SHOOT editor Robert Goldrich interviews director Alan Taylor, winner of the DGA Award for the Mad Men pilot and recipient of an Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series Emmy on the strength of the "Kennedy and Heidi" episode of The Sopranos. Taylor is also a Best Drama Series nominee for Game of Thrones for which he directed multiple episodes and served as a co-executive producer. His feature film directorial credits include Terminator: Genisys and Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, which went on to gross $645 million worldwide. Taylor has also successfully diversified into commercials and branded content via production company Bullitt.
In this Forum session, Taylor reflects on the path he took to a directorial career, shares backstories on Mad Men, The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, discusses how he extended his creative reach to feature films, commercials and branded content, and shares details on his latest project, Roadside Picnic, an original series for WGN America.
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