By Robert Goldrich
A young man opens a door and enters an apartment building. A super sets the stage for us. It simply poses the question, “What if you could visit yourself in the future?”
The guy walks up a winding staircase and reaches his destination, an apartment–understandably with some trepidation. He takes a deep breath and knocks on the door, bracing himself for a glimpse of himself years from now.
The door swings open to reveal an ape man. Next come a series of quick cuts which reflect our young guy’s mind running wild, envisioning a planet-of-the-apes society. We see an ape at a news anchor desk, a gorilla president, and a military consisting of armies of monkeys. These are just some of the counter-evolutionary sights.
However this worst case scenario comes to an end when the ape at the door takes off his mask, revealing an older man. “Wow, it’s me,” he says upon seeing the young guy. “Hungry? Thirsty? Meet my friends.”
A series of supers put this slice of life into context, the first identifying the sponsor, “AMF Pension,” accompanied by the slogan, “More to live for.” The rest of the supers are more of a hard sales pitch, asking, “Have you picked the best pension fund?”; “We have the best results of all pension funds.”; “And we also have the lowest fees.” An end tag provides a Web site address for more info.
“The Planet” was directed by Jesper Ericstam through Social Club, a production house in Stockholm, Sweden, for agency Foresman & Bodenfors, Stockholm. (Ericstam is repped in the U.S. by Venice-based Backyard Prodcutions).
Producing for Social Club was Magnus Theorin, Production manager was Henrik Ludqvist. The DP was Carl Sundberg.
The agency team included copywriter Jacob Nelson, art driector Lotta Agerup, producer Magnus Kennhead, production manager Anna Chantre and project manager Leif Sorte.
Editor was freelancer Niclas von der Burg. Online editor was Johan Boije of STOPP, Stockholm. Colorist was Edward Negussie of Fireplace, Stockholm. Audio post mixer/sound designer was Martin Dahl of Housework, Stockholm. Music composer was Stockholm-based Tom Levin. Principal actors were Borje Ahlstedt and Claes Ahlstedt.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