By Brian Diedrick
Never mind the box, agency 180/TBWA, San Francisco, has done some commendable "out of the body" thinking for its first collaboration with shoemaker adidas. Promoting adidas’ a3 line of cushioned sneakers, the :30 "Slugs" features a pair of a3s that jog around a city all by themselves-seemingly without the aid of a human body to "fill the shoes."
Directed and DP’d by Frank Budgen-who is handled in Europe by London-based Gorgeous Enterprises, and stateside by bicoastal Anonymous Content-"Slugs" opens on a busy city intersection. We hear a traffic cop’s whistle, as the camera cuts to a pair of a3 running shoes at the base of the sidewalk. As the crowd begins to move, so too do the shoes-of their own accord. Could it be the invisible man has decided to jog himself into shape? Shoot Online subscribers may read this week’s Top Spot of the Week in full by accessing the Current Issue in the Members Area.
CLIENT
adidas a3.
PRODUCTION CO.
Gorgeous Enterprises, London.
Frank Budgen, director/DP; Paul Rothwell, executive producer; Alicia Bernard, producer; Luis Ambriz,
art director. Shot on location in Mexico City.
Anonymous Content, bicoastal.
Shelly Townsend, executive producer.
AGENCY
180/TBWA, San Francisco.
Peter McHugh, executive creative director; Chuck McBride, executive creative director/creative director; Todd Grant, creative director/art director, Jennifer Golub, producer; Andrea Bustabade, assistant
producer.
EDITORIAL
Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles.
Angus Wall, editor; Laurence Thrush, assistant editor; Linda Carlson, executive producer, Corina Dennison, producer.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Company 3, Santa Monica.
Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist.
A52, Los Angeles.
Simon Brewster, creative director/ visual effects supervisor/Inferno artist; Denis Gauthier and Jeff Willlette, 3-D supervisors/animators; Tim Bird, Marguerite Cargill and Kristin Johnson, Inferno artists; Scott Johnson, Henry artist/online editor, Craig Halperin, 3-D animator; Darcy Leslie Parsons, executive producer/ on-set visual effects producer; Ron Cosentino, producer.
AUDIO POST
POP Sound, Santa Monica.
David Barnard, mixer; Phillip Hamilton, assistant mixer.
SOUND DESIGN
Mit Out Sound/M.O.S.,
Sausalito, Calif.
Ren Klyce and Luke Dunn Gielmuda, sound designers; Misa Kageyama, executive producer.
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