and art directed more than 600 shots for Neveldine/Taylor’s Gamer.
In the commercials medium, Huxley has directed design, animation and live action for clients including Diet Coke, Pepsi, Honda, Spike TV, TNT, FOXTEL, Target, Ask.com, MTV Australia, Universal Pictures, FOX, Warner Bros., DreamWorks SKG, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Bravo, Ubisoft and Vivendi.
Ed Ulbrich, president of Mothership, cited Huxley’s multi-disciplinary experience and orientation. “He’s tapped into the worlds of design, production, cinematography and photography and can pull together teams that look at projects entirely differently and make them fresh,” said Ulbrich of Huxley. “He works with film directors on design treatments for movie pitches and with Mothership directors and CDs to design and develop core creative. As a director he brings all of that together and does amazing work.”
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