Director Brian Scott Weber has joined the roster of Rhythm + Hues Commercial Studios. He comes over from Los Angeles production house A Common Thread where his endeavors included a poignant Zerometh campaign for agency D Groupe in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “Effect,” a spot from that Zerometh package, gained inclusion a couple of years ago into SHOOT‘s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery.
Weber has also helmed high profile work over the years for such clients as Chrysler, Chevy, Discover Brokerage, Duracell, L.A. Fitness, Lee Jeans, the New York Knicks, Universal Studios and Verizon.
Among Weber’s recent credits is a vampire-infused commercial for Busch Gardens, showcasing his use of in-camera and photo-real visual effects. On the music video front, he has directed clips for such acts as The Spirits, and Dashboard Confessional.
Rhythm + Hues exec producer Paul Babb was drawn to Weber’s expertise in live action and effects, his adroit meshing of those disciplines, and a directorial storytelling prowess spanning spots, music videos and interactive fare. The Belgian-born, Brooklyn-raised, Columbia University educated (architecture) Weber has a special knack for visually cinematic, thematically subversive work that manages to be both dark and playful at the same time.
Prior to A Common Thread, Weber’s spot production company affiliations included Palomar, FM Rocks and Johns+Gorman Films.
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